Bioluminescent Bay Night Kayak Experience

One in a lifetime opportunity! Amazing! The transportation from our hotel was great. The kayak guides were knowledgeable, helpful, and patient. Great experience for all ages and levels. We are not an adventurous family but this was great even for us. You have to do this tour! Do not miss out.

This was one of the most disorganized tours I've ever been on. While the booking through Viator went fine, and the pickup/drive by Joel was flawless, the actual kayaking (Viator booked it through Eco Action) was ridiculous. There were too many kayakers in our group (26 + 4 guides)...and at least 4 groups from multiple companies out at one time (so more than 100 kayaks). There was almost zero instruction for those who had never been in a kayak (they were really bad at controlling their kayaks and didn’t seem to know their right from their left) and many of the small lights on the kayaks went out making those kayaks impossible to see in the dark. On the way back from the laguna, we saw another kayak flip after being pushed into the side of the canal (hard to believe, but true). When we got back to the starting point, it was even more chaotic as the next groups were going out and there seemed to be no instruction or guidance. We were warned before going on the trip that the bioluminescent was very low....and it was. When we got to the laguna, the guides gave us a tarp to put over the kayaks so that we could see the sparkles, but gave almost no explanation beforehand...so we were sitting in our kayaks in the laguna waiting and wondering....it felt like they had zero training before leading this trip. For that, I blame the company as much as the guides themselves. It would have been nice to know that we were going to wait around in the kayaking company area for more than an hour before the tour started...and that the men’s bathrooms had no working toilets. On the positive side, our driver Joel was great and kayaking at night is actually pretty amazing when you're not playing bumper boats with a hundred other kayaks. Perhaps groups should be split into experienced kayakers and first-timers....or maybe the beginners should have a lesson first. And maybe if the dinoflagellates had been glowing more, it would have been worth the more than two hours of chaos.

Fabulous, knowledgable guides. Great experience! (Since there are SO many groups going at once, it might be an idea to divide folks into experienced and inexperienced kayakers to make things run smoothly, but really this isn't a complaint). The bioluminescence was beautiful and the kayaking was super chill through the mangroves. A big highlight on our trip!