Went with the on board ship excursion ( which we really don’t do normally), but wanted to drive the speed boats for the “Boat Blast” and snorkel experience. Honestly the Boat blast was pretty short, I initially registered just myself for the boat blast, but once my wife heard about driving the speed boats we decided to buy 2 boat blast experiences, and since we paid for another individual fare, we expected to get a boat each. BEWARE, it’s 2 to a boat, because they only have a few boats! Once the safety briefing was over they took us to the boats, I got in one, my wife got in a different boat, this created a great deal of confusion, they didn’t know why they were short a boat, then asked my wife why she wasn’t sitting with me in my boat, she said she had purchased a single fare just like I did after finding out what the “Boat Blast” included, this was met with a lot of grumbling, and saying no it’s 2 people per boat. I said well then we will require a different price, as we both bought a “Boat blast package”; no this couldn’t be done, and there was no “manager” around to fix the issue, as all tourist do when in a foreign country, we gave in; my wife and I paired up in one boat, and were off to the snorkeling destination.

Once at the floating dock in the middle of the open ocean, we had to wait for the other boats to dock, new boat drivers didn’t seem too savvy about driving up onto a docking slip, so there was a delay getting all the boats on the dock. Then the snorkel groups were separated into first timers, beginners intermediates and advanced snorkelers. The groups went off in their separate directions; we went in the Advanced group as we are both PADI Advance divers, and snorkel often. The water is shallow, giving rise to a rough snorkel in the ocean, wave wells of 2 – 3 feet were troublesome for some of the “Advanced Snorkeler’s” and they ended up coming in contact with multiple coral formations, requiring first aid once back on the floating dock! At one point in the snorkeling tour, our “guide” asked us to gather around him, he said this was a good place to rest in the center of a large coral formation. He said this as he sat on the coral. As divers, my wife and I were outraged that he would park himself on fragile coral, and tell others to do the same. We began chastising him for sitting on the coral, and he responded with the coral is very hard it won’t break. My wife and I swam away feeling distraught at the carelessness of our guide.

Once back on the beach, our boat guides were very quick to offer us free Beer and local drinks, ensuring I had 2 beer in my hands as soon as they could. I imagine it was nothing to do with our displeasure of our guide sitting on fragile coral.

Once on the beach we decided to stay for a while and unwind on the beach chairs, my wife wandered over to the massage ladies, and they offered her an hour for $35.00. She partook, while I sat and enjoyed the sun. On my first trip to the bar, a nice worker approached me, and struck up a conversation, we chatted for 10 minutes before he said I heard you were disappointed that you only had 1 boat between the 2 of you. He then introduced himself as the “manager”, and asked if he could buy us lunch. We chatted about the protection of our oceans, and he was very surprised that we had “thought” his guides were sitting on coral, we must have been mistaken… But he wanted to buy us lunch and when the 2nd group of boat blast participants came back he would personally take us out to rip around on the boats. Sadly we would not have time, as the last bus left for the pier before the other Boat blast group would return I told him, he did not look surprised.

The beach is beautiful, the beer is cold, and the facilities are very clean. Worth going for the Jungle beach break. I would not do the boat blast and snorkel again, but I would go for the beach.