The ROAMies Podcast

Belize Adventures: Chocolate Farm Excursions & Secret Waterfalls

• The ROAMies • Season 7 • Episode 252

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Love chocolate? Join us on a Belize adventure where you'll discover the magic of a chocolate farm excursion and the hidden beauty of secret waterfalls. Learn how this delicious journey connects culture, nature, and pure indulgence. 

Ever wondered what it's like to grind your own chocolate on a centuries-old Mayan stone or snorkel alongside harmless sharks off a private Caribbean island? Join us as we dive into our adventures with Captain Jak's excursions in Placencia, Belize!

We take you behind the scenes of this remarkable tour company headquartered at Sirenian Bay Resort, sharing the touching story of how the original Captain Jack's legacy lives on through his friend, who purchased the business after Jack's passing. From there, we journey through lush jungles to experience a traditional chocolate farm where we learned about cacao cultivation, tasted the surprisingly delicious fruit surrounding cacao beans, and participated in the ancient art of chocolate-making using techniques passed down through generations.

Our adventures continue at a hidden three-tiered waterfall system that felt plucked straight from a movie set. Picture this: crystal-clear pools perfect for cliff jumping, tiny fish providing natural "spa treatments" by nibbling dead skin cells from your feet, and refreshing swims surrounded by pristine jungle. As if that wasn't enough, we recount our unforgettable catamaran journey to Moho Key, a private island where we snorkeled through vibrant coral reefs, encountered docile nurse sharks and stingrays, and enjoyed fresh-grilled meals on a picture-perfect beach.

What makes Captain Jak's truly special is their commitment to personalized experiences – whether you're seeking adventure, romance, or cultural immersion, they craft bespoke excursions tailored to your desires. We also share insider tips about visiting Belize during May's shoulder season, when you can enjoy summer weather without the winter crowds.

Subscribe now to hear more about our Belizean adventures, including our upcoming episode featuring the remarkable Sirenian Bay Resort, where we stayed throughout our journey!

Please support our show by shopping through Eagle Creek: https://alnk.to/gVNDI6N  and/or feel free to donate to:
http://paypal.me/TheROAMies 

And it means the world to us when you subscribe, rate and share our podcast.

Alexa and Rory
The ROAMies

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Meet The ROAMies: Musical Duo

Speaker 1

This transcript was automatically created and has not be read or edited by our team. Hi, I'm Alexa, and I'm Rory, and together we are the ROAMies. We are married to each other. Right?, We are a touring musical duo.

Speaker 2

And our music has taken us to all kinds of places all around the world and keeps us always on the go.

Speaker 1

So we hope you enjoy our stories and adventures while running around working to keep all your plates spinning.

Speaker 2

And we hope, to facilitate your busy lifestyle and feed your inner travel bug.

Speaker 1

Today we will be discussing our adventures in Plasencia, belize.

Speaker 2

Adventure Loving this adventure with you.

Speaker 1

Oh nice, that sounds like a song. Maybe you wrote I sure did, yes, an alexa james song it went a while like out of tune for a second. But yeah, but you can find the actual recording somewhere.

Speaker 2

I don't know that you can oh one day we'll do it live again, though okay, well, you can look online.

Speaker 1

What's it called?

Speaker 2

adventure with Adventure.

Speaker 1

With you. So look for Alexa James. Adventure With you on all your local music hotspots online.

Speaker 2

That's right. Speaking of adventure, Rory.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

Let's dive into Captain Jack's.

Speaker 1

I like how you did that Dive, Because on our adventure we had opportunities to dive.

Speaker 2

And there are so A number of opportunities to dive and there are so many A number of opportunities to dive. With Captain Jacks.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

As we mentioned, we are diving in to our excursions and experiences that we had in Placentia, belize, this month, and so last week we talked about getting to Belize, the culture, the currency, all of that stuff, and so we talked about how we stayed in Serenian Bay, at Serenian Bay Resort and Villas. Super great.

Speaker 1

Captain Jack's is headquartered at Serenian Bay. They have locations all over the peninsula, but they're headquartered right there at Ser're staying there and we did all of our excursions with them. It was just amazing and so convenient. Now Captain Jack started years ago. Super cool story behind there Taking fishing trips out, and they eventually spread to doing other things, expanded to doing other things and when Brian, who's the owner of Serenian Bay, which you're going to meet next week.

Speaker 1

Yep. When he moved to Belize he met Captain Jack and they became good friends. And then Captain Jack passed due to cancer, and when he did, his good friend Brian bought the business from his wife.

Speaker 2

Yes, and so now Captain Jack's Keeping on the whole spirit of what's going on, captain.

Speaker 1

Jack's lives on, and they have expanded expanded even to more things that we'll talk about today, and we did one of those more things that is brand new. As a matter of fact, it hasn't yet been what's the word. The curtain hasn't risen on it yet, right?

Speaker 2

But let's get to that in a minute. Yeah, in a minute We'll open the curtain. I'm just seeding the excitement. Yes, yes, it's very exciting. So now it used to be fishing, right, like Rory said.

Speaker 1

But now they have over 50 excursions that they can offer.

Speaker 2

So I'm going to share just a couple of them. They have diving and so you can do Pompey and Kai, Okay, but Key sorry.

Speaker 1

Well, and when she says diving, she means like scuba and free diving, not like diving off a diving board. Though I'm sure they have cliffs, you can dive off of as well. Right, I think people probably understood the context. These are diving trips.

Captain Jack's: 50+ Excursions in Belize

Speaker 2

Well, not because we talked about diving in earlier, but now we're going to talk about the keys, rory, and a key is spelled C-A-Y-E and it's like a mini island. But it's like not an island, but it's an island, but it's a key, is it a?

Speaker 1

group of islands. No, I guess it is an island. No, it's just its own little island. See, it shows what I know. But they call them keys.

Speaker 2

I read the definition of it, but I'm not explaining it well, but anyway. So a key is basically an island, but it's not an island because it's a key C-A-Y-E, like C-A-Y-E, c-a-y-e, but it's pronounced key. So they go to the Silk Key, the Laughing Bird Key, so they have like different keys that they go to, but they also go to the Great Blue.

Speaker 1

Hole. All right, everyone take the opportunity to look at your screens on YouTube now or wherever you're watching this.

Speaker 2

If you're watching on YouTube, you can see the Blue Hole and you see the Blue Hole that is amazing. I didn't know about that until the end of our thing, so we have to go to that.

Speaker 1

Again, me being way cooler than you. I knew about it, but still.

Speaker 2

I know because you are cooler than me. They also have scuba, so they have all kinds of scuba and they have the courses.

Speaker 1

So you can get certified. You can become certified, yeah.

Speaker 2

And Serenian Bay has a pool that they work on.

Speaker 1

Specifically to train you in. You can do your lessons for you. Very cool.

Speaker 2

So you can do it all there and then go off on all your adventures from there Snorkeling at different keys. They also have fishing, which? We said earlier yeah, from day one, right, Okay. Then there's land tours, and so I didn't know about this one either, or would have like jumped at it, but they have a spice tour Like visit. I didn't know about this one either. I would have like jumped at it, but they have a spice tour like visit a farm.

Speaker 1

We heard about that. It was cool, though we did not get to do it.

Speaker 2

I wanted to go, but you can do the monkey river and manatee watch. They have cave tubing. They have a Jaguar reserve in Belize and they can take you there.

Speaker 1

And so that's super cool. Yeah, we were told of people swimming with the manatees and two people that we met there and became friends with they had swam, swam, swimed, swam swim swim, swim. I don't know. They swam with the manatees and how cool is that. So when you're on that river with the monkeys, that monkey river tour. You can swim with the manatees too.

Speaker 2

The sea cows, as they call them. They have a sunset, lagoon, sail and stuff like that. So there's like a bunch of stuff, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah, okay, bunch of stuff, 50 plus excursions, all right Now.

Speaker 2

We did not. We were only there a short time.

Speaker 1

We did not be there for 50.

Speaker 2

We couldn't do all 50. But we did do a few.

Chocolate Farm & Mayan Cacao Experience

Speaker 1

So we're going to tell you about those. One of them was the chocolate farm and waterfall tour.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that was cool, okay, y'all. So I'm all about chocolate. It's one of the food. I am a certified holistic nutritionist and so I think that there is a food group that is chocolate food group. Saying that that's a food group, okay, okay. So we got to go to the chocolate making process, like the Mayan inspired chocolate making that takes place at their cacao farm.

Speaker 2

Yes, so we started out in the farm. So let's back up just real quick. We got a van tour. Captain Jack's just picked us up at our resort. They knew where we were staying. It was all coordinated for us.

Speaker 1

We just show up.

Speaker 2

Walked out the road, there they were takes us there and we meet people who they had picked up from their other where they were staying and we all drove and went to.

Speaker 1

We started out at the farm and our guide was so awesome the farmer that spoke yeah, he was a little guy, he was super cute I loved him and brilliant nutritionist oh, oh man, this guy was like a scientist.

Speaker 2

He was spouting off all of these benefits of chocolate Like there's a Ghislaine of them, but he's like and it must be the good chocolate, it must be organic.

Speaker 2

And 50% or more, no 60% or more, 60% or more, that's right, and so it's got to be dark chocolate, the organic kind, and it's got to be good and clean, and then it's going to give you all of these health benefits. And so I love that he dove into that, because it just makes it like, hey, this is a practical thing and this is where you can get it right here at our farm, going to the, to what they call a cacao farm, I was expecting, like in my head, rows of trees like we see in an orchard.

Speaker 1

It's nothing like that. These, these cacao trees are native to the country, right, they grew up wild in places and so there's kind of like bunches. Yeah, they're just what would you call it like a grove? A grove yeah, thank you, that's what I was searching for.

Speaker 2

A grove of these cacao trees yeah, it's really cool we didn't walk through this ginormous farm no we, we kind of pulled up there in the forest right there uh where, and so it wasn't a big walk around. It was a nice covered experience and his presentation was awesome. He took he took a few of the fruits from the trees showed us the different fruits from.

Speaker 1

They're beautiful the colors are ridiculous the different stages of the cacao beans he took some out that were harvested, some that were ripe, and then he takes a machete and he cut one open for us. And when he opens it it's strange. The cacao chocolate is made from the seeds and so when you cut it open, there's all this meat to the fruit that you don't eat, but inside the seeds are contained in these mushy meat stuff.

Speaker 2

Mushy meat stuff white things and you look at it, you're like it looks kind of gross.

Speaker 1

And so he's like all right, I want you guys to do something. So he took, took one, uh, he took them off, several of them and passed it around and we each and he said, I want you to put them in your mouth and don't eat it. Just, you know, suck on it. It was like uh sucking a mango yeah, but or yeah, it tasted like mango. Uh, cross between a mango and those super sour candies but like sweet version of it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, it was that all mixed.

Speaker 1

That's what I'm saying. It was that all mixed together. It was so good. Everyone asked him to pass around again, so we all right yeah, I'll did another one.

Speaker 2

You didn't know, but y'all actually love the part around the cacao bean yeah, it's just, you don't ever get to have it, unless you go on this farm tour and we didn't. We didn't eat the seeds, we spit them back out right and the reason that we don't eat them in daily life.

Speaker 2

The mushy meat part yeah because that is what god uses when they ferment the beans, when they're making chocolate, uh-. When they ferment the beans, when they're making chocolate, uh-huh, they ferment the beans, and so this mushy stuff is what ferments around the beans.

Speaker 1

It provides the sugar to ferment them.

Speaker 2

And makes the beans delicious.

Speaker 1

So all that's used in the process and I didn't even know. They fermented the Cacao beans? Yeah, they're not beans, they're seeds, whatever. Yeah, I didn't know they did that before they made chocolate, but they have to do that for a number of weeks, yeah, before they're even ready to use. Because he gave us some that were just fresh and they were mushy and didn't taste like you know whatever. It was. Just it was really interesting.

Speaker 1

We learned a lot it was very, very fun very cool and then, okay, so after we're at the farm and we kind of get that history and like, here is the process of chocolate making from the farm perspective after the farmer joe well, former jose, I don't remember his name, but after he gave us the presentation of all the chocolate and stuff, we got back in the van and drove to the front end of the farm or another part of the farm that we'd passed.

Speaker 2

Like the factory part and it's their chocolate making facility. So that's where it goes from farm to the factory, yep, and so we got a demonstration on how they grind the beans and how you can make cocoa and all that. And so they. Actually, their recipe was the ground cacao bean and sugar, actual sugar, and then-.

Speaker 1

Cocoa butter, which all the cocoa butter is, when you grind the cacao seeds, beans, whatever you want to call them. When you grind those, they create-.

Speaker 1

The oils release. Yeah, the oil released is cocoa butter, so they use that and all they do is add sugar and then you have the chocolate. It was so bizarre he had this, or it was so bizarre bizarre because I hadn't seen it before, right, and who knows these things? They had an old mortar and pestle. It was huge. It was I don't know a couple of feet long, about a foot wide, maybe a little wider, and it's from the Mayan days, long ago, hundreds of years old, and a big stone. It was all volcanic and he used it to grind them and then, as he told us about it, he said hey, you guys have the opportunity. They put, they put the beans on there and we got to grind them. Right, that was cool and what we ground and made.

Speaker 2

Then we got to taste yes, he added sugar to it.

Speaker 1

Stages of 100 percent and then he asked us what do you want we?

Speaker 2

said 80 percent, so he put sugar in it.

Speaker 1

We all tasted. It was in liquid form at the time because it hadn't dried and hardened and are cooled and hardened whatever. So he gave it to us and we tasted. It was fantastic now.

Speaker 2

You loved the sugar.

Speaker 1

You were all about the sugar there's sugar, they also grow their own sugar.

Speaker 2

It's cane sugar, and it is so raw you could almost taste cinnamon in it absolutely amazing, so good I mean it's processed to the point that, in the sense that, like it's, that they juice the cane and dry it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean it was, but that's about it.

Speaker 2

Like it's not really fantastic, oh, my goodness white refined, processed sugar so nope, that was really fun, and so we were able to purchase the chocolate and what was really great is the tour guide not the chocolate we made.

Speaker 1

We didn't purchase that.

Speaker 2

They had a bunch of already made downstairs. In their factory.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they had a little store. They had a little store, yeah.

Speaker 2

And so Rory's like we can't buy chocolate skin. I was like, Rory, they're taking us on a chocolate tour. I'm sure they thought of it and so they had, and there was a little cooler in the back of the van. And so I was just like, of course. I mean because of course they're going to take care of that.

Speaker 2

So you can buy the chocolate. Kathy Jacks thought of all that. What we did is we took the chocolate and we just kept it in our fridge and our room the whole time and kind of like tried to if your fridge has like a freezer section and then you can take the like freezer chocolate and that way as you're going home and traveling home if it's in your luggage, it should still be Should, as you're going home and traveling home.

Speaker 1

If it's in your luggage, it should still be okay. Yeah, ish, we travel with a lot of chocolate. Ours did great, so yeah, ours did good. Ours did great. So that was a really cool excursion to the cacao farm, but that wasn't the end of our excursion day.

Speaker 2

That was just the first little part.

Speaker 1

It was a two-part excursion, and the second part of the excursion was going to experience something waterfalls.

Speaker 2

Y'all heard us sing this a couple episodes back. Really bad yeah, waterfall y'all.

Speaker 1

We did a waterfall, and it ain't just no regular waterfall no, you drive off the main road, which is the middle of nowhere to begin with. Come on, you drive off the main road onto a dirt road and you make some turns and this and that. Oh, on the way after we turned off the main road, we were going through an old orange orchard. Now, this is really sad. Baileys used to be covered in orange orchards and a disease has killed almost every single one of their trees, I mean literally almost every single one of them, and so it's only a few years for they're all going to be gone.

Speaker 1

But as we drove down the road, our driver stopped and got us some fresh oranges, because it's a variety in belize that I'd never seen before. They're ripe and they're not even orange, fully orange and he cut it, we, we, he, we got to where we were going and he cut it open and we ate it. It was really good. Not only that, but he had watermelon for us, watermelon. We weren't expecting that. We get out of the van. Yeah, before we walked over to the waterfall. Or a little walk to the waterfall, not really a hike, just it's a nice little walk hike thing.

Speaker 2

It's a hike.

Speaker 1

But it's not long. And he had the watermelon was so good, so good, so we had watermelon and orange before we took the walk to the waterfall.

Speaker 2

Yes, and you're making me think I'm going to just jump ahead because we're going to talk about food in a future episode. But we did get watermelon salad and that was good because it was like, not there on this excursion, but on this trip we had a watermelon salad with like basil and cheese.

Speaker 1

But that's another episode, so we're going to continue with the waterfall. Now Just chasing rabbits. Yeah, we're chasing waterfalls, right.

Hidden Waterfalls & Freshwater Spa Fish

Speaker 2

Let's chase waterfalls. Yep, it was so gorgeous and there were like three of them. There were like three different levels of waterfalls, and so we kept walking up and then in the last one, the last one, big waterfall we did cliff jumping, because y'all, if you listen to our episodes from Murray Spaceside, you know that we learned how to do cliff jumping from that excursion, so we felt more empowered space side yes, so we got that cliff jumping training and so I.

Speaker 1

She climbed up high and jumped. I did not, because that's not my thing. I climbed about two feet and jumped, and you know so and I.

Speaker 2

It was so fun. I did it a second time. And when I did it the second time I jumped over rory.

Speaker 1

She did yeah, and I think we got video of it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we got video of both. Both of the watch that this was.

Speaker 1

This was like a movie set, because you get there and the first of all, the river is running, there's a waterfall coming down and it falls into this big well, like a movie size pool. It's not too big, it's not too small, and there was only what? Five other people there at the time, maybe fewer, maybe less, maybe three people, and you've got this place all to yourself because it's in the middle of nowhere, right?

Speaker 2

And because of when we went.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, because of the season we went in, it was their down season.

Speaker 2

The summer is their slow season.

Speaker 1

Right y'all how awesome we meant to cover this in the previous episode. When do you go to belize?

Speaker 2

yeah, so we went in may and that was a great time because you still have all the great summer weather, but it's shoulder season. They just started entering their slow season.

Speaker 1

They told me, yeah, may, may, going until october or something, is their slow season because they really get their business from the snowbirds who come down during the wintertime.

Speaker 2

So, man, fantastic summer vacations from may, I guess, through october or something like that well, you want to go in may because starting in june starts their rainy season and stuff like that.

Speaker 1

Oh, okay, okay well, we can definitely recommend. May Mother, may I go to Belize. That's good In May.

Speaker 2

And do waterfalls.

Speaker 1

And do waterfalls. Okay. So there's this pool. It's about 20 feet deep so you can actually dive into it and it's cool, but not cold, cold, not like Finland, cold, right, I even got used to it real quick.

Speaker 2

It was really great, and you know what else you did in the water and got used to it real quick.

Speaker 1

It was really great. You know what else you did in the water? Yeah, so we got there and there was a little kid sitting on a big rock sitting on a big rock and he had his feet in the water and somebody said, oh look, he's letting the fish you know nibble at his feet and I was like huh. And they said something and whatever that made me think of when you go to spas and they have these fish, that chew the dead skin off your hands and toes and stuff.

Speaker 1

And I looked down there and that's exactly what he was doing. So they have these little fish that you don't have to pay for this spot treatment. They eat the little dead skin cells, flesh things off your fingers and feet. They don't actually eat the flesh, I suppose, as we might think of it, right.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

But they're a little small, like minnow sized, and that was totally cool. So I sat there and I put my hands and my feet in the water and they nibbled at them. It was kind of ticklish, but I thought it was really cool.

Speaker 2

And we went swimming in that water pool Swimming. We dove in and just enjoyed the view and the cool weather and just like so nice yeah, super nice man. And all of the setting of the waterfall is just naturally.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're in the jungle.

Speaker 2

As you walk the three levels to the waterfalls, you're surrounded by these cool rock formations. And it's just kind of like a nice little hidden away place.

Speaker 1

At the very beginning they got large covered uh patio thing set up with a they do have a restaurant restaurant bar in there where they can serve, uh, refreshments and stuff.

Speaker 1

So that's, I mean, that's really cool. It is a spot that you can go to. It's set up for people to go to it. Matter of fact, there was even a building on the way walking to the waterfalls and I said what is that? I went up, looked in the windows and I was like this is that looks really cool inside. What is it? And they said well, the original guy who built this place or bought it, wanted to make that a honeymoon bungalow for people. He died, I think, and so the family's just hasn't done anything with it and it's just sitting there rotting, which is really sad.

Speaker 2

But anyway, really cool Potential to be a cool lodging.

Speaker 1

Potential yes.

Catamaran Trip to Moho Key

Speaker 2

Take that on, all right, so we did, so, okay, so that was one excursion that we did, yep, with Captain Jax, another one we did. We did a very cool catamaran day trip, oh yeah, To a private island. So again they picked us up at our resort and transported us to the river, where we got on the catamaran yeah, which was not far no, and so we got to go to a private island, which was moho key moho key because you know it's a key which, as she said, is an island.

Speaker 1

We got on, I think we got on the catamaran. They took us. They took us on a little van ride to the harbor. We got on the catamaran. They took us on a little van ride to the harbor. We got on the catamaran there. But when we came back home, they took us right there to Surinian Bay in the river and let us off and we just walked back to our villa. It was really awesome. So the ride, the drive, the ride on the catamaran was what? Maybe an hour and a half, something like that, to the island, yeah, so that something like that to the island, yeah.

Speaker 2

So it that was really nice because you just got, like you know, the whole saying open ocean, yeah, but the saying of it's not the destination it's the journey and just being on a boat and having a boat ride itself is nice, and so it was a really nice length of time to feel like you're enjoying a boat ride yeah, and it was really nice going somewhere, really nice length the boat.

Speaker 1

It was a huge catamaran, four cabins, four heads, which are the toilets, and also a huge main room, a huge salon, uh, upstairs, well, downstairs, yeah, with a full kitchen couches.

Speaker 1

It's all air-conditioned inside it's all air conditioning yeah, outside in the back, a huge deck, in the front a huge deck, and we spent all our time on the decks, uh, on the way, mostly in the front, uh, so we could see where we're going. But that was really great huge flying bridge for the captain and all these kind of things beautiful. It was like a, like a movie, and so about an hour and a half out to the island and they anchor just off the island. What maybe, maybe 100 yards, something like this and between you and the island are these coral reefs and different things. And so they give you the option Now they've got all the snorkeling gear and stuff and they give you the option you can either snorkel your way to the island or get in a dinghy and they'll give you a ride.

Speaker 1

So, obviously, you know, we all chose to snorkel our way to the island, most of us anyway. It was awesome. So we snorkeled to the island. We've got this day out there. We're thinking, well, what are we going to do? You know what all's going on. They're snorkeling. We walked around the entire island.

Speaker 2

It only took like 20 minutes.

Speaker 1

I mean it's not that big of an island yeah, because yeah, or we walked around the key, should I say we snorkeled and when we got there they brought a bunch of. They were unloading the dinghy and they had all kinds of food. There's a huge grill, like brick grill, built into the built on the island Right and they cooked us.

Speaker 2

There are bathrooms and grills already on the island that are working and functioning. It's not air conditioned?

Speaker 1

Yep, it's not air conditioned, but you're in the shade of all these palms and trees. They cooked for us on the island. They cooked chicken and had sides.

Speaker 2

They had beans and rice.

Speaker 1

Beans and rice, and condiments and all this. The food was awesome. The chicken, oh my goodness, so good.

Speaker 2

Oh, and they had fruit there waiting for us and I ate, like all the pineapple.

Speaker 1

It was so good they had a big fruit thing for us. I mean really done very, very well and really fun. We were walking along the beach and I saw a shark fin and I thought, oh my goodness, sharks swimming all around their feet right there in the water. They were only up to their knees or thighs, or so I was like, are these people blind? They're standing there with these sharks swimming around and they told us they were what sharks, not sand sharks.

Speaker 2

No, I don't know, but they weren't scared of them.

Speaker 1

Mother sharks, I think something like that. Anyway, you know, because they don't have teeth or something like that, you know the sharks that you put in aquariums and they have the little suckers and they go around and clean the aquarium. These are sharks like that and they don't. They don't attack, they don't bite so that's why people weren't scared yeah they're just swimming around all around their legs and these are probably like five, four or five feet sharks and they weren't, yeah, stingrays.

Speaker 1

So when you're snorkeling out there, you're seeing all these colorful fish and stingrays and sharks that you don't have to be afraid of.

Speaker 2

It was really cool so you could snorkel, you could swim. They had floaties for us, like just inner tubes, I guess, is what you would call it.

Speaker 1

And so a lot of us just float in the tube and talk to each other in the water.

Speaker 2

It was just really nice and then, you can either swim back to the boat or they will. Yeah.

Speaker 1

Again. They're like you can snorkel your way back or if you're tired.

Speaker 2

Raft back to the catamaran Yep.

Speaker 1

You can get on the dinghy and they'll take you back in the dinghy. So I think everyone chose the dinghy except me. So I was snorkeling out towards the boat and everybody's at the boat waiting for me, at least that's what it felt like. So, anyway, I finally got there and we took a half and that was really great. Our bellies were full. We'd spent the full day at the island, or a number of hours anyway, and so on the way back, everyone was so chill. Oh, that's the other thing captain jacks did. They brought all the drinks and everything back and, like we said, they took us straight up the river, docked right there at serenium bay and we just walked back to our bella super super great trip.

Speaker 1

Yeah, highly recommended. And now I think, starting November, we got a preview of the tour, but I think, starting in November, you can actually take that tour. November of 2025, that tour opens up to the public.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

Yep, so book your tour now, for then.

Speaker 2

Get that going and that is the main island that they'll take you to, or the key, so the Moho key. The experience we had is very similar to the experience you would have, but then they also can provide private tours.

Speaker 1

They can do private and bespoke personalized tours. If you tell them what you want to do, they will set it up for you and make it happen. Yes, it's.

Speaker 2

Serenian Bay. That's what they want to do and Captain.

Speaker 1

Jack's can try to help accommodate what you're wanting to private weddings or, if you want to, if you want to propose to your wife, if to your wife, if you want to propose to your girlfriend, then they'll set up these really like crazy, inventive, creative things. They'll do whatever they can to make it happen for you. So serenian bay is really good about that. Talk, talk to Toby. So those were the excursions we were able to have while we were staying there in Placentia at Serenian Bay, but there are so many more that you can do.

Speaker 2

So you can visit our show notes. We'll put links to Captain Jack's in there and as well as Serenian Bay, because again, they're glad to help you get what you need out of your experience and your trip to Placentia. Now, speaking of Serenian Bay, we're going to dive more into Serenian Bay next episode.

Speaker 1

Next episode.

Speaker 2

So you don't even have to leave the resort there to have fun and so we're going to dive into our stay there, starting with its origin story and some of the immersive experiences.

Speaker 1

It's like you said, it's Oregon story.

Speaker 2

It's origin story.

Speaker 1

It's origin story, it's origin story that's right, yes, I love origin stories.

Speaker 2

Yep, because you're a history buff. It's super fun.

Speaker 1

Super man.

Speaker 2

Well, we are looking forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Speaker 1

Yep, see you then.

Speaker 2

We hope we've inspired you this episode, so join us next time. Please subscribe to rate and share our podcast with your friends or you know whoever. And please like and follow us on Instagram, youtube and Facebook. We're also on X and on all social platforms. We are at TheRomies.

Speaker 1

That's T-H-E-R-O-A-M-I-E-S, and our main hub is our website at wwwtheromiescom.

Final Thoughts & Next Episode Preview

Speaker 2

That's right, that's D-H-E-R-O-A-M-I-E-Scom. We'll be there until next time. Yeah, thanks for listening. Bye.