Full Day Tour to 4 Rosario Islands with snorkeling and plankton in Cartagena

Very good tour and attention of the guides. Spectacular beaches and activities were what we expected

A tour aimed primarily at local tourists - the poor English description should have been a warning. The listed features have been largely met, but snorkeling without snorkeling is not snorkeling for me. From the approximately 90-minute round trip in rickety buses via e.g. T. very bad roads was not mentioned in the description. All the information on site was given in Spanish; since we were the only non-native speakers, no one else was bothered. The points approached were always quite crowded, but even with that the locals had less of a problem than we did. The concluding swim in the bright plankton, which we waited several hours for after lunch (even this "idling" was not clear to us before), was checked off very quickly - after 10 minutes we should already return to the boat. Compared to other tours we did in Colombia, this one was rather disappointing overall, but we were obviously not the right target group either.

Out of the four islands I really enjoyed the 'Fun Island'. Luis our tour guide was great and so much fun!!

TLDR: spend a bit more and go on a Catamaran or private tour This is an outline of the trip: We were picked up at 7.30 am by a lovely man (he didn't join as a guide) and got on the bus to pick up other people. We made stops along the way where street vendors came on the bus to sell various things. We were given breakfast along the way, no vegetarian option available. 9.45am approximately we started off for the beach. At 10.45am we arrived and all got into a boat and the boat was filled to the maximum. And went for about 30 mins to the first stop of snorkeling or paying 40.000 cop for a dolphin interaction. We snorkelled in some choppy water where most of the coral has died due to people kicking it. We saw some beautiful fish. The guide fed the fish so we could see them next to us. We jumped back into the boat and headed to an island. My clothes were knocked off my seat into the bottom where it was wet. We then went to Isla Cholon where we had a table in the water and saw floss floating around and was super crowded and loud. I will quote one of the other tourists to sum this up 'I just paid $30 for a UTI'. We went to the next island for a fruit tasting. We were sat in plastic chairs on the beach where we swarmed with different vendors who constantly came to sell things. The fruit tasting was two large trays of fruit needing to be shared amongst 24 people which was not the most hygienic or easy to do. Next we went back to the beach where we had lunch around 2.30pm/3pm. The lunch was tasty. The bathroom there did not flush nor had toilet paper. My friend saw the kitchen and I did not want to hear about the state of it. At the beach every 10 mins someone would approach you to sell something. We stayed there until 6pm and got given a snack, no vegetarian option available either. Then went to swim in the bioluminescence which was enjoyable. We then head back to Cartagena at 7 30/7.45 and arrived at 9pm. The main guide could speak English however would only do the briefings in spanish, and not bother to translate eventhough half of the tour were English speakers. At the end of the day about 3 guides were left who only spoke Spanish but were friendly enough. This is not a trip for rest and viewing pristine islands. There is constant music and it is very crowded. We were disappointed by the amount of rubbish around the beaches and constantly being approached by vendors. I would recommend going on a Catamaran or private tour instead and spending a bit more. We considered leaving after a few hours and asking for a boat and taxi to take us home as we were not enjoying this at all. If you do choose to do this tour pack a dry bag for all your belongings and sit an the very back or very front of the boat as everyone will climb over your belongings wet.

So we booked an English tour and ended up with a guide that didn’t speak English until after we got to the boats and combined with another group. The English guide translated most of it but we definitely had to ask for clarification multiple times and we booked plankton just for no one present to speak English, also we didn’t get life jackets even tho we asked multiple times in an overpacked boat. For the most part it was ok the food was good and we enjoyed snorkeling just wasn’t really worth the headache

The tour guides are very helpful and the tour is quite complete. There’s enough time to spend in each of the stops. Rather than going to cholon i would like to have spent some more time snorkling or in Agua azul.

It was an almost private tour with family and friends. The color of the water is: amazing, stunning, amazing, definitely are paradise beaches. They are very beautiful, clean and well maintained beaches. The snorkeling was the most interesting thing on the tour. Our guide Angelica was patient, polite, kind, gentle, always explaining the whole route since we got into the vans and then by boat to live one of the most wonderful experiences in the islands of the Rosary. On each beach we take about 50 minutes almost an hour and it is worth every stay at every stop. As for the food my family and friends ordered different dishes and we have no complaints everything was very rich. Angelica helped us with the change of dollars to conversion to Colombian pesos to pay for things we bought at the different stops on the way of the tour thanks to that. As for Germán before buying the tour he gave us very good recommendations, he was sincere and polite. As for the photos we took the Gr Tours company were fantastic. In the boat we were just my family, friends, Germán a native and Angelica and that we loved very much for being a group, the attention was personalized. In my personal opinion the most beautiful beaches are Agua Azul and Playa Tranquila you really surprise The agency complied with everything provided. I will always recommend them for this experience. Thanks for everything, guys. Congratulations German and Angelica.

The islands were beautiful. Tour was however unstructured and a bit of a mess. We spent most time in the bus or on a boat. Very little time at the islands. We wanted an English speaking guide. We had a guide who spoke English but chose to write a translated messaged to us instead which is really only half an experience. You can tell Spanish speaking we're getting a lot more information. When we got to each place nothing was translated to us at all so we had no clue what was happening. It just ruins the experience really. There was one guest who spoke some English who helped now and again but this shouldn't be the case. I think 4 hours on playa blanca at the end was far too long. We started to want to go before plankton (as did a few others) and they say unless we pay more transport we had to do plankton which isn't nice really. It wasn't well communicated that if you don't want do plankton leave at 3pm. Especially if you spoke any language but Spanish. Plankton was an absolute nightmare. A lot of people in life jackets that could not swim, grabbing you and floating away (boat staff or guide didn't help so we found we had to). It was really chaos and even with a life jacket there should be a level of swimming skill, just to ensure you can atleast kick in one place . We paid around £20 for photography which the experience again was poor. I recommend only booking if you are Spanish. If you speak any other language they do not accommodate you. We had to shout them and assert how poor the service was to actually get any photos. They spent so much time with one family, I mean about 25 minutes of a 40 minute stop. We had minimal taken. Not impressed. Guide was nice but not accommodating. We are now staying on playa blanca and tours to the island are offered for half the price than this. 80,000COP pp. I'd advise doing a tour from the island as I have no idea what we spent £65 pp on for this. Plankton is also offered for even less.