hi, are cruise ship days set days (eg tues and thurs) or could they be any day?
we'll be there for a week in april and are hoping to avoid the crowds as much as possible.
how many days a week might cruise ships come in?
i understand that certain services' (eg taxis) prices go up on cruise ship days, what do you suggest we do to avoid the crowds but also not pay a lot extra.
thanks
jen
Cruise ships come in and out of Roatan with no rhyme or reason. It's entirely based on the ships' schedules.
Just stay out of Coxen Hole, and you'll probably not have a problem. Most of the ships are in by 7-8AM, and gone by 5pm anyway.
It really depends when you're going. We visited Roatán in August 2006 and they only docked on Wednesdays. We heard a lot of complaints by fellow travelers about how West Bay Beach and West End were packed and they weren't allowed to do certain things (Gumbalina Park maybe?) and taxi prices were higher. It didn't affect us because we were renting a little place in the Sandy Bay area but we were glad to know which days to do what.
August is a light month for cruises, likely just 1/week. Some months have many times that so they likely dock additional days. The schedule website we used doesn't work anymore - you have to become a member now and the great one we're using for Belize (avoiding the zoo and Lamanai ruins on cruise ship days) is pdf from the Belize tourism site and doesn't link to other ports. Keep searching - hopefully you'll come up with something.
I was there from Wednesday (evening) to Saturday and never saw one...I honestly didn't even realize ships came there.