Reef Rocket in Belize with RCCL

[magbol99]

Has anyone done this excursion? We will be on Grandeur of the Seas and looking at booking with the ship in Belize. It looks like they have removed one of the snorkel options. (originally had a catermaran optionto rendevous Caye) First option now seems to be on the Reef rocket tour that takes you to Rendevous Caye. Tow time leaving from the morning. Other option leaves at mid day and goes to Turneffe atoll. Both tours are in the 3 to 3.5 hour range. Any thoughts on these choices?

[magbol99]

any thoughts?

[CruisinCJ]

Also looking at this excursion.............Can anyone

help us?

 

 

Maybe it is new???

 

Carol

[magbol99]

we went ahead and booked this excursion. We liked the idea of leaving from the ship and going straight to Rendezvous Caye. We did cavetubing a couple of years ago and went into port for that. We decided we would not worry about port this time as we are choosing the later morning option for this excursion.

 

Any more comments about Rendezvous Caye snorkeling are appreciated...

[hockeyboy]

We did this a couple of weeks ago. The Reef Rocket boat was very fun. It seemed very safe. It is fast but not scary. My wife tends to get sea sick and did not on the RR.

 

We didn't go to Rendezvous, we went to Goeff's Caye. Nice little island. Lots of coral and fish. The water was a bit cloudy but others have told me this is unusual.

 

It wasn't the best excursion of all time, but it was fun. Go for it.

 

Mike

[5Mcs]

Just returned from Belize last week. We booked the Reef Rocket excursion while on the RCCL Navigator. The excursion was a huge disappointment! After reading the above post about going to Goff's (Goeff's) Caye rather than Rendezvous Caye we found that they did the same for our trip and not once did they tell us about the diversion. The ride out in the Reef Rocket was fun, but I thought that it would have been much faster. At the island, we met our snorkeling guides. The guides were very serious about safety while snokeling and divided us into beginner and advanced groups taking separate adventures. The equipment, other than a torn flipper and leaky mask, I liked the inflatable life vest (which your required to wear) rather than the life jackets (which would make diving below the surface impossible) that other tours using the same area were required to use. The snorkeling was only about 45 minutes at best and was nothing like snokeling in Hawaii - a lot fewer fish and the coral appeared less colorful, maybe even dirty. After the guided snorkeling tour we were allowed to snokel on our own, but were told we only had 30 minutes to snokel because the Reef Rocket would be returning in 45 minutes to pick us up. Yes, the Reef Rocket dumped us on the island and left us, returning back to the port with an earlier tour group. Another tour operator, that came later and updated us (not our snokel guides) on the status of the Reef Rocket told us that he never leaves his group out on the island but remains with them the whole time. But then our beautiful island became more like Survivor Island. The time that the Reef Rocket was supposed to return came and went. Our tour guides had NO WAY, other than what they were being told by other tour operators what was going on with the Reef Rocket and when it would return to the island. We were supposed to be back at port for the last tender by 4:15pm and to get to the island it was a 25 minute ride. About 2:45pm we were told that the Reef Rocket was on its way back to get us. Then about 3:15 another tour operator told a group of us that the Reef Rocket had broken down. Our snorkel guides, who were trying to sell us food they cooked and jewelry they had made, then began to pack their things in the two small boats they use to to get themselves, the snorkel gear and their items they sell out to the island...I actually thought that they were going to leave us out there. Then at about 4-415pm, a boat appeared on the horizon. Was it the Reef Rocket...nope. But it was a boat that was sent to pickup our group (50-60 people all from the RCCL Navigator). We loaded into the boat, which was not properly outfitted to seat our group, there were no life jackets in sight, nor did we know where they were, if they had any...but who cares, just get us off this island! Then one of the boat's motors did not want to start; they were able to get it running after taking the cover off of it and doing who knows what to it. We were on our way, and it was past the 4:15pm time of the last tender from the port back to the ship. They ended up taking us directly to the ship from the island; arriving at the ship just before 5pm. What a relief it was to get back onboard the Navigator! Talking to two friends we met on the ship about our experience and they on theirs to Turneffe Atoll, if we ever did go to Belize again and take a snokeling tour, we would go with Turneffe Atoll and only morning excursions so we would not have to worry about getting back to the ship on time. We would not recommend or ever go on the Reef Rocket again. Hopefully your experience with it is better than ours was!

Oh yeah...it was homemade Rum Punch and I heard that it was like drinking watered down Kool-Aid.

[sarahjoe]

Thank you so much for your imput. We were deciding between the two excursions--we leave on Monday so glad to have the info before we leave.

[Spicester]

Our Reef Rocket Tour on Independence of the Seas last week was cancelled and in the note that we received in our cabin it said the tour had been "cancelled indefinitely due to technical reasons" so it sounds like they are still having problems with the Reef Rocket. Luckily we were able to book another tour last minute!

[goob007]

Just got back, would totally agree with 5Mcs, reef rocket itself was broken but other boats we were taken out on were unsafe, no current license, small and i mean small island was gross, toilets were broken and flowing into....the snorkeling area......trash overflowing the cans........ Asked for refund from RCL, offered 50%, currently appealing.

[sunandsnow]

Thanks for the recent review. We were seriously considering this tour mainly because of all the concern with getting back and forth with the tenders. I couldn't find very much info about Rendevous Caye. We decided to book with Coral Breeze and now I'm feeling much better about our decision. Thanks again for your info.