Our Belize visit and Stingray tour with Coral Breeze LTD.

[cyrus360]

You can see my full review of our cruise on the Inspiration 10-17-04 here http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=94707

 

Here the exept from our time in Belize.

 

Belize:

 

This was the only port where it required us taking a tender to get to land. The Carnival Capers newspaper said it was a 45 minute ride to shore. Not so by a long shot. The boat we were on took about 10 minutes to get there.

 

Once again we were super early. Not much was open of course. We had booked an excursion through http://www.coralbreezelimited.com/ to do the shark and stingray alley snorkel tour. We met up with the guide who let us store our gear aboard the boat until the tour was ready which would be in about 2 hours. We looked around the small port area. The shops had all the same stuff pretty much that the other ports offered and at the same prices. Progresso was by far the cheapest all around when it came to prices.

 

We didn’t venture outside the gates. It was a rough looking area. I wasn’t afraid at all I just wasn’t interested in browsing more shops. Supposedly the prices are even cheaper outside the walls of the port area.

 

Once it was time to meet we headed back to the ship. Supposedly only 4 other people were going. The other 4 showed up, but before we could leave a bunch of the other freelance tour salespeople had asked if some people they wrangled up could join the tour. This was the beginning of the end so to speak. We ended up with 15 more people. One was a large group of Asian folks with 2 very young kids around 5 years old and one infant a few months old. I was kinda surprised they had this lil thing out in that heat and on a tour. The tour operator told us that she generally has more problems with Asian customers because of the language barrier and because they are very rude and inconsiderate and never knew how to snorkel. Well, all 3 of her observations came true with this group too. We ended up starting late because they wanted to argue about stuff and then their family wasn’t ready when everyone else was.

 

So we hop aboard and head out to Caye Caulker which is about 30-40 minute ride. They let a few other tour helpers tag along to help out with the crowd. They don’t work for Coral Breeze, they’re basically locals who know about the tours and have done them before.

 

We get to the Caye and they put in our order for lunch. We got the stewed chicken with cokes. They picked up snorkel gear for the add on people and off we went. Mind you, this is supposed to be a 5 hour tour. My calculations, if everything ran smoothly would barely get us to town before the last tender would leave since Belize is 2 hours behind the ships time. The late start coupled with them having trouble finding more gear for all the extra people and we were almost 1 hour behind schedule.

 

After getting back to the boat we head to the first reef for some snorkeling. Half the people had issues getting off the boat. For some reason people were putting fins on while on board so they couldn’t walk and were flailing and falling all over the place. Then they had issues getting into the water. Instead of providing the usual life vest used when snorkeling, we had old school life jackets that you had to rig up and tie around your waist which was awkward and uncomfortable.

 

Once in the water things just got worse. I would say 90% of the other people never snorkeled before and were struggling. None of them were paying attention and were kicking and ramming into people, never apologizing either of course. So me and the woman lagged back a bit to let the heard of cattle get ahead a few paces. The coral reef was interesting and seemed to have a lot of fish around it, but for some reason, we couldn’t just explore. We had to haul ass for no apparent reason. It was like a race, we could barely see a damn thing. What a waste. The absolute worst was we got a shallow spot, and we all stopped. They advised that the next part would require us to swim single file, through tight spots of coral, many of which were the stinging kind. There was quite a current too. It wasn’t hard but it wasn’t easy. Most of the crowd didn’t understand what a single file line meant so the helpers just kept shouting at them and holding them back. Once through the maze of coral it was another mad dash back to the ship so we could get to the shark/ray alley.

 

We ride for another 10 mins or so and they start to get the ship in position. There were about 3 or 4 sharks swimming below and it looked pretty cool. We asked about petting the sharks and ray and they said the sharks are too shy but the rays can be held and petted. They also said we wouldn’t need fins since the water was shallow and we could stand in it. I am not sure what kind of stuff they smoked that morning. Because none of what they said was true except the shark part. As soon as we hit the water, it was apparent no one was gonna be touching the bottom unless you were 8 feet tall. It went from 5 ½ feet in one or two spots, to 10 feet for the most part. The sharks scattered once we were all in and the rays started coming out as they dropped food in the water for them. There were about 8-10 rays, most were small around 2 feet in size with 1 or 2 large ones around 4-5 feet. They wouldn’t let us hold them, and if you were quick and lucky you could dive and run your hand along them real quick. It was fun, but disappointing because it wasn’t anything like they had described. Apparently one of the random tour helpers said to us that this was a protected marine park and the animals can be touched but not held and pet. After about 15 minutes the rays and other fishies ate all the treats put out and started disappearing. We were very disappointed to say the least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then were shuttled back to the Caye where our lunch was to be served. One the way one of the boats motors broke down so we were running slow, which put us behind even more. So by the time we got there we had maybe 1 hour to eat, shop and beach bum around.

 

The restaurant is right next to a waterfront cemetery. Kinda creepy and kinda cool. The food was pretty good. Though if you don’t order a lunch through the tour, you can just do your own thing at this place. They had lots of stuff on the menu that sounded yummy. We had stewed chicken with rice and whole beans and coleslaw. All of it was very good.

 

We got done eating and headed towards the shops. We saw maybe 1 or 2 “shops” if you could even call them that. Nothing was open for some reason. And the prices in the shops were a joke. We didn’t feel like walking any further so we headed back to the beach to find the boat gone. They had moved it to a different dock to get it fixed. The clock was ticking. We had 45 mins before our last tender left.

 

Finally the ship gets back and we head out, all 3 motors at full speed it seemed. Because they overbooked the tour, there wasn’t enough of the ice cold water they advertised on the site. So each family got one water to split. Yay! We arrive at the dock and run to the tender. We made it by 5 mins at the most.

 

I would have a hard time recommending this tour again. While it was a unique experience, it didn’t seem to be all it was cracked up to be and was pretty overpriced for everything you get, or don’t get I should say. We were extremely disappointed with it.

 

 

When we got back to the ship we rested up before dinner again. This time we didn’t bother going to any shows since we always were struggling to stay awake during them because of our active day.

[Peachy59]

Sorry you didn't have a very good experience on this tour.We were hoping to do this one on our cruise next year.Maybe we will just do the one the cruise line offers.Thanks for your honest review.

 

Judy

[cyrus360]

This might be a trend. There was another post saying they had overbooked and didn't have sufficient supplies and gear for the last minute bookings.

 

I just got an email from them asking for my feedback. I wonder if they will respond to it.

[LKitt82566]

Thanks Cyrus360 for all your reviews and pictures. I have been sending people to look at your pictures and reviews.

[Bzygirl66]

Cyrus360,

I would be interested on how/if they responded to your feedback. We have booked a tour with them Nov 11, 2004. Just recently they have been getting questionable reviews. I'm a bit nervous. I'm wondering if I should try and book through someone else since I've only put down a small deposit.

bzygirl66@yahoo.com

[Stick10]

My friend just did the cave tubing last week with Coral Breeze and loved it. She couldn't believe it when I told her about the bad postings they have been getting with the snorkeling tour. I did the snorkeling tour with them last October and they were wonderful. I'm planning on booking the cave tubing with them today.

[yankeegirllost]

I posted this on another thread...but this was our experience last week. We were very disappointed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would find something else to do. Snorkeling trip with Coral Breeze sounds very enticing on the website, but we didn't find it to be so.

 

First, the boat we were taken out in looked NOTHING like the boat in the photo. And when we met our guide at the pier, she had a little "surprise" for us - she said we were going to have to wait on some Carnival cruisers AND not only wait (which we did wait nearly an hour for them) but our excursion would be cut short since they had to be back at the pier earlier than we did. She said we would have to skip lunch but she would give us $10 off the price per person. We didn't know any better and so we agreed...it was only after we were knee-deep into the excursion that we learned we had a VERY bumpy 45 minute boat ride to the first drop site. There were 19 people on our excursion and we were literally all over each other in the water. I was kicked, swam over, and bopped several times in our attempts to stay with the guide and fight the current. I ended up getting cut by some coral - no big deal but it could have been avoided if I hadn't been literally pushed into it by some old guy swimming right on top of me!

 

Shark/Ray Alley was a bit disappointing. The rays were plentiful and we did see nurse sharks when we first stopped. But there was another boat very near ours and I think some of our wildlife was lured over there.

 

After the snorkeling and Shark/Ray Alley stops (which were both 20 minutes or less each), we traveled to Caye Caulker for a VERY BORING 40 minute stop there. Rainbow was not open and the places that were open, I wouldn't dream of stepping foot into. It was an extremely poor place and I can't say that I felt safe at all. I was ready to bid it farewell when we finally left.

 

Our excursion lasted 3 hours at the very most - and remember that 90 minutes of that was spent in route in the boat, and 40 more minutes were spent on a very poor island...so you can do the math and realize there was very little water time.

[cyrus360]

Seems to be a trend starting with this particular excursion. All the of last few reviews have been negative, all with the same exact problems.

 

I still haven't had any response to my feedback that I sent. I highly doubt I will get a response.

 

We are booking another cruise next year and will be doing the cave tubing adventure, but it's not going to be with this company most likely.