Magical Full-Day Tour Through The Mangroves And The Beach In Isla de Barú

Badge of Excellence

Cartagena, Colombia

7 to 9 hours (approx.)
Pickup offered
Mobile ticket
Offered in: English

Explore our promoted experiences

Cartagena, Caribbean Coast

4.4

(39)

Cholon island party boat from cartagena

from $99

Islas del Rosario plus Bioluminescence Experience

Cartagena, Caribbean Coast

3.8

(9)

Islas del Rosario plus Bioluminescence Experience

from $115

Day trip to the islands and beach club in Cartagena

Cartagena, Caribbean Coast

4.4

(5)

Day trip to the islands and beach club in Cartagena

from $87

Viator earns higher commissions on experiences featured here

Overview

What's Included

Lunch voucher of 30,000 pesos for use a la carte
Use of comfortable facilities (bathrooms, tables and sun loungers) at Mambo Beach.
Travel insurance
Bilingual guide
Snorkel activity, use of goggles to see underwater.
Tour through the mangroves of the island of Barú.
Welcome drink

Additional alcoholic beverages.
Towels
Balinese beds
access to showers. *Additional cost
All Fees and Taxes

Meeting and Pickup

You can head directly to the meeting point, or request pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Pickup details

We pick up the northern area of the City of Cartagena, the Historic Center, Bocagrande and Gethsemane. We will contact you to arrange a time and confirm the pick-up location. You must be in the lobby or meeting point at the time of pickup.

Meeting point

Monumento Los Pegasos
Cl. 24, El Centro, Cartagena de Indias, Provincia de Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia
An employee in his company uniform will be at the Statue of Los Pegasos

End point

This activity ends back at the meeting point.

Operating hours
.8:00 am

Itinerary

Cartagena District

1 hour • Admission Ticket Free

Playa Tranquila Baru

1 hour • Admission Ticket Included

Playa Blanca

2 hours • Admission Ticket Included

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Not wheelchair accessible
Infants must sit on laps
Not recommended for pregnant travelers

No heart problems or other serious medical conditions
Most travelers can participate
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 30 travelers

Supplied by

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Gallery picture 1 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 2 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 3 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 4 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 5 (from a traveler's review)

Reviews

4.4

based on 95 reviews

Total reviews and rating from Viator & Tripadvisor

We perform checks on reviews

A bit dazed and confused throughout....

Donna_W, Nov 2025

They will not pick you up at any hotel as advertised. You will need to meet them at the Pegasus. We were instructed to be there at 7:45, however, they didn’t arrive until after 8 and we did not leave until 8:20. The Mambo Club is somewhat rundown. The only items that are included under 30,000 are the typical fish, chicken, and fried rice. Any specialty items are way overpriced - anywhere between 50 to 90,000 pesos. The ballaniese beach beds are also 120 pesos. There was little communication throughout the day from the guides, and many people did not know when things were happening, which makes it hard to truly relax. The boat ride to snorkel didn't have a ladder to get back in, and may of the life jackets were broken, leaving us feeling a bit unsafe. However, it is an affordable day on a beautiful beach, so if you are informed and ok with this all, then well worth it.

Response from Host, Nov 2025

I hope you are well. We appreciate your feedback; it helps us continue improving our activities. We will take all your notes into account to work on them. At Mambo, we have a voucher redeemable à la carte, and people choose what they want to eat. If they exceed their voucher, they must pay the difference, which we explain when we are on the way, and the guide informs them of this. We hope you have a pleasant afternoon.

Sounds like a lot of activities but not worth the price

Samantha_L, Nov 2024

It was unfortunately not worth the money for what we paid. Tour bus was 45 min late to pickup, the beach club we went to had vendors coming in every 3-5 minutes to heckle us, not relaxing and not private. There was no snorkeling activity as the waves were too big that day, no equipment given. And heads up the waves are choppy so take Dramamine if you're easy sick cuz there were 3 people throwing up in the short ride. We got taken to a small island that was littered with garbage everywhere. Guide was nice in the first tour but we got put on a Spanish only one and it was hard to communicate to understand how to get on the right bus back to Getsamani/Centro. The pros: Mangroves were very cool with raccoons coming in to take pictures. Lunch was really good with a whole fried fish. And the plankton itself was cool to see at night in the waters and they made extra effort to ensure we all had life jackets.

Response from Host, Nov 2024

We greatly appreciate your comments as this helps us improve every day to provide a quality service. We will work harder to correct, and thus provide quality experiences. Have a happy day.

Very cramped and unsafe experience

Tyler_P, Jun 2024

Although a bit undeveloped and certainly on the touristy side, Baru beach is a beautiful piece of the Cartagena landscape. However, I'd recommend saving yourself a few dollars and hiring a private car to take you here and simply walk into any of the plentiful beach clubs to spend your day. This tour was advertised as a bilingual tour, but my family was the only English speakers of the 20 or so guests. Most to the tour we were left confused on what was happening. Worst yet, when we were taken on the mangroves tour, we were with a few teenage kids running the tour. These kids didn't sanitize snorkel masks between usage and crammed the boat with so many people, I felt unsafe the entire time. Last the transportation. While advertised as a small group tour, this company chooses to transport many workers to the beach, stopping along the highway to add additional people. Although this would have been fine if there would have been enough seats, there wasn't. The small bus was horribly maintained, dirty, and we were so cramped there was no way to even adjust my legs for the nearly 90 min journey each way. Definitely go to Baru, but chose any tour but this.

Response from Host, Jul 2024

We as a company strive to provide a pleasant experience to our customers. However, we also work collaboratively with the Playa Blanca community. We apologize for this incident and will be discussing with the community to enhance and deliver impeccable service.

Super cute tour!

Janette_C, Nov 2023

Playa Blanca/Magical tour is a must! The tour guides Gabriel and Jose were super friendly. The drive gives you a glimpse into the non tourist areas which I can appreciate. The beach club was nice and the staff attentive without being overbearing. The short ride through the mangrove is worth the somewhat chaotic ride to the snorkeling area. The guides were great, however I was thrown into the front part of boat that was beyond capacity (no actual seats left) and offered no life jacket. Even with the minor inconveniences, I would recommend this tour if you are looking to explore the area and be one with nature.

Response from Host, Dec 2023

We appreciate your comments, these will help the continuous improvement of the quality of our services.

Unorganized

Sabrina_R, Nov 2022

Skip this "tour" 1.5 hrs late for pick up. I booked the beach, snorkeling and mangroves. Very unorganized. Bombarded with agressive people selling things from the moment we sat in our beach lounger. Snorkeling was a joke and very hectic. Mangroves was also a joke. One of the boat men handed out a banana for the animal (never found put what it was) to eat and demand a picture as we fed them. I have no copy of said picture. There was no communication and no one spoke enough English to tell us anything. Not worth the $$ skip this excursion.

Response from Host, Dec 2022

thanks for contacting you. First of all, I would like to apologize for your negative service experience, I want you to know that your complaint and feedback would give us the opportunity to improve and serve our customers better in the future, we strive for customer satisfaction by 100% it's clear we've fallen short on this one, but we'll do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen again. Sorry once again for your bad experience.

Poor organisation and communication

Alex_P, Jan 2026

Unfortunately very poorly organized. Meeting point unclear, buses dirty with extremely dark windows, air conditioning not adjustable. No information on the procedure on site. The booked mangrove and raccoon trip did not take place for us as we were wrongly only scheduled for the beach stay. Very disappointing, especially since it was our only day in Colombia.

Auto-translated

Response from Host, Jan 2026

Wir hoffen, es geht Ihnen gut. Es tut uns sehr leid, dass der Plan Ihre Erwartungen nicht erfüllt hat. Wir sind täglich bestrebt, unseren Besuchern einzigartige Erlebnisse zu bieten und werden uns auch weiterhin intensiv um Verbesserungen bemühen.