Published on Dec, 2024
Booked this for myself and my wife through the cruise company as an excursion. There were mixed reviews on the cruise website but we thought we would try it out.
We met on the dock around 9:30 and walked over to another smaller boat. The ride to Pearl Island is around 30 minutes. Upon arrival at the island a gentleman with a cabana sign was waiting just for us. He walked with us over to the cabanas and we had our choice of 2.
He immediately brought over 2 bottles of water and showed us the drink menu. Soda, beer, and some mixed drinks are free and some others have a cost. The cabanas were a little slow but our server only had to take care of 2 cabanas. You just flag him down when you want another drink or to order lunch and he brings everything to you in the cabana or on the beach.
Lunch was beans/rice, bbq chicken drum, a few pieces of local fried whitefish, and some delicious mixed veggies. There were also 2 bags of potato chips in the cabana when we arrived. The food is fine just realize this isn’t a 5 star restaurant.
We were very happy with everything and the service did not disappoint.
If you plan on spending most of your time at the beach, or aren’t interested in the alcohol you can probably downgrade to a beach escape package and skip the cabana. Either package has access to the entire island and there are plenty of places to relax in the shade without a cabana.
We boarded the boat back to the cruise port at 1:30 and arrived around 2. Our cruise boarded at 4 so we still had plenty of time to do some local shopping. Actual time on Pearl Island was 3.5 hours and I did see complaints that it was advertised as a 5 hour excursion. We were happy with the time allotted.
We would visit Pearl Island again.
