Snorkel with Carnival vs. Coral Breeze?

[sierraN]

Hi - I'm hoping I can get some advice - My husband, daughter and I will be on the Carnival Glory in October and want to go snorkeling - I've read a lot of great things about Coral Breeze for the snorkeling excursion and a few good things about the Carnival excursion. We have never been on a cruise and our fear is that we may somehow miss the ship if we don't book with the Carnival excursion in Belize. My questions are - what are the chances of missing the ship if we book an excursion with Coral Breeze vs. Carnival? Is there that much of a differance between the excursions? The website price for Carnival is similar to the Coral Breeze price - but after reading some posts and visiting the Coral Breeze site it just sounds like the exursion with Coral Breeze is awesome. We absolutely cannot afford to get left behind because my husband has an important exam he needs to take via internet that night.

[slineberry528]

We were on the Valor a couple of weeks ago. We didn't have a early tender. Ship tours get off first. They were there waiting for us when we got off. Coral breeze was great. It is a small boat and your family would probably be the only ones on it. It beats snorkeling with 100 people. Send me your email and I will send you some pixs.

[slineberry528]

Here is my address slineberry@msn.com

I will send pixs

[pands]

Hi sierra N,

 

Just got back from the Miracle yesterday and we were in Belize on 7/28. I did the Coral Breeze tour two years ago from the Glory and this past week we did the Carnival Goff's Caye tour. I think you'll enjoy either and there are reasons to select one vs the other you just need to figure out what you're looking for. First the Coral Breeze tour is certainly a better value. The tour is longer (it will take up your whole day in Belize) and lunch is included. The groups tend to be smaller and the guides are really good. Unfortunalely you have to wait for all of the ship's tours to depart before they start running tender service to the port and since you anchor pretty far out to protect the reef it is about 20 minutes to get to the pier. We certainly enjoyed our trip with Coral Breeze. On the flip side this time I wanted to convenience of leaving directly from the ship and I also wanted a place where we could snorkle directly from shore. (Those wishing to snorkle from shore get off of the boat at Goff's Caye and anyone wishing to snorkle from the boat stay on for a guided snorkle a little ways out) My DD who is 11 is still a little nervous about the whole snorkling thing and so that was a big reason we took the ship's tour this time. Also, I was looking for a shorter tour (3 hours versus 5 hours). The island (often referred to as Gilligan's island) is really tiny with about 8 palm trees. My daughter and I didn't go out with the guided tour but just stayed closer to shore where she could stand up. Still there was an area with some good coral and lots of fish. After my DH got back from the boat snorkle he came out with us and spotted a flounder and chased a small stingray for a while. So I guess the point I'm getting to is that I would recommend either of these excursions depending on what you are looking for in your trip.

[1cruisedoggie]

Sierra,

 

We are going on the Glory in Oct too. What date are you going? We are booked for the 22-29. We are also thinking of booking the snorkel trip with Coral breeze they seen like a good company to do business with.This is our first time with Carnival ,actually it's only our second cruise...

[SomewhereBeyondTheSea]

I would go with Coral Breeze. They will be sure to get you back to the ship with plenty of time. Since the boat tenders in Belize and Carnival hands out tender tickets, giving people who have excursions booked throught the cruise lines the first tenders out. Don't let this worry you. We were on the first tender and didn't have a ticket. Just walk to the gangway and kinda blend into the crowd...you will be fine. I know it sounds like the wrong thing to do but it beats waiting till tender 12 and ruining hours of quality time.

IBut I highly reccommend Coral Breeze over Carnival. The excursion will be more personable and less crowded.

[taillon]

Hi - I'm hoping I can get some advice - My husband, daughter and I will be on the Carnival Glory in October and want to go snorkeling - I've read a lot of great things about Coral Breeze for the snorkeling excursion and a few good things about the Carnival excursion. We have never been on a cruise and our fear is that we may somehow miss the ship if we don't book with the Carnival excursion in Belize. My questions are - what are the chances of missing the ship if we book an excursion with Coral Breeze vs. Carnival? Is there that much of a differance between the excursions? The website price for Carnival is similar to the Coral Breeze price - but after reading some posts and visiting the Coral Breeze site it just sounds like the exursion with Coral Breeze is awesome. We absolutely cannot afford to get left behind because my husband has an important exam he needs to take via internet that night.

Coral Breeze is a great company...they will not let you miss the ship..no way! And as far as tenders go...we asked the purser and he told us to go with the carnival group that was doing the same excursion even though we were booked through Coral Breeze. We did cave tubing with them, not snorkeling. So we just went with all the Carnival cave tubers and got the same stickers as they got. Tendering was no problem...we actually got to Coral Breeze too early! And they had us back in plenty of time to do a little shopping before catching a tender.