Goff's caye or Horseshoe Reef with kids?

[atakkat]

We are going on the Elation in july with a party of 5 kids ages 2,4,5,and 7. Are these excursion sappropriate for some light snorkeling for the older kids and beach play fo the younger group? Thank you in advance.

[Guest Time2gocruzn]

I have not been yet, but we booked Goff's for our up coming cruise in March with our boys who are 4 and almost 2. I did a lot of reading about this too, lol. I guess there is a real gentle slope and the surf is calm there. There is not much there...just a little island..but it looks beautiful. I also read that if some in our party want to hang out on the island and snorkel from shore they can do that, and if some want to go out to the reef (which is not very far out) the boat will take them out. Belize has the 2nd largest reef in the world, so I knew we wanted to snorkel here and it was tough finding a snorkel trip that would be okay to take our kids and gma and gpa along. Goff's sounded perfect for us. I was worried about it being over run with people since it was so small, but I checked and there will only be 1 other ship in port with us that day:) .

[cali-croozer]

Have been to Goff's Caye. You will have the option of being dropped off at the caye for the entire time or spend some of the time snorkeling off the boat and then being dropped off on the caye. With small children, just get dropped off at the island. It's very small (the size of a football field). If you walk out far enough (it's pretty shallow for a ways out), you can get almost the whole island in the frame of your camera! Locals will have a food stand set up for snacks (but you can bring a few snacks from the ship). The little ones can play in the sand and the shallow water. The older kids can swim a little further out and snorkel. Friends of ours, who weren't comfortable snorkeling from the boat, snorkeled around the island and saw more fish than we did near the reef. The reef they took us to is in really bad shape and we couldn't snorkel over it, so it wouldn't be damaged more. So, we really only saw sea fans and other vegetation. The trip, as a whole, was fun though.