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Cruising: Cochin India, Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius?
I split up my question because there were so many ports, but same as the previous question. Have you been to any of these ports, and if so, what are the must sees? Is is possible to go on your own or are ship excursions necessary?
Re: Cruising: Cochin India, Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius?
Our wedding on Wilson Island!
Cochin
The big things in Cochin are the fishing nets and the kathakali dance shows. I'm not sure if there are any dance shows during the day, but if there are, I would definitely recommend it! I didn't visit Cochin on a cruise stop, but I was there for just a day. Unfortunately, it was my least favorite of the places we visited in Kerala.
If the ship offers an excursion to do a cruise on the backwaters farther south near Kumarakom or Alleppey/Alapuzha, do that instead! Seeing daily life along the backwaters is fantastic! And while it would be cooler to do an overnight on one of the houseboats, I think it would still be worth a daytrip if it's available. Otherwise visiting the tea plantations or a spice farm could also be more interesting than staying in Cochin. It just depends on how much time you have and what the ship is offering, because it can take a while to get around.
If you're interested, here are my photos from Cochin and from our cruise on the backwaters.
I haven't been to Maldives, so no comments there.
Mauritius
Our Indian Ocean cruise embarked in Mauritius, so we had a bit more time there. We did a daytrip to Ile aux Cerfs on our own, just hiring a taxi for the day who drove us across the island to a tour company that ran boats to the island. It was a fun day, but don't get your expectations too high, because their "paradise" claims were a bit exaggerated. It's a nice place to spend a day.
After we got back, we did a tour of the southern part of the islands. Some of the scenery was nice, and the seven-colored sands are kind of cool if you really don't have high expectations. Personally I would stick to coastal water activities over inland explorations if you have just the one port day.
I really wanted to do some snorkeling, but it didn't fit into our schedule. I've heard great things about Blue Bay, and we stopped just to watch the sunset on our way to the airport, and the water is astonishingly clear! I think snorkeling at the marine park would have been great, and I'm sorry we missed it! Unfortunately, Blue Bay is rather far from Port Louis, but you could still hire a taxi to take you over for the day. Otherwise, I think there are some snorkeling areas on the west and/or north sides of the islands.
Photos from Mauritius. The first photos are from Ile aux Cerfs (it was raining that day), and the rest, starting with the Hindu temple are from our trip to southern part of the island.
It's easy to hire a taxi to take you around Mauritius, but you should walk out of the port area at Port Louis to get a better deal, because they don't need to pay the extra fees to enter the port area. It's a bit of a walk but worth it because there was a line of taxis all competing for business.
Seychelles
Our port call in Seychelles got cut short a bit because of a pirate attack off the coast while we were in transit. We still had an overnight, so we caught the high-speed ferry to Praslin and then on to La Digue. La Digue was absolutely beautiful!!! Oh my! I loved it. I would go back in a heartbeat. We spent the night on Praslin, so we were only on La Digue for a day, and we didn't get to see a lot of Praslin.
Based on our arrival time, we ended up with a few hours on Mahe before our ferry to Praslin, so we caught a local bus over to Beau Vallon beach, which was already miles better than Ile aux Cerfs! The beach was wide and long with powdery soft sand and beautiful hilly scenery looking back a the island. And the bus ride over was incredibly inexpensive!
We did a little snorkeling on La Digue, but we didn't have time to make it out to any of the marine parks, which is disappointing since Seychelles is renowned for some of the world's best diving. (It wasn't a huge priority for us because we had snorkeling plans in Madagascar a few days later, but the Indian Ocean aquatic life is definitely worth seeing!)
The first few photos of Seychelles are at Beau Vallon on Mahe, and the rest are mostly La Digue.
Seychelles didn't really have a lot of tour operators targeting cruise passengers, but I wasn't really looking since we already had a plan to overnight off the ship. I was able to get the Cat Cocos ferry schedule in advance (either online or by email), and we just walked into town and bought our tickets. The tourist office is also in the city center, and they helped us out finding the local bus over to Beau Vallon. If you're docking at Mahe and only have the day, you might be better off booking a ship's excursion if you want to visit Praslin or La Digue, because the ferry doesn't run all that often, and it's a bit of a walk from the ship into town and then out to the ferry terminal.
Agreed on both points.
Our private boat tour went to Blue Bay and the snorkeling was very nice. It was a little crowded when we were there, but we got to see an array of gorgeous fish. Ile aux cerfs was definitely not what we expected. I really pictured it to be a nice quiet island where I could enjoy a secluded walk on the beach. HA! It was nice to sit and have lunch, though.
Our wedding on Wilson Island!