Tabayana Beach on your own???

[cruisecap]

Can you easily do the beach on your own? We are a party of five who will be in Roatan via the NCL Sun in March. The cruise ship offers a beach day at a cost of 50.00 pp including lunch - a mere hamburger or hotdog lunch. It seems hardly worth 50.00 pp after reading these boards.

 

Can you give me any information about taxi cost, where to eat at west bay and is it safe to do this on your own.

 

Thanks

[Marlissa]

Don't know if it matters or not - But the food at Tabayana Beach is not "mere hamburgers or hot dogs".

 

When we went in Dec. they had a buffet that included bbq chicken (Not with the traditional red bbq sauce. We thought the chicken was excellent, but not everybody is going to like it), steamed and seasoned vegatables, hamburgers, tea, lemonade and I can't remember what else.

 

The beach area is very nice with lots of lounge chairs. There is a small gift shop and a few locals selling things. There are real restrooms with flush toilets. They also have a outdoor shower area. Additionally, they provide transportation to/from the ship.

 

We did the canapy tour thru NCL thus the beach party was included in the price of that excursion. I have no knowledge of what to do on the island. There did seem to be a lot of people standing around outside of the fenced area that were hawking their services. I would be extremely careful though. I thought the island was very poor and undeveloped. In some places we drove thru, I was certainly glad to have the van driver and his knowledge. IMO, I will stick with the cruise line's excursions when we return.

 

From what I understand, the beach is privately owned by NCL. Not sure if you could access the beach thru someother means than NCL.

 

Marlissa

[cruisecap]

Marlissa,

 

Thanks for the information regarding the Tabayana Beach day through NCL. I did not realize that this portion of the beach was owned by NCL. I guess that could make a difference.

 

I didn't mean to downgrade the bbq lunch, however, on any cruise excursions that we have done in the past the bbq has not been very good. However, we have never been with NCL.

 

I am beginning to believe our best bet may be to stick with the cruise line.

 

Thanks

 

Terri (Cruisecap)

[jlines]

All of the beaches themselves are free to the public. Tabyana is just the area above the beach that the cruise lines use for their outings. While we were there our driver took us to the Mayan Princess. We simply walked down the beach until we found a nice spot to plant our stuff. We then took our snorkeling equipment over to the TB area. The best snorkeling we found was on the other side of the TB area near the black rock wall. We hired a driver for $20pp for the entire day. He took us sightseeing before we got to the beach and stayed with us there. We had a fabulous day and wouldn't hesitate to do it this way again.