Snorkel/Swim with the Turtles Experience

It was amazing hida was very professional and so helpful, she was always willing to help and made my whole experience phenomenal.

We had an absolutely perfect day on this trip! Our host was fantastic—knowledgeable, experienced, and so much fun to spend the day with. We loved seeing the turtles and exploring the island. Every stop was well planned and enjoyable. Highly recommend this experience!

We had a wonderful day on the island. Hida welcomed us with a self-baked Christmas Cake :-) While showing us the island, she told us a lot about the history, the people and nice places to visit. We went snorkling and visited the market and the Bahamian destillery. Thank you, Hida!

Our guide Hida is perfect and very friendly , as she is Bahamian, she knows all the wonderful places on the island. We were able to go back to snorkeling alone after the guided tour , and it was wonderful to swim with the turtles alone with my son .

Hida was warm, personable, educated, and provided lots of information. She was easy to spend the day with, and the snorkeling was great!

The tour in itself is not bad. However for the price you pay it’s not nearly worth it. The tour consists of driving around with Hida to the more less touristy parts of the island. You will be picked up and driven to the snorkeling spot which in itself costs $25 a person to rent the gear. I would recommend just taking one of the tour bosses to this spot if the snorkeling is all you’re interested in. Snorkeling was fun but does not require hida to be the one to take you there. After snorkeling she will take you to some breweries so if you are not a drinker I would really not recommend this tour. Throughout the tour she will give you some basic facts about the island and that’s kinda about it in terms of learning anything. She will take you to local vendors and essentially try to sell you their business and makes it a strong point that you should buy their stuff which I didn’t appreciate very much since the tour costs $250 per person already. Lunch is also not provided which for the price is ridiculous. There are far better ways to spend your money on this island and I would recommend a different excursion. At the very most I would say this excursion is worth about $100 per person and anything over that feels like robbery. It was not a bad experience but for the price you are not getting what you should get. We were combined with another group in a small car and had to fit 6 people in it. In total with tips she made around $1700 from our trip and all she had to pay for was gas and the snorkel gear which costs $25 per person. I recommend you do another excursion instead as doing this one was my only regret of my trip due to the cost.

Hida was an absolutely wonderful tour guide and helped us experience Grand Bahama Island from a local’s perspective. Due to some unexpected inclement weather, our original plans for the day wound up off the table. Rather than calling things off, Hida worked with us to build a new itinerary that I wouldn’t have traded even for our original plans. We toured a local fruit farm and tasted the family’s crops, we found a gorgeous beach that required us to off-road through a forest, we toured a rum distillery, and so much more. Any time a member of our group had a question, Hida not only knew the answer, but could make two phone calls and take us someplace we hadn’t even thought of going. Hida’s flexibility and creativity turned what could have been a lost day due to the weather into the most memorable day of our vacation. When we got back to the cruise ship, people were complaining left and right about how ripped off they felt by the cruise line’s shore excursions underdelivering because of the weather. We made the right choice booking with Hida and you should, too.

Hida scheduled our snorkel excursion with a great guide and exciting experience. She gave us an interesting commentary on the the island as we drove from our hotel to the seaside snorkeling area. Hila is a very personable and helpful guide.

I booked the turtle snorkel experience. Hida picked me up in the morning, and she was very friendly and knowledgeable and told us all about the island and all of the major landmarks. She tailored the day based on the preferences of the group. We went snorkeling at the gorgeous Paradise Cove and were lucky enough to see so many sea turtles! After that, we went swimming with pigs, which was also a fun and very memorable experience. Then we went to the market and walked around while we did some shopping, and we ended the tour at the beautiful Banana Bay. What a perfect day! So happy I chose this tour. Hida was lovely and I plan on staying in touch with her!

I can not sing enough phrases for Hida! She totally customizes the trip to what you want to do and has connections actually everywhere. Our trip started with a nice car ride along various spots of interest, with her detailing each building and sharing with us her vast knowledge of the island. First stop was Pinders Point lighthouse, then a quick stop at a small bakery where we bought delicious carrot cake and coconut tarts. Then we ventured on to swim with the pigs, which Hida was so gracious to include in our excursion, as our original swim with the pigs event the day before had been weather cancelled. After a great experience swimming with and feeding pigs and holding piglets, we ventured over to Paradise Cove for snorkeling. After a quick demo we jumped in the water and snorkeled around the reef balls. Hida could see we were struggling a bit with getting the technique down, so she sent an amazing guide, Ryan, out to help us. He gave us all the tips and accelerated our experience to a maximum level. We saw 6-7 sea turtles, sting rays, barracudas, some many types of coral and so many variations of coral. Seriously the most amazing experience!! We grabbed some cracked conch there and then as we aren’t big drinkers we decided to pass on the Brewery and Distillery option and instead she showed us the most beautiful beach that had the most scenic sandbar nestled between ocean shades or aquamarine, turquoise and navy blue. We enjoyed Wacky Banana drinks (avl in alcoholic and virgin options) and then rounded out the day with some conch fritters to go from the open air market and a drive down “millionaires row”. Hida left us with a few other suggestions for our remaining days in the island, gave us some ice cold water and bid farewell. She even called the next day with more recommendations for our stay. A+ experience and our favorite day on the island!