Explorer Review- Includes Belize

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Here is an excerpt from my Explorer of the seas review. Since one of our stops were Belize I thought I would post this portion here. Please don't flame me because everyone has different experiences and opinions. Take what you will from it and happy cruising.

 

Belize: I was looking forward to this stop the most of any since it was my first time here. I was throughly disappointed, everything that could go wrong did. I had done a lot of research on the boards and we decided to go with the early Shark Ray Alley and Reef snorkel for half my party and the same by scuba for the other three through Coral Breezes. This was planned so we could all stay together.

You have to tender here so they had people get tender tickets the first few hours to get off. Though we had group one people from groups two and three were called before all the ones finished. They took forever to load. They left us sitting there for 5-10 minutes after it was loaded before they sent it off. They only loaded one tender at a time so the lines bearly moved. This was the most unorganized mess I had ever seen. People whose number hadn't been called yet were hanging around making it even more crowded. Luckily Coral Breezes was a little late so we made it to the meeting place ok.

 

Now for more dissappointment. They cancelled the scuba portion of the tour. I had already made a deposit so the three snorkelers stayed with the tour and the divers left to find something else. I wish we would have cancelled with them. We had some time to shop a little and use the facilities before they loaded the boats. It was hard to get into the boat, you had to take a long step down, and though they helped us I was suprised no one got hurt. We ended up being outside so we didn't have the shade, this probably was a good thing though since the boat broke down twice on the way to Caye Caulker!!!! They didn't tell us exactly what was wrong, but they messed with the propellers and added a lot of stering wheel fluid. We made it later than planned to drop people off at Caye Caulker and had our snorkel orientation at the beach. We then all loaded uneasily back into the boat for a five minute ride to the first snorkel stop which was the coral reef.

 

This was another problem. On their website they say they will take about 25 people per group, but ours had about 40. (I counted, I had plenty of time to.) Now the reef was gorgeous and I am glad I got to see it. There were many different species of coral and we saw a lot of different fish. The water was nice and warm. Now if we would have been without the other extra people it would have been worth it. There was a few families on board and their kids were not happy to be going snorkeling. They put one girl in the water and she screamed and carried on so badly I felt sorry for her. They had to put her back in the boat. Someone had to stay on the boat with her since she was too scared to go. Another family memebr stayed with a little boy as well since he wouldn't get in the water either. I don't recommned this trip for families with young children. These kids were extremely frightened and it ruined the experience for those families and the other people who had to wait while they dealt with the problem.

The other problem was there were too many people snorkeling in one group. They put us all together in a long line. This was inefficient as some people were too fast and running into those infront of them and others were too slow and huge gaps between the snorkelers were formed. This was only aggrivated more by another tour who was there and they kept passing through the middle of our group. We took so long here that by the time we got to Shark Ray Alley we only had 30 minutes to look around. This was the best part. This isn't like sting ray city in Grand Cayman where the rays are climbing up your back. They glide through the water underneath you and if you time it right they will touch your feet or you can go down and pet them as they pass. Sometimes one will come up for you to pet, but that didn't happen on our tour. The nurse sharks keep their distance but get close enough for a good picture. I was dissappointed when we had to leave so early because of the boat and the extende dtime at the reef.

 

Lunch was a small buffet of chicken, rice and red beans, red beans, white rice, punch and cole slaw. I am now obsessed with white rice and red beands. They were really good! They sold beer and mixed drinks near by as well. I had a dirty banana (banana, chocolate sauce and malibu rum) and it looked so good that after I had one about 8 people went over andf got one for themselves. We didn't have enough time to explorer the island so after we ate we got back on board the boat for the ride back to the dock. We broke down again on the way back!!!!!!!!! Luckily it was close enough that we could have flagged someone from shore since we were just around the bend from the dock, but it was not ammusing. Most of the people on our tour were from the Carnival ship, also in port, and they had to be back in 30 minutes at that point. I would have been having a heart attack if I was in that situation, but luckily they were able to fix it and everyone was back on time.

I loved where we went and the tour opertaors were wonderful. One even explained a lot about the country to us on the way back, but the unorganization of the tour was too much for us. I hope we just got them on a bad day since I had heard nothing, but good things about them. I can understand if they had to cancel the scuba portion since emergencies happen, but the overcrowding and the boat breaking down so many times was too much. I wouldn't book a tour with them again.

 

My husband wanted to comment on his tour so when he gets around to it I'll post it here as well for everyone to see.