Isle of Pines - please help me plan a perfect surprise day trip

Hello,

My partner and I are going on a P&O Cruise in July and we each have to plan a day as a surprise. My stop is the Isle of Pines and I wanted to do the outrigger canoe, then have a little while at La Piscine Naturelle and then lunch at Le Kou-gny. It is outlined in this post which is three years old, so I wanted some updated options.

Where can we hire the outrigger canoes from? Is it easy to navigate and will it take us close to La Piscine Naturelle?

Also, is it easy to then get to Le Kou-gny? I understand it's a 10km walks, which is fine, but I don't want to get lost.

We arrive around 9am and depart around 5pm, but I'm not sure what time exactly we get off the boat and what time we have to be back at the docking area. Is this doable in the time we have? Would we dock close to where we hire the outrigger canoes from?

Sorry for all the questions! It's so hard because I'm so used to just booking things online but I can't find anything to help me. I want to make this perfect, and I don't want to be stressing that we'll be late etc.

Any help would be much appreciated!

anyone?

Thanks

I don't know if this is the information you are looking for but hopefully it will be of help. The outrigger trip as I know it is the pirogue tour of Baie D'upi - we booked through our accommodation. The tour left from Baie St. Joseph at 8am - it is a sailing outrigger with a captain(don't know if you can rent one yourself). It took about an hour and a half to travel to the start of the trail(we had to pay the captain when we got off, he also only spoke French making communication difficult for us). The trail goes across a peninsula - took us about 40 minutes. When you get across the trail you wade through a small stream for awhile and then along another trail to get to the piscine naturalle, a great spot to swim/snorkel. You then head back along the trail/stream to reach the restaurant. We boarded a bus at 3 pm -left about 3:20 - for our return trip to our accommodation. , dropping off at other places as well. I got the impression most of the tours were run like this. You might try contacting one of the hotels to see if they can customize a tour for you.

Thanks so much for your help newfie43. You post make me think it's not possible but i'll keep trying to look into it.

Thanks again though!!

hi bethechange,

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think you'll be able to do the outrigger trip, as those are usually organised by accommodation providers on IdP and start as early as 8am/8:30am.

What you can do however is book a taxi that can pick you up at the ferry drop off point and take you for a little tour around IdP (it isn't big - we rented a car over there and did most of it in about 4 hours, it's this small) and then for a nice lobster lunch at the Kou-gny restaurant (part of Le Kou-gny camping site on Baie d'Oro, tel. (+687) 46 95 45) and then you could enjoy the rest of the day at the natural swimming pool, which is only 10min walk from the restaurant. You'll have to make sure you book your taxi to bring you back to the ferry as it is a good 10km up and down road... IdP isn't flat ;) You can also do it the other way round, swimming pools first then lunch and then visiting the rest of the island if you like... or just stay at the swimming pools all day... just check times for the tides (the walking passage between the pools and restaurant water can go up to above knee hight - it isn't as scary as it sounds and there are usually some other tourists walking the same way, so no problem).

Here are some taxi numbers: (not sure if English speaking)
Mana (+687) 75 00 88
Tranex (+687) 76 84 50

and car rentals:
Khon Moere (+687) 93 55 66
Edmond Location (+687) 76 69 96

and a minibus, 7 places with or without the driver:
Mulumulu (+687) 75 00 88

Hope this helps a little. Enjoy your trip!
:)

Thank you very much ragecat! I really apprciate your help. I'm hoping to see what P&O offers for the shore tours but otherwise I think i will definitely use what you have written. You have really helped me so much so I really appreciate it. I was feeling pretty stressed about organising it but you've made it seem a lot easier so thank you! =)

no problem bethechange.
hope all goes well and you and your partner will have a great time! :)