Dominica cruise port
The Nature Island, and the mountains are the reason: rainforest over most of it, and Morne Trois Pitons inland, a World Heritage site with the second largest hot lake in the world steaming in the middle of it. Islanders say there is a river for every day of the year, which is a saying rather than a count. Columbus named the island for the day he first saw it, a Sunday in 1493.
Worth knowing. In the botanic gardens there is a school bus with a baobab tree lying across it. Hurricane David put it there in 1979 and the island left the pair of them where they fell, so the tree has grown a second trunk out sideways and stands over the bus it flattened.
What to do in Dominica for free
There are two berths here and they are not the same day. The Bayfront pier is in the middle of Roseau, so the town starts at the end of the gangway and the old market square is five minutes along the front. Woodbridge Bay is two kilometres north through a working dock, and nobody walks into town from that one. Either way the botanic gardens are about fifteen minutes inland under Morne Bruce, and nobody charges you to walk in.
What costs money
The ship's own excursions usually cost more than booking the same trip yourself. Two things come with the price. The ship waits for its own excursions and does not wait for you. And if the port is missed, P&O refunds its own without you asking. A trip you booked yourself is a claim on your travel insurance, so check what your policy covers. The ship sells its own trips to all of these, and the desk is open on board if you would rather do it that way.
Trafalgar Falls. Twin waterfalls twenty minutes up into the hills, and about ten minutes on foot from the car park to the viewing platform: a made path with a few short flights of steps in it rather than a hike. There is a charge at the site. The hot pools that used to lie under the left-hand fall were buried by a rockslide in 1995.
Champagne Reef. Volcanic gas comes up through the seabed here, so you snorkel through a stream of bubbles with the sea warm around your legs. It is south of Roseau on the coast road, and you walk in off the shore rather than take a boat, though the shore is stones rather than sand and the marine park charges to go in.
Which ship calls at Dominica, and when
Every call here between 15 August and 28 November 2026, with the hours ashore P&O published. These times are a guide, not a promise: the captain gives the real ones the day before.
| Ship | Sails | Day | Ashore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arvia | 18 December 2026, 14 nights | Day 11 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 19 December 2026, 14 nights | Day 10 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 26 December 2026, 14 nights | Day 3 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 22 October 2027, 22 nights | Day 22 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 30 October 2027, 14 nights | Day 13 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 30 October 2027, 16 nights | Day 13 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 30 October 2027, 21 nights | Day 13 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 30 October 2027, 13 nights | Day 13 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 5 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 6 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 8 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 13 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 19 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 20 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 22 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 27 November 2027, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 3 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 4 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 6 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 11 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 17 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 18 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 20 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 25 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 31 December 2027, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 1 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 3 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 8 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 14 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 15 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 17 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 22 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 28 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 29 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 31 January 2028, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 5 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 11 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 12 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 14 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 19 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 25 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 26 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 14 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 26 February 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Arvia | 28 February 2028, 27 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 3 March 2028, 14 nights | Day 8 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 4 March 2028, 14 nights | Day 7 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 6 March 2028, 26 nights | Day 5 | 07:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 6 March 2028, 26 nights | Day 14 | 08:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 11 March 2028, 21 nights | Day 9 | 08:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 17 March 2028, 15 nights | Day 3 | 08:00 to 18:00 |
| Iona | 18 March 2028, 14 nights | Day 2 | 08:00 to 18:00 |
How long you get ashore in Dominica
The published times give you between about 10 and 11 hours alongside, depending on the sailing. Take off the time it takes a few thousand people to get off, and the time you need to be back on board before the ship leaves, and that is your day. P&O give the real hours the day before, and the all-aboard time is earlier than the departure time.
The other stops on these cruises
Every one of these is on at least one of the sailings that calls at Dominica.
- AntiguaNelson's Dockyard at English Harbour is a working Georgian naval yard that never fell down: Horatio Nelson was based here from 1784, hated it, and called it a vile hole.
- BasseterreSt Kitts was England's first colony in the Caribbean, in 1624, and the French took the other end of the island the same decade.
- BridgetownEnglish from 1627 and never changed hands, which is why the island kept its parliament, its cricket and its place names.
- CastriesBritain and France exchanged this island fourteen times, which is why the towns are French and the law is English.
- CuracaoWillemstad is a Dutch town built in the tropics and painted every colour there is, and the whole of it is a World Heritage site.
- Fort de FranceIn May 1902 Mount Pelee destroyed Saint-Pierre, then the island's main city, killing about thirty thousand people in minutes; a prisoner in a thick-walled cell was among the very few to live.
- GrenadaSt George's sits inside a drowned volcanic crater, which is what makes the harbour that shape.
- La CorunaThe Spanish Armada sailed from this harbour in 1588, and it is still guarded by the Tower of Hercules, a Roman lighthouse from about the year 100 which has never stopped working: the oldest one on earth still doing its job.
- OranjestadDutch since 1636 and dry as a bone.
- St MaartenThe island has been split between the Dutch and the French since the Treaty of Concordia in 1648, which makes it the smallest piece of land in the world shared by two nations, and there is no border to speak of.
- TenerifeMount Teide stands 3,715 metres over the island, the highest point in Spain and, measured from its base on the sea floor, the third largest volcano on earth.
- TortolaRoad Town has been the seat of these islands since the British took them from the Dutch in 1672.
Money and language in Dominica
East Caribbean dollar (XCD, $). The same currency as Antigua, St Kitts, St Lucia and Grenada, fixed at 2.70 to the US dollar. US dollars are taken, and small change comes back in either. Onboard is always charged in sterling, so this only matters ashore.
English, with a French-based Creole spoken alongside it.
Free, and it works with no internet. Give it the dates you sail and it works out your own stops and saves the street map for each one. It shows you round the ship too.
All the ports written up so far, the things to do before you sail, or the ship pages for Iona and Arvia.