Rosario Islands: What the "Five Stops" Actually Are

Five stops. Six stops. Four or five islands. Every Rosario Islands day trip out of Cartagena sells itself by a number, and the number is doing most of the selling.

The archipelago sits about 35 kilometres from the city, inside the Parque Nacional Natural Corales del Rosario y de San Bernardo. A day trip does not tour it. It visits a short, fairly consistent list of places — and once you know what is on that list, the trips sort themselves out quickly.

What the booking pages actually name

Pulled from the itineraries of the most-reviewed trips we list:

• The Bocachica forts, on Tierra Bomba. You pass these on the way out through the channel. On most trips this is a look from the boat, not a landing.
• Pablo Escobar’s mansion on Isla Grande. Also from the water. The compound is half-demolished and overgrown — it is a ruin in vegetation, not a house you go into, and it is worth adjusting expectations before someone points at it.
• Isla San Martín de Pajarales, which is where the Oceanario is. This is the one stop with an opening time.
• Majayura, named by one operator as the snorkelling stop — and San Quintín, which the same boat only pulls up in front of while the guide explains the islands.
• Isla del Pavito, and a submerged small aircraft off Isla Grande that several trips point out.
• Beach clubs — usually two or three of them, and this is where the stop count comes from. A “five-stop” day is typically two viewpoints from the boat, a snorkel stop and a couple of beach clubs.
• Playa Blanca on Barú, on many itineraries — which is not in the Rosario archipelago at all, but on the island next door.

None of that is dishonest. It is just that “six stops” sounds like six islands, and it is not.

The aquarium closes at half past one

The Oceanario on Isla San Martín de Pajarales opens daily from 9.00 am to 1.30 pm. It is run by CEINER as a research and conservation centre and holds more than 1,400 animals across some 140 marine species of the Colombian Caribbean — turtles, seahorses, rays, sharks, reef fish — with a marine tunnel and a couple of dozen tanks.

Three things to settle before you book:

• Entry is not included on any island trip we have checked. It runs around COP 40,000 for adults and COP 30,000 for children aged two to ten, free under two. The six-stop snorkel and aquarium day at €65.84 puts the aquarium in its title and lists the COP 40,000 in its not included section.
• The arrival time decides everything. A boat that gets there at two has not got you to the aquarium, whatever the itinerary says. Ask for the arrival time, not the stop list.
• The dolphins perform. There is a show with trained dolphins, and an in-water session is sold separately at somewhere between COP 140,000 and COP 175,000 depending on the seller. That is a choice, and it is easier to make on shore than on the pontoon.

The fees are where the price comparison goes wrong

This is the part almost nobody runs the numbers on. Compare three real offers from our island listings:

The six-stop day carries COP 31,500 in pier charge that nobody avoids, plus COP 40,000 for aquarium entry if you go in — COP 71,500 per person that is not in the ticket price. The catamaran carries none. That does not make the catamaran cheaper — it does not close a forty-euro gap — but it changes the shape of the comparison, and it changes it most for a family, because every one of those fees is per person and children are not exempt.

It also matters that the fees are cash, in pesos, on the day. We set out the full pier picture in our comparison of the island boats.

Snorkelling: what is realistic

The snorkel stop is a stop, not a session. On the trips above it happens once, at an anchored position off one of the small islands, with gear handed out on board — the catamaran includes the mask and tube in the price, the six-stop day lists it as an optional inclusion at no extra charge.

If snorkelling is the actual reason you are going out, rather than a pleasant twenty minutes in the middle of a beach day, a general island tour is the wrong product. The dedicated snorkelling and diving trips are a different category with a different price floor, and they are built around time in the water instead of time on a sun lounger.

Which of the four is yours

You want the archipelago and the water, and money is secondary. The catamaran. Slower, steadier, park and pier fees already paid, 7.5 hours, and the hull matters more than you would think between January and March.

You want the aquarium. The six-stop day, and confirm the arrival time. Budget the two fees on top.

You want the best-rated day. The €61.33 speedboat trip with snorkelling and Playa Blanca holds 4.8 stars over 1,318 reviews, which is the strongest rating-plus-volume combination in the whole island category. Add COP 31,500.

You have small children. Read what we set out about the crossing first. Seven hours is seven hours regardless of how good the islands are.

The month changes the day more than the boat does

Between roughly December and April the north-easterly trade winds blow, Colombia’s maritime authority regulates departures according to sea state, and operators routinely bring the return time forward. October and November are the wettest months of the year; September and October are among the calmest at sea.

That is a genuine trade-off rather than a rule, and it is the single biggest variable in an island day — bigger than which of these three boats you pick. It is set out month by month in our guide to when to come.