San Pedro by Air to dive/snorkel

[ThaiDiver]

Has anyone ever used Aqua Scuba Belize (http://www.aquascubabelize.com/cruiseship_passengers.html) to go diving or snorkeling before? It looks like they offer trips including air from Belize City down to San Pedro for a few hours of snorkeling or scuba diving. I've also been looking at Ecological Tours Belize (http://www.ecotoursbelize.com/diving.html) which seems to have a similar offering. For those that have done it, did you have any problem with timing? I'll be on a Carnival cruise in March and am scheduled to be in port from 8 to 5. Any input or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[suzQ28]

We will be on a Carnival cruise in April and are also looking to do a fly and snorkel excursion. We are also scheduled to be in port at 8am and are concerned about being able to make the 8:30am flight to San Pedro. Has anyone else done this? Any tips for making it off on the first tender?

[crewsweeper]

We will be on a Carnival cruise in April and are also looking to do a fly and snorkel excursion. We are also scheduled to be in port at 8am and are concerned about being able to make the 8:30am flight to San Pedro. Has anyone else done this? Any tips for making it off on the first tender?

 

Which ship are you on? If it's out of the East Coast (Florida), the good news is ship time is an hour ahead of Belize time. The bad news is tenders don't usually start until around 8:30 ship time. If your ship's out of the Gulf Coast (Mobile, NOLA, Gavleston) you're SOL.

 

I suggest you head down to the gathering spot for the tenders as early as you can, even before they recommend ship excursion people get there. Say 7:15A (ship) at the latest. Get a number and you might get on one of the first tenders out. It's a 15-20 minute tender ride (depending on the seas) and then a 20 minute taxi to the airport. So you'll be pushing it to grab an 8:30A Belize flight. But might make it. Have a back up plan.

[suzQ28]

We will be on the Dream in April and according to our itinerary will be in port at 10am, which will 8am local time. One tour we looked into mentioned the 8:30 flight, but I agree that it would be very difficult to make that flight. I'm waiting to hear back from Ecotours to hear what flight time their excursion would have us on.

[ThaiDiver]

The Carnival Glory in late March is set on the itinerary for 8 am to 5 pm. Since this will be past the "Spring Forward" the time difference between Belize and Miami will be two hours. Since that would be 6 am Belize time, is it possible that in this event the ship would stick to local time as opposed to Miami time?

[milkcoffeecruiser]

You can take a water taxi from Belize city...our friends did that and had a great time.

[crewsweeper]

The Carnival Glory in late March is set on the itinerary for 8 am to 5 pm. Since this will be past the "Spring Forward" the time difference between Belize and Miami will be two hours. Since that would be 6 am Belize time, is it possible that in this event the ship would stick to local time as opposed to Miami time?

No...Carnival ships do not adjust to various local times...

 

But you do have a good point on the time if you're in Belize at 6AM ship time, you could easily make an 8:30A Belize time flight. However, you will be leaving at 3P Belize and th elast tender usually leaves the tender peir one hour before the ship sails. Which means you'll have to catch a 12:30 or maybe 1PM flight back.

 

suzQ...you should be fine on time out. Again it's flight times back.

 

And while milkcoffee has a good idea on the watertaxis, up to Ambergris Caye it's an hour 1/2 ride. And you could catch an 8AM water taxi. But you'd have to grab the 12:30 water taxi back and that'd be tight if there were no delays leaving San Pedro. So you'd only have 3 hours to do things.

[suzQ28]

For us, I was mistaken on our arrival time -- it's 8am ship's time, so I'm not worried anymore about making that 8:30 morning flight. According to Ecotours, we would be back at the port by 2:30 (local time) so that should work out with our ship's departure time. However, that would probably not work for the Glory's departure time.

[ThaiDiver]

I received a few emails from Ecological tours today and Marvin who runs it said that typically they return cruise passengers on either the 1:20 or 2:20 flights but he recommended the 1:20 in my case to definitely make the ship on time. I've found him to be pretty helpful and responsive to emails

[suzQ28]

That's great! Are you planning on booking with them? I think we will be tonight. We are really looking forward to the flight over and it should be some great snorkeling! If you do this excursion, please come back and post afterwards -- I'm really curious to hear how it goes!

[Sargent_Schultz]

No...Carnival ships do not adjust to various local times...

 

They do sometimes.

[mdrobtx]

The wife and I did this tour with eco in Jan 2010. I did a full review with videos. Go back to my posts from Feb of 2010.

It is soooo well worth it. They will hand walk you through the whole excursion including your flights over and back.

We ended up going back to San Pedro last Sept to spend a week just because of the snorkel excursion we took.

 

Here scroll through these posts towards the bottom. My pics disappeared but review and videos are there.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1069185&page=6

 

If you'd like to see some pics, I can reload them.

[crewsweeper]

Hey Doc,

 

Thanks for chiming in here! I thought you guys did this once...But thought it was last summer not a year ago so I couldn't locate your review.

 

Crew

[penguinlady]

We did snorkel tour Jan. 2011. Went with ecotoursbelize. They were very professional and there was no problem with flight or transportion. We were back to the port in plenty of time to do a little shopping before catching the tender back. Would highly recommend this trip to anyone. They take you to 2 locations, a reef and then to shark/ray alley.

[ThaiDiver]

thanks for the link mdrobtx. after reading some of the other reviews... definitely seems like snorkeling is the way to go since Hol Chan Reserve is so shallow and it seems like there have been some shifty reviews of Aqua Scuba which ecotours may or may not still be using. Out of curiousity, did anyone's ships change time to local time? Since I'll be coming in on the glory after the "spring forward" time change, I'm wondering if itll be necessary to try to catch the first tender since potentially it could be 6 am when the boat gets in Belize.

[mdrobtx]

thanks for the link mdrobtx. after reading some of the other reviews... definitely seems like snorkeling is the way to go since Hol Chan Reserve is so shallow and it seems like there have been some shifty reviews of Aqua Scuba which ecotours may or may not still be using. Out of curiousity, did anyone's ships change time to local time? Since I'll be coming in on the glory after the "spring forward" time change, I'm wondering if itll be necessary to try to catch the first tender since potentially it could be 6 am when the boat gets in Belize.

 

Your welcome.

It's not called Aqua Scuba anymore. When we were there last Sept and walking by, I asked about it. They said they had new owners.