On the fifth day of our Sky Princess Caribbean cruise, we made our third port stop, this time stopping at Roatan, Honduras, yet another port Steve (DOS) and I had not been to before.
The port stop area was actually called Mahogany Bay, which was amazingly clean and modern. We later found out that Carnival had developed this portion of the island for their and sister company cruise ships (Carnival owns Princess, Cunard, Holland America, and Seabourn Cruise Lines, etc among others), and it’s a 20 acre peaceful paradise, similar to a smaller private island. Here is a bird’s eye view of the island as seen from aboard the ship, which we took from the ship’s pool deck dining area once we had returned from touring.
I found this website describing the Mahogany Bay Cruise Port and some of the adventures you can do there. As this port can only dock 2 large ships, it’s not over-run with passengers either. This is one port that you really don’t need to do a shore excursion if you’re just wanting to go to the beach, shopping, have a drink or lunch etc, and we simply enjoyed walking around this beautiful port. Of course for the young and adventurous you can do everything from kayaking, snorkeling, or even zip-lining for an extra cost.
There is also an aerial chairlift (which can be booked online as an excursion, or as a walk-up fare once on the island), that leads to a more distant part of the island where the nice beaches, bars, and some of the tours leave from. We started to do the chairlift, but didn’t only because there was a long line, but on a whim took the nice and paved ground path that basically parallels the chairlift, and ends up at the same beach area. It was a nice walk of 15 minutes or so, and we did this both ways which was quite easy.
The main shopping area is at the port area when you first get off the ship, with a variety of shops ranging jewelry to T-shirt and souvenir shops. Most of the fun food and drink places are located down in the beach area via the chairlift or paved walkway. There is also a nature walk as well highlighting the beautiful flowers and shrubbery. Look out for the beautiful miniature red butterflies! The are hard to get a photo of as they are so quick, but they seemed attracted to the red plants and colorful shrubs.
Here is the full gallery of photos from our stop in beautiful Mahogany Bay (Roatan, Honduras).
We stayed in Mahogany Bay until around 2pm before getting back on the ship. We then had a late lunch on the 15 floor pool deck of the Sky Princess, where we had taken the “bird’s eye” photos at the beginning of this post. Here are a couple more photos taken from aboard the ship overlooking beautiful Mahogany Bay.
That evening was our second and last formal night of this 7 day cruise on the Sky Princess. We had dinner with a nice couple from Canada in the Club Class section of the dining room, and had a wonderful meal, with DOS having the Lobster, and I having the Beef Wellington.
We finished up the night listening to the violinist duet in the Piazza. Tomorrow is our last port day, and we will be in Cozumel. Buenas Noches from the Sky Princess!