Roatan Shore Excursion: West Island Tour

First, the tour was described as lasting several hours, around four if I'm not wrong, but we were back about two hours after the tour started. We chose to have the tour in Spanish when I made the reservations, as most of the people in my group don't speak english. However, our guide Guillermo hardly spoke spanish, but that wasn't the worst part, I could have lived and could've understood a tour in English, if at least he spoke at all. He remained quiet unless you asked for information about which area he was driving us through and tidbits about Roatan. I suppose that the job of a guide is to inform you about the place that you are visiting, not only speak when a question is asked. Besides, the tour description in the voucher we got after paying for the tour stated that it included snacks, but he didn't even offer us a bag of peanuts, zilch. Lastly, he only took is to the top of a hill off a beaten road with about 5 shacks selling souvenirs it could hardly be called a vibrant local market as the tour describes, and with a panoramic view of the bay where the cruise was docked. Then we stopped at a little sanctuary with a few monkeys, birds and deers which was very small but it was the highlight of the trip as it was enjoyable. Then he drove by the beach, which is among fishing boats and nobody else was bathing there, so we decided to skip the beach and continue the tour, but continue the tour meant that he drove us back to the ship. At least I can thank him that he did stop en route to the port at a gas station so I could buy some medication, but we were there not over five minutes, so it isn't as if that consumed the rest of the tour. When he asked what else we would do as we were going back to the ship, I asked if he could show us more of the island and he said that it would cost more because the tour was finished. I'm highly suspicious that the stop at the beach would not have lasted 2 hours for it to justify how in half of the time we were already back at the cruise terminal. So, we paid 55 for a 2 hours tour of a stop at the top of a hill, a stop at the monkey sanctuary, see the beach where the fishermen harbor their boats and be back at the ship. I swear he didn't take us anywhere else, or took us on any kind of scenic tour and didn't even offer any relevant information of Roatan. I don't want to affect his means of earning a living, but he should learn more about being a tour guide and obtain more information about his island. His work was subpar.

I was a little perturbed at first because the folks at Sun Splash Tours did not bother to respond to my email requesting information. However, our ship was 3 hours late pulling into port and the gentleman representing Sun Splash Tours was waiting to meet us as promised. Our guide was an elderly gentleman who was very friendly and knowledgeable. His van had A/C and it worked fairly well so that was a big plus for us. He explained a lot about the area and its people and he took us to monkey preserve and a chocolate factory. It was well worth the 55 price of the excursion and we would recommend this excursion through Viator to anyone pulling into port at Roatan. I don't know how much we saved since the cruise ship did not offer this excursion but I'm betting it was a bundle. My wife took all the pictures with her phone so I don't have them but its a beautiful place to visit and we really enjoyed holding the sloth.

Absolutely fantastic!!

We had a great time. The Butterfly Garden was closed, so James our guide took us to Bodden's Monkey business. This smaller group tour is just so superior to those 30 person tours the cruise ships arrange.