Gena Steward

Arrived via cruise ship, but I was lucky enough to book Victor Bodden, a taxi driver several months before our cruise victorbodden@yahoo.com. Victor was waiting for us at the dock, Thank God! There were about 200 taxi drivers there and it was very scary. Even with Victor, they were coming up to us trying to find out how much we paid him and said they would do it cheaper, they were actually trying to pull us away.

Roatan is very poor and filthy with garbage lying all over the place. I felt the whole time as if I was being sized up for a robbery as I was walking to Victor’s taxi. Once in the taxi everything was ok. Victor drove us around the island and even showed us where he lived. We went to the West End, to the Mayan Princess Resort, which was beautiful. They had a bar right at the beach. However, the beach had tons of people trying to sell stuff to you, trying to braid your hair and just plain bothering you. By far the peddlers on the beach outnumbered the tourists. There were even armed Roatan Police Officers right on the beach to protect the tourists.

It was Not a place that you could leave your belongings alone or feel safe. If I had it to do over again, I would go to Fantasy Island, a private resort and pay the $12 to go in. The day we were there it was windy on the West End and the seas were very rough we could not snorkel. Other cruise passengers told me that Fantasy Island was great and the water was calm enough to snorkel. There was shopping in the West End but it was expensive much better deals in Cozumel and Belize.

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