I did my research before booking this 4 hour snorkeling and lunch excursion and my expectations were high, unfortunately too high. The directions said to take a cab to the Sugar Bay Resort and arrive 30 mins prior to 12pm departure. They advised me that the cab ride should be $10 each way and about a 15 min ride. FYI - the cab ride is $10 PER PERSON! This was not made clear to me. The cab dropped us at the lobby of the resort where we were told to wait for the resort shuttle to take us down to the watersports gazebo. Well it took almost 15 mins for the shuttle guy to show up. When we walked up to the lady from our excursion she said to us "Oh you must be on Island Time!" in a snarky manner. I quickly advised that we were there at 11:30 waiting at the top of the resort to be brought down to the meeting spot. It appeared we were the last people to arrive at 11:45.
We then had to take our shoes off and get into a small inflatable dingy boat that took us out to the catamaran. We hopped on and the boat left right away. There was the captain (can't remember his name) and a 1st mate named Michael. It was about a 45 min ride to the beach area. When we arrived we were told that you can't have any rum punch until after we are done snorkeling, which was fine with me but it's not clearly stated on their website. They do not provide life jackets, only Noodles. So if you aren't a swimmer I'm not sure this is the right excursion for you. The area is pretty big and all they tell you is to " go over that way for the fish and stay this way for the turtles and sting rays". Well no one saw any turtles or sting rays. To be honest, you shouldn't book this trip for that reason only. Go to Cayman Islands to see those animals. I saw some different fish but that was it. We were allowed about 45 mins to explore the water. My mother in law had to take the dingy boat to the beach area and hang out as she doesn't know how to swim. Once we were called back on the boat we were offered rum punch/pain killers to sip on while they set up the lunch for us. The lunch was ok, lunch meats, cheeses, fresh bread with potato salad and pasta salad. After everyone was done eating, they cleaned up and we headed back to the resort. During the whole trip, the captain nor 1st mate were very friendly or talkative. The only interesting thing that the 1st mate pointed out was Kenny Chesney's house at the top of the mountain when we arrived at the beach/snorkeling area and he only told us that were sitting up front. Also if you are looking for the "sailing" experience look elsewhere since they only used the sails for a short while and the motor the rest of the time.
Once we arrived back at the resort it was 4pm. I had advised our taxi driver to pick us up at 4pm so we were a little anxious to get off the boat. While the 1st mate was getting the shoe bucket in the dingy and preparing to start trips to the beach he looked at us and said " Just Chillax, it's going to be a few mins" He could have taken us 3 with the bucket of shoes but instead he was rude to us.
Overall I think this trip is way overpriced. $105pp for that is ridiculous. All the other excursions that I looked into for a similar trip that had great reviews but didn't serve lunch were about $55-$70 pp. Their lunch is not worth $40! My advice is to go with another company as they did nothing but make us feel like we were putting them out and they just wanted their $$$. Never again. read more