Gumbalimba Park/ West Bay Beach

My dad, sister and myself will be visiting Roatan in June and have decided we would like to travel to the West End of the island, and hopefully go to both Gumbalimba park to see the monkeys and also make our way to West Bay Beach to relax and maybe snorkel. We saw that our cruise line (Carnival) does have an excursion there, however, the excursion includes a canopy tour, ziplining and other parts we are not interested in. We heard it is possible to just take a taxi to West end beach and then walk to Gumbalimba. Wondering if anyone has done the same, or been there and seen it is not possible?

Thanks for your input!!!

Book Ronystours.com. We book his "freestyle tour". This gives you a private driver for the whole day. You can come and go as you please with no set schedule. He has nice vehicles and is very friendly. We have a great day with him every time we visit. I like to stop and take photos when I see something interesting. We don't like to be with a group and have a schedule where we are forced to spend more time at a place than we'd like or be rushed to leave when we'd like more time. Rony is the perfect solution - you will have an amazing day! The beaches are just gorgeous.

I agree with the statement that you should book a private driver (Rony or Victor Bodden). From what I hear, it will end up costing you more to pay for a taxi, then having a private driver.

You can easily take a taxi but as others have said a private driver usually ends up being cheaper…. go figure :confused:

I will say that once we negotiated with a taxi driver to spend the whole day with us for $15.00 a person……. but you have to NEGOTIATE ! He took us all over. Didn't speak much Engish but we had someone who spoke Spanish fluently with us.

We just returned from our cruise, and stopped in Roatan. We decided to rent a taxi and go to both Tabyana Beach and a park preserve. We rented the taxi driver out for the entire day, $30 per person to take us wherever we wanted on the island for the whole day! First we went to a park called Maya Eden, similar to the better known Gumbalimba Park. The parks are the same, but Gumbalimba costs $30pp where Maya Eden is only $10pp! We got to hold three types of monkeys, saw Mayan Ruins, walked through the largest hummingbird and butterfly farm on the island, saw and held parrots, tucans and the Roatan 'rats' the island is named after. We then took a 10 minutes drive to Tabyana beach, the most beautiful beach on the island. For an entry fee of $7pp we got admission to the beach and a chair rental. Once on the beach we were also given access to the docks, water slides in the water, and all the on site facilities. The cost for the three of us all together was just about $150. If we had booked a similar park and beach tour through Carnival it would have been $90pp. Plus, we were just the three of us, and traveled through the island at our own leisure.

My girlfriend and I are looking to do a similar itinerary and neither of us are interested in the zipline either. Carnival is offering a excursion on our sailing called "Pirates, Birds, & Monkeys of the Caribbean" that is just the park and the beach. You might want to see if your sailing offers that as well.

on our other 2 trips to roatan, we took the carnival ship bus to

tabayana beach & spent the day returning when we wanted

this time we wanted to see something in addition to the beach

we have booked with emerald princess fo $99 pp

"gumbalimba preservation nature park & tabyana beach"

departs at 9:30 & we can return on bus when we want

am sure you can do it for less $ on your own,

but as seniors, we feel safer booking with princess;)