I am taking my first cruise over the holidays on Carnival's new ship the Dream. I am getting nervous that I may have waited too long to book excursions, as some I wanted seem to be booked up. I would like to snorkel in Roatan and have read that Tabyana Beach is a good place. Do I need to gain access to this beach from Cruise ship booking? Once there are there places to rent snorkel gear and get some basic instruction? Is Tabyana part of West Bay or vice versa? Is the snorkeling as good as I read right off the shore there or is it best to take a boat out? Any advice/help/suggestions would be much appreciated! Also heading to Belize and Costa Maya where we are still selecting excursions if anyone has any advice there???
This may be your first cruise but it is a pretty sure bet it wont be your last.
roatan is a beautiful Island. Tabaya beach is so beautiful, the water is just unbelieveable.
You can take a cruise tour or you can catch a taxi there. it is up to you, you both will end up at the same place. If it were me, I would take the taxi and then see some of the island. You can rent the taxi for the day and it is per person not per taxi. But after you have snorkeled and enjoyed the beautiful beach have the taxi just drive you around the island, We did and are so glad we did.
Belize someone else has to advise on that one, but what ever you do, I would do a ship excursion. Costa Maya go to Mahalawaj. very rustic little town right on the water. take a taxi there for 3 bucks, back for 2.
Enjoy the Dream, I can t wait until my cruise on her Sept 2010.
Hi nyxi, we snorkeled in Roatan and it was exactly as you described. However, we did a tour through the ship. We traveled about 25 minutes to another marina where the catamaran was. We sailed out and around the jetties, then did some fantastic snorkeling. The current was strong, but very doable. The coral and sea life were abundant, and the water was crystal clear. I also highly recommend snorkeling in Belize, it was beautiful. But, from your other post, you wanted to do the zip line/cave tubing, which everyone seems to love to do there. Costa Maya is a good beach day, but there are also some decent ruins there. Chacchoben is not as hard to get to as some of the ruins are, if you are interested. Best wishes and have a wonderful time! As macmom111 stated, be warned, cruising is addictive
In regards to Roatan snorkeling, macmom111, if I make my own way to Tabayana do you think I will have any problem getting scuba gear, and will I have access to all of the facilities at the beach? Penny3333- do you know which catamaran you took - or who operated it? How much time did you actually spend snorkeling? Was it at Gumbalinda or Tabayana? Thanks all for your input!
I'll look through my pictures and see if I have the name of the catamaran. The lady that operated it was trying to sell her. She was an 85' live aboard, in need of repair, but still nice. We spent about 2 hours in the water. We didn't go to a beach area, we were actually out in the water. I've heard great reports about Tabyana. We'll be in Roatan in May and we plan on checking out Tabyana. We had just planned to grab a cab and go there. They had snorkeling equipment on board our catamaran, but we have our own, so we didn't use anything from them. I'll let you know if I can make out a name.
Alright I will throw in another option for you.. Foster's West Bay resort (they have a website). They will pick you up from the dock and bus you to their private beach resort. Its really nice. Not too expensive. (If you can find 8 people to share the trip, they discount the per person rate.) They have a great bar and good food and a good beach. They have a boat that will take you snorkeling (I think they charged us an extra $7 each fro that) and you can rent equipment their. Note that Carnival now has their own pier (They used to share RCCL's pier) and they have beach access to it via a "ski lift" system. I have not been there since that opened so if you are only interested in going to the beach you may not even have to pay for transportation!
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