Belize

For our stop in Belize on our Viking cruise, we did something a little different. Instead of doing the included tour to a Mayan ruin, we did an optional snorkeling tour.

On this stop you don’t dock directly at the port. There is a reef so you dock away from the land and have to take tender boats to the port. For our snorkeling trip our boat came and got us from the ship and took us to our snorkeling spot.

The snorkeling was guided. We were split into two groups- beginners and advanced. I’ve snorkeled before but it has been a few years so I went with the beginners. The husband swims for exercise all the time with snorkel gear on so he went advanced.

I had borrowed a go pro with an underwater housing but it was a finicky beast. I managed to get some video but missed all the good stuff. I did see some rays and some barracudas. There were lots of blue tangs and other small fish too.

It wasn’t the best snorkeling spot ever but it was fun.

After about an hour we went back to the boat. We zoomed right past our ship. Apparently we had to go to the cruise dock. It was an actual Exit Through the Gift Shop moment.

The problem was that it was a Sunday morning, we were the only ship docked that day, and Viking ships are small. The people who run the stores in the port did the math and must have all decided to sleep in. There was a few souvenir stores open and a couple of drink stands. That was it.

The restrooms also had this fine announcement. I had never really considered this option before but now it is in my head. What had to be going on to make this sign necessary?

There didn’t appear to be anywhere you could walk to from the port. That’s a major disadvantage of ocean cruising. You don’t know how long one excursion is going to take you so you can’t plan anything else. You can’t just wander around most of the time. With nothing else to do, we just went back to the ship. It was a shame. I’ve always wanted to visit Belize and I don’t really feel like I saw anything.

We did see a dolphin on the way back along side the tender boat. That was cool.