How to Plan a Mermaid or Shark Excursion at Maho Bay, St. John

Before our 2nd cruise, I joined the Disney Cruise Facebook page (for our specific cruise dates).  Yes, they have Facebook pages that you can join to “meet” families that will be on your cruise.

Several months before the cruise, the families on the board started chatting about excursions and I was a bit hesitant since we had never done any excursions with our kids and I didn’t know if we were going to like them or want to spend more money than we were already spending on the cruise.  

I decided to book one excursion for the trip, figuring it wouldn’t cost too much and it would be a great way to “try out” excursions.  I really wanted to find something that didn’t feel like we were in a herd of cattle, and something safe for my young kiddos.

I did A TON of research on excursion options and decided that our St. Thomas/St. John port would be the best place to book something.  After doing several searches and reading online reviews, I found an excursion called “Mermaid Swim VI”. My daughter, Lucy was totally into mermaids at the time and even had a mermaid tail at home so I thought it might be fun.  

The reviews were outstanding too! Crystal was the owner of Mermaid Swim VI at the time, and I contacted her about the excursion. She got back to me immediately and was very easy to communicate with. For the Mermaid excursion, you basically go to a GORGEOUS beach in a national park called Maho Bay, practice “mermaid tail swimming” or “shark fin swimming” and get a bunch of professional pictures taken. (You get digital files of ALL of your pictures too!)

 I am NOT exaggerating when I say this is a GORGEOUS BEACH.  I have seen some nice beaches in my life but MAHO BAY is AT THE TOP.  It is the perfect spot for kids to swim because it is so crystal clear and calm.  You can also snorkel in this area (you must bring your own gear for this and there aren’t any rentals). Since it is a national park, there are NO restaurants, snack areas, souvenir shops, chairs, etc… (there IS a bathroom)

The cost of the excursion is $150 per child (participating).  I saw on the website they also had a “Mermaid Birthday Party” option, so I thought if we had more kids interested, we could book it as a group excursion.  I connected with the Facebook Disney Cruise board and found enough families interested to book it as a party which made the total $50 per child.  What a bargain for an amazing excursion.  

I got the names of each family and their kiddos’ ages, contact information, type of mermaid tail or shark fin each child wanted and sizes, and put it in a document.

 Then I emailed these instructions to each family.

• Get off ship at 7:45am
• When you get off the ship, follow these directions

(when you get off the boat there are a couple of different gates through the chain link fence as you are coming off the boat if you turn right there is a bar and the taxi parking area right as you exit the gate there is a path marked that you can follow to the shopping area…as you follow that path for about a block there is a area you come to that is where all the cabs are right before you would bear left to go to the shopping area. If you go to the left and exit the gate that is a bit to the left you can also head to the shopping area…right before you get to the shops there is one of those St Thomas frame signs where you can stand in it and get your picture taken)

• Look for the Mermaid VI Excursion sign that my lovely children made.
• We will take a taxi to Red Hook.
• Take the ferry to Cruz Bay (Adults are $12 round trip and kids under 12 are $1)- we need to make the 9am ferry!
• Take a safari ride to Maho Bay (estimate $5 per person)

Since we were traveling in a “caravan” of families, there wasn’t time to stop for snacks and other things.  Most of us brought snacks and drinks in our bags.

Overall, I would say it is a bit of a haul to get there, BUT SO WORTH IT!  When we got there, the kids met Crystal (whom BTW was fantastic with kids), got their tails and practiced swimming, and played in the sand.  There were beautiful rocks near the beach too. It was a relaxing excursion and very memorable for everyone.  Not to mention, all the families were so much fun and we are still in contact with each other!

After the excursion, we all headed back to Cruz Bay, and had lunch at “Joe’s Rum Hut”, which had great food (service was a little slow due to our large party), but great outdoor seating on the beach!  We were enjoying each other’s company so much that we almost missed our ferry ride back to the port!