Starfish island excursion

Any thoughts on this?

I've read the Carnival reviews and they are mostly favorable.

I pulled up a video of the island on youtube and I wasn't too impressed.

I am wanting to book my Belize excursion this weekend and I am not

100% sold on Starfish Island.

The 3 of us ladies would like to go to a nice beach for the day. No snorkeling wanted.

Please give me your thoughts, I will truly appreciate it.

Thank you,

IIRC, this used to be called Bannister Island. They had an ownership change and for a awhile weren't doing cruise excursions. I believe there's an episode on International House Hunters of the family looking at places. done in 2012 or 2013. What's interesting in that show, besides seeing the caye, is that their base was Cucumber Beach with is the local man made beach about 15 minutes taxi from the tender pier. It's not your typical tourist beach. Google "Old Belize" for information and some pictures.

Your other option is Goff's Caye via a private vendor, there are several, Belize cruise excursion, Shoreexcursioneer, or Viator are fairly popular vendors. But it's basically just a spit of sand with a palapa hut where they sell bevies and snacks. And it too is tied with snorkeling.

You could to a DIY to Caye Caulker and then lay on the beach there , but you'll be juggling water taxi schedules and ship last tender schedules.

My husband and I just sailed with NCL (April 2015) and took a snorkel beach excursion, which included a few hours on Starfish Island. You could rent a kayak, we didn't, but it looked like fun. The drinks were good and reasonably priced. There were a lot of great places to take pictures and the swimming was fun. Hope this helps

We just went there last week. The island was okay, not great. We were on the first boat to get there that morning, and the place looked nice without too many people. The sands are coarse with shells mixed in. Also there were ant nests. And we saw some beer bottle caps people left on the beach...you will need to protect your feet.

The lunch consisted of rice & beans, grilled chicken, and potato salad. The selection and the quality was pretty much what I expected, but I must say the potato salad was not good.

While we were on the lounge chair we did not realize there were bugs. But once we sat on a table to eat, we got attacked by...I guess they were sand flies? After we put some bug repellent we were fine. But those bug bite hurt and started to itch 2 days after I was bitten.

The water was fine for swimming, but not great for snorkeling. I did see some fish, but not many. Since you do not snorkel, you probably will not be disappointed in the water.

Next to the children's play area, there is a small pool with some starfish. It was fun to hold the starfish. Since I could not find starfish by snorkeling myself, it was good they had them there.

My main problem with this excursion was the departure process and that 3 hours on the beach was not long enough for us. We were instructed to meet at 7:30 am at a theater for 8:00 am departure, but we actually did not leave until close to 9:00 am. Then we had to leave the island at 12:30. We would have liked more time there so we could just lay and relax.

Overall it was an okay excursion for us, as our kid enjoyed it. She loved holding a starfish, collecting shells, and just floating in the water. But I don't think we will book it again.