Review my Caye Caulker / Ambergris Caye Itinerary Ideas

[Milhouse]

The wife and I were looking to visit Caye Caulker and/or Ambergris Caye during our stop in Belize. Our ship's itinerary indicates that we arrive at 7am and depart at 4pm.

 

I understand we have to tender in Belize which will eat up some time.

 

Will ship time be off from local time? We want to be back with plenty of time for our last tender so we need to understand our options back from the Cayes since the schedules for the water taxi's seem to have a bit of a gap in the afternoon.

 

I'm thinking of flying over from the municipal airport to start the day in order to save some time and limit a potentially choppy water taxi ride to one direction. Will we easily be able to show up and buy a ticket on Tropic Air or is it risky not to book ahead. [There looks to be around 9000 pax in port that day.]

 

We haven't decided on either Caye Caulker or Ambergris Caye yet but if we find whichever we choose too slow for us, is it realistic to just hop on a water taxi to the other island in reasonable time to check it out & get back to our tender with lots of time to spare? Or is it best to just choose one Caye and stick with it based on our limited time?

 

TIA.

[crewsweeper]

You're not going to have time to do both. Which ship are you on? Most cruise lines keep ship clocks on the same time as the embarcation port. If you're leaving from a Florida port, for example, you'll be on Eastern time. And Belize doesn't observe daylight savings, so 8 months out of the year you'd be 2 hours ahead of Belize time, which would mean you would be leaving Belize at 2 PM Belize. I'll keep all references to time below in assumption of its ship time. If your ship anchors at or near 7AM, it could be 8 AM before you reach the tender dock, depending on how early you can catch a tender. Your ships last tender for return to the ship would most likely leave the tender dock around 3PM, maybe 3:15PM. That really gives you less than 7 hours to reach one of these places, explore and return to the Tourist Village. That's enough time to choose one or the other caye to visit. If you're doing TropicAir, be sure to check the return times and give yourselves 30 minutes to and from the airport. Head for San Pedro, lots of things to do. You might get in some snorkeling or just walk around or rent a golf cart and see the island. A bit less to do on Caye Caulker, you can walk from the water taxi dock to the split in less than 15 minutes, or pick up a golf cart at the little air strip and drive there. Some shops and restaurants. Nice to visit if you like more serene environment.

 

One interesting way to see Caye Caulker is to take Coral Breezes Shark Ray Alley snorkel tour. It's a boat ride there and back, lunch and a couple of great snorkeling stops along the way. You'll be back at the tender dock in plenty of time to catch your ship.

[DaveandDiane]

We have been looking at that tour with Coral Breezes. How is the snorkling at cay caulker? Is there a lot to see? Is the snorkling better at Ambergris, or about the same?

[Milhouse]

Thanks.

We're sailing this December on X Equinox out of Ft Lauderdale.

 

We'll likely look at Coral Breezes' tours a bit more closely. Seen them mentioned a few times.

 

Still haven't decided on San Pedro or Caye Caulker yet. Most of the reviews we've read seem to point to Caye Caulker but we're thinking it's going to be too slow for us and that San Pedro might be the right balance as to what we're looking for. Anyways, still some time to decide.

[wadethegringo]

We have been looking at that tour with Coral Breezes. How is the snorkling at cay caulker? Is there a lot to see? Is the snorkling better at Ambergris, or about the same?

Holechan and shark ray are almost midway between Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. If doing a tour and the first time in Belize one is as good as the other. You need a tour to reach the reef at both islands. You can snorkel the split on Caye Caulker and there are some docks in San Pedro you can swim off for lots of fish.