Virgin Gorda and The Baths

I booked Virgin Gorda and The Baths through Norwegian. They had 9am and 11am tour options.

I picked 9am because I read the baths can get crowded with more than one ship in port.

At the time I booked the excursion, we were the only ship scheduled to be in port until 10am when the MSC ship gets in. That way I would have a 1-2 hour head start on anyone from that ship.

The tour was $129. The $50 shore excursion discount brought it down to $79. Then my Latitudes discount brought it down to $71.10.

I should’ve got in line earlier. I was the first one there. I walked around for 10 minutes and when I returned, I was about the 100th person in line. I wanted an upper deck seat but they were all full by the time I got onboard.

I took a seat at the front of the boat.

This is a very sophisticated wristband design they have here. Nobody will be able to copy it.

We’re pulling out at 9:12. As you can see the 10am MSC ship is already docked. There is also a Virgin Voyages ship in port so the baths will be extremely crowded today.

Make that four ships in port today. There’s also a Marella ship tendering people. 

We are approaching Virgin Gorda.

And we’re here. The bad thing about getting in the front of the boat is I’m going to be the last off person of the boat.

They loaded us up in these safari trucks.

Our boat is heading back out.

A chicken family

This looks like a school.

And we’re here.

The steel drum player stopped while our guide gave us our instructions.

First we are walking down to a beach.  We’re supposed to have 30 minutes at the beach. Then we’ll do the baths. Then we’re at another beach until 12:45. Then we meet back at the bus at 1pm.

We’re going left to the beach. Then we’ll backtrack to this point and go to the baths.

I stashed my bag under the rocks while I got in the water.

I spent about 20 minutes in the water, then got out to make sure I don’t miss our bath time.

I found a shady place to sit and wait for our time at the baths. 

A lot of people took pictures on that rock.

This is when the tour starts to go off the rails. It got past 30 minutes and I heard our guide was asked to wait since the line was long. So we stayed at the beach for another 15 minutes. 

Now we’re in line for the baths but it isn’t moving at all.

We waited in line 20 minutes without moving. Some people were turning back here.

At this point our guide calls an audible. He says we’re going all the way around. So now we’re walking back the way we came.

And we’re back at the entrance. It was about a 20 minute walk uphill.

Now we’re entering the baths from the side people are leaving from. This path isn’t made for two way traffic.

This is the beach we’re supposed to go to after the baths.

This is the baths exit.

Our guide is in yellow. That’s the guide working the exit in green telling him we can’t go in that way.

Our guide won. The guide in green said he has never seen this before. “He’s breaking all the rules.”

There are a couple of big photo spots here that our guide wanted to make sure we got to. “The Cathedral” is one of them.

The other photo op is standing on this rock.

To get up here going the wrong way we had to climb up this rock on the side with no rope. Going down we got to use the rope.

At first I wasn’t happy about not getting to do the entire thing. But I asked someone coming out what we missed and they said it was just two minutes of walking through water. We got to skip the line and see the highlights so I was happy with that.

After that we had more beach time. 

I only stayed in for a couple of minutes. This water is extremely rocky. The first one was sandy.

Just uphill from the beach are lockers and bathrooms. 

I changed clothes in the bathroom and washed off my water shoes outside.

Another chicken family.

They sell shirts here as well.

We are heading back to the bus.

They had free rum punch for us before getting back on our bus.

On the bus ride back I met a couple who said they waited an hour and were rushed through so fast they couldn’t take pictures. For the those of us who stuck around, our guide was taking all the pictures everyone wanted. He was still taking them after I left.

The top was full again. I took my front row seat down below.

On the way back I sat next to a couple who left when we were trying to go in backwards. They went to the beach and missed out on what they came here for. I’m glad I stuck around. 

I brought Brita water which I’m drinking on the way back.

I’m glad I did the tour. Your level of enjoyment may depend on how crowded it gets that day and who your tour guide is. I would check to see how many ships are going to be in port that day before you book. I was expecting two ships but we ended up with four ships.