We didn't spend much time on the Caye, just gave it a quick walk-around, as I wasn't feeling inclined to be further nickel and dimed by NCL. We purchased ferry tickets to Placencia, where we had booked an independent tour with Monkey River Ecotours, which was excellent. The ferry, purchased through the ship, left something to be desired. Our ferry departure was marked as 8:50, and we were waiting at the marina by 8:30, but the boat didn't leave the marina until almost 9:30. We were told the last return ferry would be at 3:30, and that they would leave every hour. We expected to be back in time for the 2:30 ferry, so that was fine.

We returned about 2:15, to find quite a few people waiting at the pier. We continued to wait until about 3:00, and meanwhile heard some of the people waiting complaining, because the ferry wasn't going to return until everyone was back. Apparently sometime after the first ferry that morning, the ferry company changed their tune and started telling people the last ferry would leave at 2:30, because the weather was keeping a lot of people on the ship. Well, they had no way of letting the people who had already come over about the change, so when these people showed up on time, the people waiting were all out of joint because they thought they were inconsiderate for being late. I just wasn't overly impressed with the professionalism of the ferry group, if you state a time, you can't arbitrarily change it midway through the day. We also learned that they made earlier return groups wait up to two hours to return because they didn't have anyone waiting to go to Placencia.

Our tour in Placencia was great, but getting there was more aggravating than necessary.