Coral Breeze Tours - Shark Ray Alley and Caye Caulker Exploration

[RodandMary]

Hi, has anyone done this tour? We have been considering but you only get one hour to explore and we are thinking that one hour is not really enough time. Any opinions? We may skip the snorkeling and just do an island tour that would have us on the island for just over 3 hours. It's listed as 75.00 for snorkel and island combination with lunch, and 39.00 for island only with fruit and bottled water. Thanks for any opinions. And any opinions in general about Caye Caulker much appreciated.

[CENTEX CRUISER]

We are booked on this tour for April for the first time. My daughter and husband did it a couple of years ago and loved it. The four of us are going with my wife as an observer, and she will just enjoy the boat while we are in the water..We are doing our own lunch at Caulkner..

[RodandMary]

Thanks for the feedback. Did your husband or daughter think the island exploration one hour only portion of the excursion was enough time to enjoy caye caulker?

[flames9]

Were were not on a cruise but in Belize on our own....We snorkeled Shark Ray Alley and had a great time!! If your in the water for an hour, that is more than enough time!! You only see so much sharks, Sting rays!! We saw a lot, but after a bit it was time to move on,lol

[CENTEX CRUISER]

My daughter said it was enough time for them on Caulkner, as it is small. Next year wife and I may just go as observers and be dropped off at Caulkner first.

[RodandMary]

Thank you so much everyone for your replies. We just booked the full excursion with snorkeling and lunch and we are in port on Carnival Dream 8:00 to 6:00 ship time / 9:00 to 7:00 Belize time April 16th. Hope the weather is good and not too strong currents and choppy waters. Have fun on your upcoming cruises everyone and thanks again.

[RodandMary]

Ooops, got the times reversed in above post. Island time is one hour earlier (not later) than ship time.

[CENTEX CRUISER]

We will be there a week before you. I could post how it was , but you will be on your ship by then...Somebody posted on here recently that they had been doing this tour for ten years..

Thank you so much everyone for your replies. We just booked the full excursion with snorkeling and lunch and we are in port on Carnival Dream 8:00 to 6:00 ship time / 9:00 to 7:00 Belize time April 16th. Hope the weather is good and not too strong currents and choppy waters. Have fun on your upcoming cruises everyone and thanks again.

[2mygirl2]

We did the Caye Caulker tour last spring on the Dream. My daughter and I were dropped off on the island along with the lunch order before the boat went out to shark ray alley. She and I had a lovely time at the beach. We walked through the small village and went down to the beach and swam for a couple hours. Plenty of time! When my husband arrived back to the island after snorkeling, we met him at the restaurant for a quick lunch. Everyone on the boat was eating, and service was average. My husband wanted to see the island, but we hardly had any time. We made a quick walk to a tshirt shop and back. It I had it to do over, I would have skipped the lunch, so he could have seen the village. However, it is a long ride back, so you need to eat.....ENJOY

[Bonbi]

We just did this tour a week ago. We arrived at anchor early (7am) I think we were supposed to get there by 8am and the all aboard time was 4:30.

 

To get to their office is a little tricky, you go through the pirate terminal all the way to the iron gates and many people will ask you where you need to go and help you but when we were there the 3 people they said to ask for weren't there yet but people did help us. You go to the left into another set of iron gates and their business is in an unmarked little shop with a red awning. You board right next to where the tenders come in but there is an iron gate blocking you from getting back to that side so when you return you have to go back through the iron gates in the back and through the security check point etc.

 

The crew is awesome and the time at each place was supposed to be about 45 min each but we of course woud've loved to stay on the reef all day. Our time with the rays & sharks got cut short because many people were late in the morning getting on the tenders. I think we only got to stay 15 minutes or so but the sharks seemed skiddish anyway and after the food was gone so were they. The rays stuck around and were everywhere but the sharks didn't seem to want to be around us.

 

I wasn't a huge fan of the snorkel "tour" that they gave of the barrier reef, but, that's just me. I would've liked to just have a free hour (or four haha) to snorkel over the reefs and meet back at a certain time but I am an avid snorkeler/diver so others may not have felt as comfortable doing so. They split us up in groups of 8 and took us on a "tour" of the reef, but instead of swimming over it or close where we could get a really great look at the fish and corals, our guide went about 5ft to the right of the reef. This could be due to inexperienced divers kicking the reef with their fins and breaking it but, in most places the reef was too deep to do if you were just snorkeling from the surface.

 

We didn't purchase the lunch on our tour but the people that did said it was awesome food. They took us to Caye Caulker to a little restaurant and the food was pre ordered and ready when we got there.

 

I read somewhere that they changed boats a few months ago - I would say the boats could be better but they did the job. I would still probably recommend their tour for the money and time spent compared to a ship tour but I personally would probably try to find one next time that just drops us off at the reef so I could free-snorkel instead of doing the tour.

 

We got back to the boat area around 3:45/4:00 so we ran into that Moho Chocolate place and rushed on the tender.

 

Hope that helps anyone that is looking to go on the tour.

[Bonbi]

Oh by the way, not sure about other ships but our ship changed the time to match the island times.

[Giventofly]

Thank you so much everyone for your replies. We just booked the full excursion with snorkeling and lunch and we are in port on Carnival Dream 8:00 to 6:00 ship time / 9:00 to 7:00 Belize time April 16th. Hope the weather is good and not too strong currents and choppy waters. Have fun on your upcoming cruises everyone and thanks again.

 

 

We're on the tour with you.

 

I used these guys 4 or so years ago, and had a great experience. Booked Excursion, with lunch. It was a very nice tour.

 

-Dan

[Giventofly]

I personally would probably try to find one next time that just drops us off at the reef so I could free-snorkel instead of doing the tour.

 

I took this tour a couple of years ago, and the "guided" nature of the tour was due to the currents. On our trip, the currents were strong enough that our tour was one way. we were dropped off in the water with 2 guides, and the boat circled around the reef to a "downstream" pick up point.

[Love2CruiseMore]

We did this tour last month too, it was GREAT! Natalie was our guide and she was wonderful! We were a group of 11 and we all want to go back to Belize just so we can spend a few days at Caye Caulker! We really did not have time to explore. Also note that it is a long boat ride out and back! We didn't think we would appreciate a guided snorkel, but as a previous poster stated there is a strong current so having Natalie guide us was a plus. Have a great time! I know you will!

[tinkerbell_82]

Beware if you book this tour- they cancel it with short notice (a week) if they don't have enough people. I don't know how many they need to go out but it was 5 in my case.

[Bonbi]

I took this tour a couple of years ago, and the "guided" nature of the tour was due to the currents. On our trip, the currents were strong enough that our tour was one way. we were dropped off in the water with 2 guides, and the boat circled around the reef to a "downstream" pick up point.

 

That does make sense, as there was a strong current. But, we did swim both ways and the boat didn't move on our tour. I didn't mind the tour part so much, I just wasn't thrilled with not being able to get closer to the reef and less experienced snorkelers kicking me in the face. haha It was still a great tour, though.