AIDA Caribbean 2018 · Page 5

After another sea day we reached Roatán in Honduras. Here we had already booked a tour with Conny and Jörg in advance.

First thing in the morning Conny welcomed us outside the port, and less than 10 minutes later our group was complete. The first stop was the sloth rescue centre.

What a great feeling to be allowed to touch a sloth. The centre pays close attention to the animals' welfare, and all income is invested in protecting them.

After an hour we drove to an iguana farm (Arch's Iguana and Marine Park). This too is a farm for protecting the animals. In Honduras iguanas are considered a delicacy, but eating them is prohibited. At the roadside you occasionally see young men armed with catapults and sticks, marching around looking upwards and trying to get the animals out of the trees. The admission fee of 10 dollars per person goes entirely towards caring for the animals and maintaining the park.

The animals roam freely all over the farm, and you really have to be careful not to tread on one by accident.

We continued in the small bus across the island towards West End, Roatán's dream beach. We made various stops along the way, and Peter told us a lot about the island.

As we were on Roatán on 24 December, a Christmas tree couldn't be missing.

After a small lunch, we took the boat (3 dollars per person) to West Bay Beach for a swim.

We can recommend this excursion without hesitation. There were nine of us, and the tour itself only cost 59 dollars per person. Conny and Peter emigrated to Roatán in 2011 and today offer various tours on the island.

You can reach them on +50496315483 and via the website https://www.justfloatroatan.com. After swimming, the bus took us back to the ship, and our 8-hour tour was sadly over.

The nice thing about the tour was that we could change the itinerary along the way.

Back on the ship we found little Christmas presents from AIDA in our cabin, dutifully guarded by our two cabin mates.

The next morning we reached Belize, where we had also booked a tour online in advance. The agency had sent us all the information by email, and we were supposed to meet at Terminal 1 at 11 a.m. for the "Swimming with rays" tour. Unfortunately nobody from the agency was there at 11 a.m., and a call to the agency (made by a friendly port employee) revealed that the tour had been brought forward by an hour without us being informed – neither by phone nor by email.

So you should think carefully about whether this provider, Belize Exotic Adventures / www.discoverbelize.bz, is the right one.

We sweetened the time with "drinks".