Ours was a truly last minute reservation. We took a chance. The employee taking the call was, however, quite helpful in seeing what tours had last minute openings. The only thing he had was the miniboat tour with snorkeling which I took. Then he carefully discussed specific concerns about the anticipated weather thoday and disclosed that all or part of the tour could be canceled. He then described how they would handle the various possibilities, which I accepted. He then went over a number of medical guidelines and said he would be emailing the standard waiver to be, which he did. Fair disclosure: it's just a well written guide of what to expect and why certain people with specific medical issues should not do this. No surprises.
When we arrived, we got the standard training, life vest fitting and snorkel gear.
Then we met Mateo, our guide for the day. He could just as easily be a motivational speaker as a boat tour guide. He was engaging and eased any anxiety anyone might have. He did the final instructions, asked for questions, and got us ready to go.
These are real boats and they can go really fast. The sea state was pretty choppy with some legit swells. He was quite sure it was fine to visit all the islands but wasn't so sure about any coral reef snorkeling.
We went and checked the sites in the boats. I've done a lot of diving in the past. These were not conditions to put amateur divers or snorkelers into on a leisure tour. I cannot fault the decision Mateo made to take us to an extended visit on an island instead of open water snorkeling. Though disappointing, it was the only right call to make.
The island was nice, had a great mix of private boats, tour groups, college kids, families, etc. After the extended visit, we returned back to Puerto Chico.
Weather is what weather is. We were fully advised we might not get good snorkeling, but we still got a good trip.
San Juan might have Ubers everywhere; Fajardo does not. Mateo made sure we had a ride to get safely back to our place.
Bottom line: this was a solid professionally operated tour which had some imperfect weather with a tour guide who still made it really good.
