labor of love trip report - pics added

Well we can try and tweak it a little next time although personally I didn't see that cruise as being much different from any of the others.

That said some of the suggestions are impractical and I wont be able to change them

No can do. It's not a matter of cost, in fact it would be cheaper. Temptation wont allow us to use their dock (and have also told neighbouring hotels not to let us use their docks too) and I wont use Temptation boats due to their pricing and general attitude to business.

The Ents staff really dont do much other than hand out the drinks and try to encourage people to enjoy themselves, they certainly dont stop you 'doing your own thing'. I really dont see what the issue is here. The boat does needs a certain number of staff to both operate the boat and provide a certain ratio of staff:guests for safety reasons. I suppose we could tell them all to go sit in the cabin and we could serve our own drinks!

We always do snorkeling. I dont see the big deal about waiting while those who like snorkeling do what they enjoy. On the labor of love cruise of the 45 people around 30 snorkeled and a few others swam - why should we prevent them? We'd only be on the boat somewhere else anyway. The drinks are still flowing, the music is still on and the sun is still shining. I think it must be another cruise where snorkelers have been dropped off with another boat, never on ours.

We are always one of the first boats to arrive at the restaurant and most of the time we have eaten and left before the next boat gets in. We get there at 12, people want to eat lunch at lunch time not at 10:30am. Sometimes another boat does arrive early, but we cant tell other boats what time to get there nor can we dictate to the restaurant who to allow and when. We have to realise that the restuarant is someones full time business, not just a place that opens up once or twice a month when our booze cruise runs.

The shark thing (mentioned elsewhere) is no biggie either. I mean you have to walk past the damn thing to get to the restuarant since it's on the same pontoon. If people dont want to do it (and some always do) then just walk on straight past it, that's what I always do. It's not worth fretting over.

The sound system was better this time (it didnt help in May when one of the guests turned the volume up so much it blew the speaker). Short of buying a new one and installing it myself then there's not much more I can do than asking them to upgrade it, which I do repeatedly.

I always think that the cruises are geared to everyone as fairly as they can be and that is what I aim for. Sure, different people enjoy different aspects - but I'm not going to stop people from snorkeling who want to, not going to stop people swimming with the shark who want to, going shopping who want to and not going to force people to eat lunch at 10:30 in the morning.

The cruises have been going for about 4 years now with over 2000 people taking part, I think I can count the number of justified complaints on one hand.