Which cats have good shade and other...?

[luvfamily7]

There is a group of us (right now at least 8 but possibly up to 16) that are planning on taking a 5 hour lunch cruise to see the turtles/shipwreck in Barbados.

We are trying to find the best boat for our group. Here are some of our priorities:

• Large enough boat to have space to eat, decent bathroom, covered area for SHADE—to get out of the sun when you’ve have too much. WHAT IS THE SHADE LIKE ON EACH OF THESE BOATS?
  
• Small enough group to be able to enjoy the snorkeling with turtles and feel like you are getting some attention from the crew. We really don’t want to have more than 24 people. Less would be even better. A crew that will avoid the other boats too would be helpful (like possibly they leave a little earlier) DO COOL RUNNINGS AND EL TIGRE LIMIT THEIR BOAT TO 24?
  
• Good and yummy food. We do not drink alcohol so the bar does not matter to us.
  
• Fun crew—we are not partiers but we would like to be with a fun crew.
  

For the date we would sail, Calabaza and Silver Moon (smaller boat) are booked.

We are considering: Cool Runnings, Elegance, Silver Moon (larger boat), Good Times, El Tigre, and Ron-Wasn’t Me? (I’ve also seen the one at Island Marketing (Barbados Cruise Excursions) but have not read any reviews on it.)

I’ve read a lot of threads here to get a feel for each boat but would still like some help especially with the question about SHADE.

Any thoughts (positive or negative) about these operators would be appreciated!

Thank you so much! This forum has been so helpful.

[morecruise4me]

Sorry I can't help you with the tours...but I thought I would bump you up so someone else might be able to. We sailed Calabaza twice and I hope you will be able to find a tour that is just as amazing with plenty of shade. Barbados is a beautiful place to sail!

[Sunseeker11]

I just went with Silvermoon last week on the 24 cat. They have everything you are looking for. We had 21 people with tons of shade for those that wanted it (I sat in the shade most of the time). There are 2 bathrooms that are very clean. The food was excellent and they had some great non-alcoholic drinks as well as water and pop. The team was professional and fun, we had a good time but it was not a party boat. It was a very relaxing day. I saw the Tiami cat and it had over 50 people on it. I would highly recommend Silvermoon!

[Riversedge]

We've been on both the large and small Silvermoon boats and have been on Cool Runnings. They were all excellent with plenty of shade. I would never sail on Tiami. At least 50 people hanging off all over the boat. We've booked Cool Runnings again this year. For awhile they stopped booking cruise ship passengers but are doing so again now. It's very rare that we want to do the same tour more than once but this is such a fun day that we wanted to do it again....and again...and again.