Excursão de snorkel de dia inteiro Catalina Island de Punta Cana

I hate that I wasted an entire day on this. I’m sure there are good snorkeling excursions to Catalina Island, but this is not one of them. The boat was dirty and ill equipped. They gave everyone a life jacket, but more than half were broken and would be useless if there was an actual emergency. There was not enough snorkeling equipment for everyone on board to snorkel at one time, nor was it sanitized. I was one of the last people to get in the water and had to wait for a pair of goggles. That’s all I was offered. I jumped in for a couple minutes, but it was chaos. The “guides” on the boat were throwing bread in the water, so hundreds of striped fish were swarming one small area. We were told to stay near the boat. There was no communication other than that. There were people on our boat that paid for a SCUBA excursion. They were given equipment, but no instruction. They did at least have a guide in the water with them. No one in my family enjoyed the lunch buffet or the drinks. The bar has rum, sangria, off brand coke and sprite, and dirty plastic cups that they reuse. That’s it. If you’re looking to snorkel or SCUBA I would recommend you look elsewhere.

The drive there and back was very disorganized, to start with the bus seats were really small, probably 25 seats on the bus with very little room for any backpacks and to top it off on one of the first speed bumps our seat broke from underneath us and it’s not because we’re fat. We were definitely not the biggest people on the bus. Good thing there was another spot to sit, and no one needed to stand. The seat was fixed for the ride home. In both directions we made a stop to drop off some passengers and pick up other passengers at a gas station. On the way there there was also a stop at a roadside place to get snacks and beverages. I do understand we are in a Spanish-speaking country, but I have been on several other tours where there is more effort made to accommodate other languages. For the most part, we made do by just following the crowd and other travellers helped with some direction. Once we got to the marina, it all went pretty good signing in and getting ready to go. However, the boat was huge and there must have been 100 people making any loading and unloading very time-consuming. The ride to the snorkel location was about 20 to 30 minutes, be prepared to get sprayed with sea water. The whole area around Catalina island is extremely beautiful. The water is clear and calm and now it was time to snorkel. We have been on many other snorkelling adventures and have all our own equipment but this cruise we made the disision to leaving our swim fins behind to save space, this turned out to be both good and bad as they probably wouldn’t have been any room on the bus for our fins, that’s when we found out the cruise only supplies masks and snorkels. I wish I did more homework at the beginning, and I brought my own swim fins. The word snorkelling is in the description for the activity but they only supplied 1/2 the equipment. The actual snorkelling part of the day almost felt like it was an afterthought. There was no wall or any real sense of special location, and our time in the water seemed very short, again because of the volume of people on the boat and the time it took everybody to get fitted with their life vest. When we got to the island, we had to use a smaller speedboat to shuttle everybody back-and-forth from the catamaran and that all took a long time, by the time we were on the speedboat we were the last group and they put everybody left on the boat. It was way overloaded. People standing sitting on the edge wherever they could find a spot the water was shallow so it’s not like if we did tip over it would’ve been a problem, but it was way too full. Catalina Island is extremely beautiful, soft white sand and beautifully coloured waters. This is when we had lunch. The lunch was very good. However, there wasn’t enough food. We were among the last group to get to the buffet and we all had a small plate of food, but there was definitely no leftovers for a second helping so we ended up staying hungry for the rest of the day. The booze was flowing at the bar and it was a lot of fun, a good atmosphere and the staff on the boat and on the island we’re all extremely friendly and did the best they could. When the party started on the island, my wife and I took the opportunity to do some more snorkelling in the swimming area. We really enjoyed that and we saw lots of fish thanks to my wife bringing a bun to feed them. We had more fun snorkelling in the swimming area than the special designated snorkelling spot that we supposedly stopped at. The bus ride back to the hotel got off on a bad start. It was like we forgot somebody on the island and if that’s the case, it wouldn’t surprise me because there was a lot of drunk people and no one doing any kind of headcount when we got on and off the boat only the drivers back on the mainland knew how many people he was supposed to have. If you are planning to take this tour for the snorkelling I would make other plans. It was more of a party boat with a little bit of snorkelling thrown in, even though there is no booze or food on the catamaran. I also want to point out for people with any mobility issues. It was really challenging for some people to get from the catamaran to the speedboat when they were both floating up and down and also the ladder to get on the boat from the snorkelling was only slippery round tubes that really hurt your feet. If you’re somebody with mobility issues, you should probably think of a different place. In summary, the people were very friendly and did everything they could to make sure everyone had a good time. The snorkelling was very disappointing.

The Catalina Island excursion is an unforgettable experience, the beach is a paradise, the entertainers and the tour staff are great, they guide you around the underwater world snorkeling surrounded by colorful fish, starfish and corals. The boat ride is back to fun between dancing and animation. All highly recommended!