Review of Victor Bodden Best of Roatan Private Tour ~ Sept 7, 2023

[LisaLisa87]

We returned recently from a Western Caribbean sailing on Harmony of the Seas, during which one of our stops was Roatan. We had never been to Roatan and wanted to see as much as possible during our relatively short port day (7:30am all ashore to 2:30pm all aboard). I like to use local tour companies when possible, and quickly narrowed our options down to three. After studying the companies' websites and reviews, we decided to go with Victor Bodden Tours. We were traveling with our 20 year old daughter and all three of us are pretty adventurous, and we decided we'd get the most bang for our buck with a private tour.

 

The base price for a private tour varies depending on the number of people in your party, but for the three of us it was $30/person. There is sort of a menu of activities to choose from, each of which includes a description and estimated time commitment. We ended up choosing their monkey and sloth sanctuary, ATVs, and snorkeling at West Bay Beach. They waive the $10 entry fee to the monkey and sloth sanctuary if you book either the ATVs or the ziplining. The charge for the "Mayan Jungle ATV Adventure" was $65. Our original plan was to go to a public part of West Bay Beach and rent snorkel gear, but that isn't how things played out (more on that later). So the starting cost for our day was $95/person, although we knew we'd end up spending more for snorkel gear, a tip for our guide, and possibly lunch.

 

One of the nice things about booking a private tour was that we could start anytime we wanted. We ended up disembarking at 8am because we were anxious to get going. It was very easy to find the Victor Bodden kiosk, which was right outside the port and within the "Town Center" at Coxen Hole. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we were greeted and matched with our guide by Victor himself! As we walked to one of their large, air conditioned vans, our guide told us that he was happy to be assigned to a small, private tour. I've debated about this decision, but I'm not going to mention his name in this review. He wasn't a bad guide, but he did seem to be phoning it in at times. Some examples: He did not introduce himself or ask for our names. I had to initiate that conversation. He also didn't provide much in terms of information/history/etc. unless we asked questions. This is despite the fact that we included the "Photo Opportunities/General Sightseeing" option when we structured our tour. There were no stops for photos between stops at all, and at the time I guess I was too intent on making sure we fit everything in to ask. I'll refer to him as our "driver" from now on. 😄

 

Our first stop was Victor's Monkey & Sloth Sanctuary. This is where we paid for our tour in cash (there was no deposit required ahead of time). We were impressed with this facility. Our driver introduced us to another gentleman who would be our guide at the sanctuary. He was great -- knowledgeable, informative, and patient. We were not rushed through at all and got lots of great photos. Another gentleman handled the sloth portion of the tour. I'm not sure if this is typical, but only the three of us were inside the enclosure for this part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we finished our tour, we joined back up with our driver who took us to the ATV area (on the same property as the sanctuary). I'm not sure whether this is always the case, but it continued to be just the three of us for this part of tour, along with a guide who rode in front and an assistant who rode in the back. It was fantastic having just the three of us in the group because we were able to move pretty fast and didn't have to wait for any stragglers! The description had said we'd been riding for an hour, and that turned out to be accurate. We had a blast and got some fun pics.

 

 

 

 

Our third and final stop was the least defined of the three. I had done some research and knew that we wanted to snorkel from West Bay Beach. I found this link helpful for DIY advice:

 

https://www.uponarriving.com/2016/06/16/snorkeling-west-bay-roatan-honduras/

 

Our driver spent the drive over trying to upsell us on various "better" options, and by the end we were confused about what we actually needed to pay for. He did convince us that we might as well pay for day passes to a beach club so we'd have lounge chairs and an umbrella and access to bathrooms and showers. We ended up paying $15/person for day passes to Paradise Beach. From there, things got a little muddled. Our driver told us he'd get us a great deal on a boat tour that would allow us to see more sea life and include snorkel gear. I wasn't convinced we needed to go out in a boat since the reef is accessible from the beach, but my husband liked the idea. I will say that our driver talked the guy who was selling the boat tours down from $55/person to $15/person -- less than just renting snorkel gear would have cost. So in the end it did work out pretty well.

 

Logistics aside, I have to say that this was some of the best snorkeling we've ever done. The reef off of West Bay Beach is amazing! So vibrant and alive. We didn't see any turtles, rays, sharks, etc., but we did see an unbelievable number and variety of fish and coral. It was simply stunning. My one regret -- and it was my biggest regret from the whole cruise -- is that we had forgotten our underwater camera at home so we weren't able to take pictures. I thought for sure the guide on the boat with us would have one, but he did not. That was such a big miss in my opinion. We would have paid good money to have some photos of our experience!! When we finished snorkeling, we showered off and changed and then hung out on our lounge chairs for 20-25 minutes before heading back to port. We didn't have time for a meal, but there was a little grocery store just a little ways down the beach and were were able to get two beers, two bottles of water, and two small cans of Pringles for $6 USD! Just enough to tide us over until we got back to the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

We had a fantastic day and were back onboard in plenty of time. I would rate the things we did during the tour as a 5 out of 5, and our driver/guide as a 3 out of 5. I would book with Victor Bodden Tours again, but next time I would request a guide who is known for doing a great job with the "Photo Opportunities/General Sightseeing" portion of the tour. I'm not going to reach out to the company regarding our driver because he didn't do a bad job, he just didn't do as good a job as we would have liked. The deal he got us at West Bay Beach more or less offset his deficiencies as a guide, in our opinions.

 

I have one last note, and it's about tipping. I had planned to tip our driver/guide, but there were several other people I hadn't anticipated. In the end, we tipped our driver, the guide at the monkey & sloth sanctuary, the sloth handler, the ATV guide and assistant, and the boat driver/snorkeling guide (who was in the water with us). Luckily we had brought plenty of extra cash, but be warned!

 

https://www.boddentours.com/

[crewsweeper]

Thanks for the review. Sorry your driver wasn't up to your expectations, but glad he made up for it with the West Bay deals.  Good advice on TIPS.

[evanskl4]

Thanks for the detailed review! Still working on finalizing my plans in this port, so it's really helpful. Glad you ended up enjoying the day!

[joepeka]

As others mention, thank you for the detailed review of your excursion with Bodden. We are seriously considering him for our RCI cruise next year. You do mention that you were a bit surprised that there were only the three of you on the tour - in reading Victor's web site and exchanging emails with him, when you book a private tour it's exactly that, private. That aspect certainly appeals to us and it seems it worked well for you as well.

[chloes_mom]

Did the sloth/monkey place feel like a sanctuary or more like a zoo? My daughter doesn’t know if she wants to do it because she’s concerned about the welfare of the animals. 

[RYMOMA]

Thank you for the report. We have booked Bodden for our day in January. My family is less adventurous so it is sloths and monkeys and then the beach. 

[LisaLisa87]

On 12/5/2023 at 1:43 PM, chloes_mom said:

Did the sloth/monkey place feel like a sanctuary or more like a zoo? My daughter doesn’t know if she wants to do it because she’s concerned about the welfare of the animals. 

 

It felt somewhere in between to me, but closer to a sanctuary than a zoo. From what we could tell, the animals were well cared for. The guide who toured with us was knowledgeable and the animals were very comfortable with him. There are a handful of similar places on the island. I've read good things about Daniel Johnson's Monkey and Sloth Hang Out as well, and we may go there during our land trip in February since we've already been to Victor Bodden's sanctuary.

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I'm looking forward to doing a tour with Victor Bodden in a couple of weeks and was also planning on tipping the guide but - if it's not intrusive - can you say roughly how much you ended up tipping everyone? (Still trying to do the math on how much cash we need to bring 😀)

[LisaLisa87]

On 12/20/2023 at 11:03 AM, TJ O'Pootertoot said:

I'm looking forward to doing a tour with Victor Bodden in a couple of weeks and was also planning on tipping the guide but - if it's not intrusive - can you say roughly how much you ended up tipping everyone? (Still trying to do the math on how much cash we need to bring 😀)

 

Hi @TJ O'Pootertoot. Just seeing this. If I remember correctly, we tipped as follows:

 

Driver: $30 (We would have tipped more if he had been a true guide.)

Tour guide at the monkey & sloth sanctuary: $10

Sloth handler: $10

ATV guide and assistant: $10 each

Boat driver/snorkeling guide: $10

[zebe912]

I know your focus was more on access to the water for snorkeling, but were you happy with the resort you ended up using for your day/beach pass?  Do you think you could've just rented snorkel gear and swum out to snorkel from the shore?

[LisaLisa87]

On 1/15/2024 at 4:53 PM, zebe912 said:

I know your focus was more on access to the water for snorkeling, but were you happy with the resort you ended up using for your day/beach pass?  Do you think you could've just rented snorkel gear and swum out to snorkel from the shore?

Yes, we definitely could have done that. In fact, that was our original plan. In our case, I don’t think doing that would have saved us much money. We spent so little time at the beach club that I didn’t really form an opinion. I will say that we’ll be visiting Roatan in a few weeks, staying on a different part of the island, and if we get day passes one day, we’ll probably go to Infinity Bay. 
 

Edited January 24 by LisaLisa87

[AllySunshine]

We are looking at the ATV tour and it says the driver age is 12 and up. How was the trail? Bumpy? I have a 12 year old and I'm not sure about allowing him to drive one himself. 

[LisaLisa87]

21 hours ago, AllySunshine said:

We are looking at the ATV tour and it says the driver age is 12 and up. How was the trail? Bumpy? I have a 12 year old and I'm not sure about allowing him to drive one himself. 

The trail was windy, bumpy, and hilly! I would think your 12 year old might have difficulty unless he has experience riding ATVs.

[CruiseMomTX]

Thank you for the review!