Tabyana Beach Break with Royal Caribbean

[new2cruising2014]

Thinking about booking the Tabyana beach break with Royal Caribbean for a Spring Break cruise. If anyone has any thoughts (good or bad), pictures, pros and cons, etc. about Tabyana beach break I'd love to hear them! Thanks in advance!

[crewsweeper]

Lots of posts on this board regarding Tabayana. The good: it's great shore snorkeling and you can walk the entire beach. The Bad: it's a ship excursion and all ship excursions head for the same spot, so if more than one ship in port it'll get crowded. The Ugly: it's a ship excursion and there will be vendors abound selling wares.

[zqvol]

Lots of posts on this board regarding Tabayana. The good: it's great shore snorkeling and you can walk the entire beach. The Bad: it's a ship excursion and all ship excursions head for the same spot, so if more than one ship in port it'll get crowded. The Ugly: it's a ship excursion and there will be vendors abound selling wares.

 

Have to disagree about most of your negatives.

 

Yes, it is a ship excursion, but it is capacity controlled, in a private area. Plenty of seating, plenty of security, and it does not get crowded. Since there is security, vendors are not allowed. You are never bothered by vendors, unlike everywhere else on West Bay Beach.

 

Some of the excursions included lunch, which is not bad. All include transportation.

 

Have been to Roatan six times, and have been to Tabayan five of them, the other time made a serious mistake not going there.

[RoadTripFanatic]

I haven't been to Tabayana on a cruise ship excursion. We usually take a taxi to Bananarama. We actually have spent 17 land vacation days on West Bay beach. Yes, there are vendors walking the beach. Yes, it can be very crowded when the cruise ships are in port. BUT it still remains my favorite beach in the Caribbean.

[SeaWatcher65]

I haven't been to Tabayana on a cruise ship excursion. We usually take a taxi to Bananarama. We actually have spent 17 land vacation days on West Bay beach. Yes, there are vendors walking the beach. Yes, it can be very crowded when the cruise ships are in port. BUT it still remains my favorite beach in the Caribbean.

 

Any tips for taking a taxi on our own to Bananarama? I read somewhere it is difficult to get taxis at West Bay beach to go back to port, so when getting off the cruise ship, we need to get a taxi for the entire day? Thanks.

[Guest 2000]

Bananarama offers a package with tranport included, Beacher's does as well and may be a bit more quiet.

 

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

[KungFuGrip]

We were at Tabyana on the RCI excursion just a few days ago, and had a great time.

 

1. Plenty of beach chairs. A Carnival excursion rolled in about three hours after we did, but some RCI cruisers started taking the early bus back to the port right about then so things evened out after a reshuffling of the chairs.

2. There's a decent lunch included (burgers, hot dogs, chicken, etc)

3. Great security to watch your stuff and keep the vendors away from the chairs. Vendors can walk the beach, but not enter the Tabyana club itself.

4. Reasonably priced drinks

5. I don't snorkel, but my wife says the snorkeling staff was great. After they finish the initial trip with those who bought snorkeling with the excursion, they'll be happy to take you out to the reef and point out things for you to see. Just slip them a nice tip for the effort.

 

It was a nice, low-key beach day. Can't complain at all.

 

(Bonus: The minibus trip over the hill drives you through areas where actual Roatan residents live, which should give a lot of people a healthy dose of perspective.)

[frisbeewife]

The RCCL excursion to Tabyana Beach says the minimum age is 12. Does anybody know if that is Tabyana's restriction or just RCCL's? If it is NOT Tabyana's, can I just take a taxi there or do I have to book through RCCL?

 

What I want to do is take my 7 year old grandson and let him learn to snorkel from the beach. The next day in Belize we'll be going on a snorkel trip from a boat and it would be great if he was familiar with it before then.

 

Maybe somewhere else in Roatan has snorkeling from the beach? We wanted to rent the snorkel gear rather than buy our own.