Any recent tips for water taxi to Caye Caulker and Dream tender times?

[nu2crusin]

We will be in BC Tuesday and considering taking the water taxi to Caye Caulker and back. We are a group of 7. 4 or 5 would like to snorkel at the reef if possible while the others relax on the beach. Seems like the taxi companies have consolidated and I've been to their Website (looks like $25 rt). Itinerary show us in port 8-6 on Carnival Dream, which I assume is 7-5 local time. What is a realistic time we can arrive in BC? And what time is the last tender back? I'm not a fan of the cruise line trips and not to sure about using coral breeze with grandma in a small open boat.

[happybooker1]

And the one we went over to Caye Caulker on in November was totally plexiglass & enclosed. The one on the way back had a canvas top & held about 40 ppl.

 

It's about a 45 min. Ride one way. When the Magic was there our last cruise, we were there from 8-5. The last tender was *supposed* to leave @ 4:15. There were probably 200 ppl in line @ 4 so needless to say the tenders ran a bit longer. Magic was still loading up ppl @ 5.

 

That said, we were in the 2nd tender off the ship & caught the 9AM water taxi to Caye Caulker. RT tickets were $22.50. We came back on the 1:30 taxi to Belize City, because the next one @ 3:30 would have put us back exactly @ 4:15. Knowing what I know now, we would have had plenty of time to catch a tender back. But at the time I didn't want to chance it.

 

If the Dream is scheduled to leave @ 6, you could catch the 3:30 taxi back since I'm thinking their last tender back would be @ 5:15. And once you get to Caye Caulker there are several outfits that will take the ppl that want to go out to the Reef for a few hours.

Edited January 2, 2014 by happybooker1