Coral Breezes Review

[mariapounce]

We just got back from the western cruise on the Explorer of the Seas. We had signed up for the snorkel tour 5 months ago. The response from Paul was great. When we arrived in Belize, the flag pole was easy to find and we paid the balance of our trip. After a little shopping, we boarded the ship.

There were 61 people all squashed on the boat. We were shoulder to shoulder. Even though we were promised drinking water, they did not provide any. One of the engines on the boat was broken and it took us over an hour to get to the first spot.
The guides were very nice and helpful. They split us up into 2 groups and we never felt bunched in the water. We then got back onto the boat and went to the next stop. The guides threw some bait into the water and told us to jump in. The sharks and stingrays were beautiful. After a few minutes, the sand did get kicked up, but the guides fed and held the stingrays for pictures.
After that stop, we went to lunch. I had read on the website and through posts that they take your order on the boat. This did not happen. We arrived at the restaurant and they provided a small buffet. As soon as we sat down, the guides came by and told us we had 5 minutes to get back on the boat. There were so many people that it took us a long time to get on and off the boat. This put us behind schedule. On the way back, they had fixed the broken engine so we arrived quicker.

Summary
The crew and guides were excellent. They did everything they could to make us have a great experience.

The restaurant food was allright, but misleading.

The boat was very cramped for 61 people and we never did receive any water.

All in all, we had a good time, but would not use this company again.

Hope this helps.
Amy

[stinkyfish]

hi amy, i agree with you about coral breezes. the guides were very nice but the boat was overloaded. i felt like a refugee. we were told we would have at least 3 hours of snorking which turned into 2 stops with about a half an hour at each stop. this was the lowlight of our cruise.

[BobbieSu]

Are they a victim of their own success?

[zcruiseman]

Wow! What a situation. I'm sorry you had that experience. Knowing Paul and the way he handled our tour, I'm sure this is a temporary situation for them (altho' I know that doesn't make your visit better). They have done such an excellent job in the past that it may be, as another post indicated, they are seeing so much success they might be trying to keep everyone happy at the expense of room on the boat. Any investors seeing this? :rolleyes:

One word of advice, though, especially if you travel frequently... don't let this one experience taint your view for the next time. Coral Breeze has a long track record of providing top-notch service. They will no doubt make the adjustment. The only problem here, it seems, is an over-zealous booking of this tour. Which, if we place ourselves in a business frame-of-mind, we can, at least, understand the motive to accommodate all that book the tour. Even in my business it is hard to say, "No!"

While in Italy I had a similar experience. New country, limited italian, and what I thought were reservations that were comfortable. Well, it turns out that we were part of a sardine packing experiment <laughing>, and not comfortable at all! We did get to know those around us, and we are the better for it. Good friendships are made in the tightest of circumstances. Chin up! Our attitude goes a long way in making our experience positive.

If you have contacted Paul of Coral Breeze, I think you'll find that he replies quickly and is genuinely concerned with this type of thing not happening again. Let his professionalism tell you the real story.

Again, sorry to hear your experience turned out the way it did, but there is always next year!

Fellow traveler,

ZCruiseMan

[stinkyfish]

Even in my business it is hard to say, "No!"

hi cruiseman, i hope coral breezes learns to say no to being greedy and overloading their boat. because sooner or later something bad is going to happen and people are gonna die. and your right,theres allways next year, it just wont be with coral breezes. don

[teacup754]

thanks Paul for taking the time to respond to these concerns. I know that in business everything doesn't always go as the "boss" would wish. But wanting to learn from the mistakes so they don't happen again goes a long way in my book.(I'm in the Customer Service division of my company and have to take those kinds of calls all day)
We are booked in december and can hardly wait.I promise to write a review of how four "beginner snorklers" went on tour with Coral breeze.

[crzndeb]

Thanks Paul, there are several of us coming off the Elation on Nov. 25 and I wouldn't let a few bad reviews make me change my mind about your tour. Though I feel bad for the people that had a bad experience, for every bad review, there are 10 good and the reviews on this board are a very small percentage of guests that you have had. I know our crew from Louisiana,Texas, and Washington State are very excited.....see you soon!1

Debbie from Seattle

[Stick10]

I've booked the cave tubing with Coral Breeze for December 1. I used them last year for the snorkeling tour and thought they did a wonderful job. I would recommend them to anybody. One bad experience doesn't mean that is how they will operate business. So anyone new reading this, don't worry about the one bad experience, they are a great outfit. My friend just used them 2 weeks ago and said they were great.
Lisa

[mariapounce]

Paul,
I just sent you an email regarding our trip. As I stated in the email, I did not mean to give you bad press. I just wanted the people on the board to hear about our trip. It sounds like our experience has led to some changes in your organization. I am glad to hear that future excursions will not experience our problems. Again, your staff was fantastic! I hope the people reading these posts will be encouraged by your prompt response to issues. I wish we had been able to enjoy the excursion as much as others, but that is the way it goes. Thanks Amy

[Putterwagner]

I am thinking about booking the snorkel tour with Coral Breezes but my mom does not swim and will stay on board while the rest snorkels. What is the restroom situation on the boat?:o

[ginspicetn]

I just went with Coral Breezes for the ray/shark tour March 9th. The guides were really nice but there were too many people in the group. We saw some sharks when the boat pulled up but they left as soon as the people got in the water. I was really disappointed I didn't get to interact with them. The next stop at the reef was a big disappointment. There were very few fish and the reef looked mostly dead. One of the guides was suppose to be my swim partner but he swam off and left me alone. The rest of the group had gone on ahead about 50 yards away so that left about 3 of us alone. It made me quite nervous. We also had engine trouble so it took 1 1/2 hours to get there. I'm not sure I'd go with them again.

[allsop]

We also went on the March 9 tour. We found positives and negatives about the trip.

I think there were about 25 to 30 people on the tour. The guides tried to break up the group for the Coral Garden part of the trip into 2 groups (I think) but one group was much larger than the other. One was far behind as stated above. We were part of the group that was up front. The major problem with this snorkle site is that the initial part of the reef is too shallow for a "follow the leader" tour. There was a narrow channel wide enough for one or two people to navigate through to get to the deeper part of the reef. The problem is that people at the front would stop to look at the reef and people at the back would have to stop and wait. This ordinarily would not be a problem but there is just enough current to cause you to drift toward the shallow coral heads. We often had to push others others out of the way to keep from drifting into the coral. This wasn't fun and I didn't enjoy it at all. I felt more comfortable in the deeper water but the water wasn't very clear and it made it very difficult to see any fish. We also did not see many fish in the shallow part of the reef.

We liked the stingray portion of the trip okay. The stingrays swim all around you. As stated above there were nurse sharks but they were very skiddish. We hung out around the outside of the main group and we did notice that the nurse sharks did come back but only within 25 to 30 feet. I was a little disappointed as I thought they would have been closer.

I loved Caulker Caye. It is a beautiful island. The main reason we liked it was the fact that it has not seen the development that other tourist areas have. There were not major resorts or hotels. Mostly small houses and restaurants. Very few cars. I think we only saw one. Main transportation seems to be golf cart, bikes, or walking.

As stated above, the main problem we had on this tour was the motor problem. I am still not sure how I would feel about going with Coral Breeze again due to this issue alone. Right now I am 50-50. They did get us back with about 40-45 minutes to spare. They have three motors on the boat. They only use two to run with and the 3rd is a back-up. The crew did have the knowledge to fix the motor using parts from the 3rd motor so that was a definite positive. My main concern is that they were fixing it while we were eating lunch. Would we have made it back to our ship in time if they had been unsuccessful? I'm not so sure. We encountered the motor problem on the way to the tour site and it appeared that nothing was really done until we had spent a lot of time at the two snorkling sites. I would have felt more comfortable knowing that they had another boat on the way to meet us or if they had fixed the boat before going to the snorkle sites.

Overall, we thought the coral breeze representatives were extremely friendly and knowledgeable. They need to break the group into smaller sub-groups at the snorkle site. They need to address their motor problems as I had heard they had this problem last year. Caulker Caye was beautiful. The price was pretty good compared to ship excursions. If I had to do over I probably would take a water taxi to Caulker Caye and check out one of the local dive operators on the island. Then take a water taxi back.

[allsop]

Paul,

I didn't realize you had a backup boat already located on Caulker Caye. The reason I stated that I was 50-50 due to the motor problems was that I didn't really know all that was going on behind the scenes. I would say that many people were anxious about the motor having problems and next time it would be best to let people on the tour know that there is a boat on Caulker Caye that is available if necessary. That would help remove any questions about how long a back up boat would take to get there.

I didn't think the boat was extremely crowded. It did seem pretty full and I can't imagine it carrying 65 people unless I counted the number in our group wrong. It only really seemed crowded in the water to me.

Knowing that there was a backup boat in both Caulker Caye and in Belize City I would probably have no problem using Coral Breeze again.

[kidfanz]

Paul,
I notice one sometimes repeating complaint of this tour is the Coral Gardens part. Coral being dead,too shallow, current swift, single file snorkeling, not much to see in the way of fish... Ususally the sting ray part seems to be more of a hit. I'm wondering if there might not be a better spot for snorkeling where some of those complaints might disappear. Not being familiar with Belize, I personally don't know of another spot, but I would think there might be a better place. Or...What about just staying longer with the stingrays? Just a suggestion.