Turtle Garden Snorkeling Tour and Island Break

Best day ever! Friendliest tour operator and crew ever, most informative and helpful too. Everything was fun and beautiful.

The snorkeling was really good. I would not recommend this for weak swimmers. It’s pretty deep as far as snorkeling goes and the currents were fairly strong. The reef was beautiful and we saw lots of sea life. The Shark Ray Alley part of the tour wasn’t really what I expected. It was cool. I am glad we went. However, they fed the sharks off the side of the boat, which meant that the sharks were congregating at the boat side. It would have been better if they had come out away from the boat. There were also lots of boats and people from other tour groups in the same area, making the water very murky (not the tour company’s fault). The food at Sip n Dip was awesome! Some of the best we’ve had in Belize. This is called Turtle Garden in the name of the tour. I was hoping to see turtles. We didn’t. 😕

Stacey was a great guide. She knew all about marine life and led a great snorkel excursion. We saw a lot of fish and coral. The lunch was delicious. I highly recommend the ceviche!

Our guide, Pepper, with Tough E Nough, made this our Mexico Rock excursion bring the phrase "UNBelizeable" to reality! It was super fun for our family! To start, he "let" our preteens think they were steering the boat for a few minutes, they loved that! We learned how to follow the pelicans to find bait fish and then watched Pepper throw out a wide net to pull in dozens at a time. The kids helped with the process and felt like great fishermen. We were then given a snorkeling trip of a lifetime! Pepper was so knowledgeable about what we were seeing and would find things to show us that we would have overlooked, turtles, lion fish, lobster, coral, eel, etc. We also went to Sting Ray City and swam with enourmous rays as Pepper threw out the bait fish. It was more thrilling than the nursing sharks because of the fear factor, but Pepper quickly calmed all nerves and seemed to have as much fun showing us the sea life as we were experiencing it. After thinking it couldn't get much better than that and because he had time, Pepper went out of his way to take us to a sea cave because he saw how we loved to dive with our snorkel gear and then to an area where you can swim with huge groupers! He placed some bait in empty conch shells so the groupers and reef fish would swarm. As we got back into the boat we held up the last of our bait fish to hand feed the frigit birds. By the time we got back it felt like we were having to say goodbye to a good friend. Being there at the end of the busy season was awesome!!

This was my second time booking this excursion through Splash Wave while visiting on a cruise. I had an incredible time in Jan 2023 and I think this time was even better! Stacey and Mackenzie are so great at what they do. You can tell their passion for the ocean, sea life, and their industry is genuine in the effort they pour into your trip. Safety is always the priority and the hospitality is just a bonus. Can’t wait to come back!

Let me preface this by saying we had an amazing time on this excursion. However, I booked this excursion SPECIFICALLY because it was called snorkeling at a turtle garden. My husband loves sea turtles and I was so excited for this excursion. I was immediately disappointed to find out sea turtles were hibernating/out of season so we wouldn’t see any. There was no warning of this in any information we received. What we did get to do - snorkel with sting rays and nurse sharks was AMAZING and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We both got to hold the stingray and pet the shark. Snorkeling was very fun with lots to see. Our guide Stacey was great at pointing out fish and telling us about them. Lunch and drinks were good. We were told we had to order before snorkeling so it would be ready when we got there and we still had to wait. Overall - we had an amazing time and didnt let anything ruin our day but have to admit we were very disappointed about the turtles. I would absolutely recommend this tour as it was really fun - just know what you are getting and research the time of year for turtles on your own as they will not tell you ahead of time.

Great snorkeling. Tour guides were good. Too many people on this tour. Would rather pay more to have more space available.

There were 2 stops for snorkelling. The first stop had beautiful coral and fish but the guide wanted the group to keep following her so we spent more time trying to keep up with the group. Would have had a better time if we had been allowed to move more slowly and stay focused on the underwater scenery. Swimming with nurse sharks and stingrays was great and we enjoyed feeding the tarpons. The captain and crew worked very hard to provide a fun experience. Unfortunately, the boat ride from the cruise pier to the reserve was quite long and all the various tours were brought to the same area so snorkelling was quite crowded.

Loved swimming with the sharks and rays as well as stopping at the beautiful Island! Excellent experience at the barrier reef!

Stacey is an amazing guide, we took the tour with her last year and rebooked this year because it was so much fun. I’m sorry I have forgotten our captains name but he was wonderful and felt totally safe on the entire trip and getting in and out of the water. Jerome was nice enough to take my camera and get some good close up pictures for me. The entire experience was worth every penny and I recommend your company to anyone I hear talking about a cruise and to my friends and family. Thank you!!