Beach at the port Isla Margarita .Smelly avoid at all costs.

[happy cruisin]

Hi we recently returned (10th Nov) and we had port stop at Margarita.

A lot of passengers headed for the small beach near the ship, and although our captain said it wasnt the best we went to check it out.

Boy was he right !! The sand was a dark colour and strangely very wet all over. We walked along to have a look a bit further round and very quickly decided it was not a place we were prepared to stick around.

The smell was awful.:( Goodness knows how people were swimming in the sea !! I dread to think what was in there with them as the smell was of sewerage.

We asked about this and were told the smell was from the mangrove swamp but also feeding into the swamp was waste from the sewerage plant behind. I would not dispute this as the smell bore this out.

We heard the next day that some passengers who had been on that beach had become sick. Notsure how many or how true.

I certainly would not consider using this beach and I feel the cruise lines should warn passengers of this "beach mess" considering how vigilant we all need to be to prevent the dreaded Norovirus (have I spelt it correctly?).

We decided to take a taxi to El Agua Beach, and a word of warning ,check out the minibus before you get in !! When we were ready to return our driver could only start the bus by hot wiring it !!!! :eek: