Fathom Day 6

Although there were Impact Activities and traditional excursions offered by Fathom on our last half-day in port we opted to go to the famed cable car ride to the top of Isabel del Torres Mountain. We secured a taxi from the port, at the standard $60 roundtrip rate, which includes having the taxi take you virtually anywhere you want to in Puerto Plato. The taxis are all new mini-vans and the driver spoke good English. The $60 rate and van would accommodate up to 6 passengers making it a good value for groups of 4-6; pricey for 1-2 passengers. The trip to the cable car is approximately 15 minutes and upon arrival we were immediately greeted by our “self-assigned” tour guide who escorted us through the cable car entrance, the ticket counter ($10 per rider roundtrip), past the arrival musicians (a $1-2 gratuity) and then up the mountain. We expected and got beautiful panoramic views of the city upon arrival at the top, but were pleasantly surprised by the extent of beautiful gardens and the lagoons. Our guide did an excellent job providing detail and posing us for memorable photos. We tipped him $20 for his hour of time which seemed to leave him disappointed. All-in-all an interesting and fun excursion.

Our arrival back on ship was well in advance of our 12:30 onboard time. The sail-away party ran from 12:30-2:30pm with live music on deck and complimentary drinks much of the time. Afternoon activities were again enrichment and relaxation based. We attended the evening Wine & Paint activity from 8-10pm which was lots of fun and well run by the Fathom activity team. The event was limited to 20 participants and sold out 3 times during the sailing. The ship was experimenting with pricing options, having charged $25 the first time which included wine and then having no fee the second time while charging for drinks. Not sure what pricing was utilized on the Saturday night event.