Belize recommendations?

Going on the Carnival glory, November 5 sailing, what would you recommend to do in Belize

Thanks in advance

We were there in December & after much research on Trip Advisor we did the cave tubing with Cave Tubing R Us. I was nervous about booking an excursion not through the ship but I am glad I did! David is the owner & he was great. He gave us the history while driving to the park. Afterwards he took us to a local place to eat. The food was fantastic & the prices were great. He had us back on the ship with plenty of time to spare. It was the best excursion by far of are whole cruise. We had so much fun with him that we have booked a Mayan excursion with him on our cruise at the end of October. Hope this helps. Enjoy your cruise! It seems like it's taking forever to get here.

I can't believe no one has answered.

Go cave tubing!! It was incredible, I'd do it again in a heart beat.

Booking through the ship is fine, but they take a shorter route, so you get less time in the river. We booked through a 3rd party and they made sure to point out when we walked past all of the ship people getting in the river. Than we kept walking and walking, so we had lots of time floating.

Have a great cruise!

We also booked cave tubing but we went through Butts Up cave tubing. I can tell you in 16 days how it was. :)

(There are a ton of great reviews for a few different cave-tubing companies in Belize. I just thought Butts Up was the funniest name so we picked that one). Ours was $35.00 per person because we booked early. I do not know how early you have to be but it's 40 bucks pp if you wait.

We went to Belize on a Princess cruise a couple years ago and did an excursion to the Lamanai Mayan ruins. We did a ship's excursion, but private tours are available as well. The tour included a riverboat ride, a guided tour of the site, time to see the museum and lunch. Like most guided tours, there was too much waiting around on this one, but I will say the tour of Lamanai was very good. We couldn't imagine going to Belize and not seeing these ruins.

Going on the Carnival glory, November 5 sailing, what would you recommend to do in Belize

 

Thanks in advance

If you just want to hang out at the shops on the pier, and walk around the town area, its all good, but be sure you go for lunch at "Birds Isle Café" it has incredible local food and is right on the water, you will see many local professional people there and people coming and going for take out meals, I have walked there and back myself, hard for me to tell you how to do that, but if you grab a taxi to go there and watch how they go, after lunch its a easy walk back to the pier.

Cave Tubing/Zip line. The cave tubing was awesome and the zip line was semi-awesome. Ours also included lunch which was very good.

Downside is the bus ride is pretty long to get there and the scenery isn't that inspiring.

Cave tubing is great is you like tubing in 2 feet of water

Goff's Cay!!! Beyond great tiny island. If you like to snorkel, the snorkeling was great. If you like to lay on the beach or wade in shallow water, this is the place to do it.

My son and I did the swim with the Rays and Sharks while my daughter and husband did the xunatunich ruins. We all had a great time. The ruins involved a lot of walking and some very steep climbing if you want to go to the top which of course they did. The Rays and sharks were wonderful. We took our own snorkel gear (they have some for you to use though) and we were able to see, touch and hold nurse sharks, rays, conch, starfish etc. Lucio was our guide and he was able to tell us about so many different marine animals that we saw. We also had lunch during the trip and the food was wonderful. I had conch fritters and one order was enough for 2 people. I really hope to get a chance to go on this tour again. It was wonderful! My son was 6 and the youngest on the trip, there were all ages on the trip. There were some that didn't even get off the boat, they just stayed on watched the animals from the boat and drank rum punch.

Any excursion that takes you out to their barrier reef (2nd Largest in the world) is not to be missed for those who love to snorkel. :D

Goff's Cay!!! Beyond great tiny island. If you like to snorkel, the snorkeling was great. If you like to lay on the beach or wade in shallow water, this is the place to do it.

We did this on our last cruise and loved it! The water is just beautiful!!

Going on the Carnival glory, November 5 sailing, what would you recommend to do in Belize

 

Thanks in advance

What are your interests? Adventure, water activities, shopping, sightseeing?

I can spout off all the excursions I've done but that may mean nothing to you if you have different interests?

Since neither of have been there. I'd like to do some sight seeing/tubing and beach. Can that all be done in one day?!

We did the Xunatumich ruins tour. While the ruins were amazing, and the tour guide gave great info, it was too much sitting on a bus getting to and from. So unless you're really into doing that, wouldn't recommend based on the fact 70% of your excursion is riding.

Cave tubing through the ship is about a 6 hour affair. The bus route leaving Belize city takes the north shore road, which is a nicer area to view than the old route which ran through some slums. You'll be heading inland, towards an area called Tiger's Paw.

You'll get some running commentary about the history and culture of Belize as you travel to the tubing area. The safety prep, walk to the site, going through the cave and the lunch that follows takes about 3 hours or so. There's an opportunity to explore the gift shops at the tubing center, then once evryone finishes lunch, you take the bus ride back to the port. You will have some time to shop inside the port area before boarding a tender back to the ship.

While some of the off shore isles around Belize City have small beach areas, Belize is not a beach destination. Snorkeling and diving are fantastic, but Belize doesn't really have beaches like 7 mile in Grand Cayman or other places like Half Moon Cay or Grand Turk.

Hope this helps you.

We did the Xunatumich ruins tour. While the ruins were amazing, and the tour guide gave great info, it was too much sitting on a bus getting to and from. So unless you're really into doing that, wouldn't recommend based on the fact 70% of your excursion is riding.

No lunch? I had rice and beans w/ chicken on my Xunantunich tour. Loved the view from the top of the highest structure.

I see Carnival now has a Lamanai tour as well.

Consider seeing Lamanai Mayan ruins if its available. I'll insert a link to the slide show my wife made with pictures she took. It might help you decide what to do.

Lamanai Mayan Ruins Excursion

How often do you have an opportunity to see Mayan ruins? It was well worth it to me. Just my opinion.

We had some OBC on our most recent cruise on Carnival Dream, so we booked the Carnival excursion called 'River Wallace and Altun Ha'. The cruise up the river was fascinating, lasting about 2 hours. We saw quite the variety of animal life. The cruise portion ended at a rustic resort where we had a Jerk Chicken lunch break and then we got on a bus to go to the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha. Unfortunately we only had about an hour to spend at the site, but what we did see was impressive. Then came a bus ride of about an hour or so on poorly maintained roads back to town and the tenders. It was a nice excursion.

Normally I don't take ship tours, preferring to explore on my own. However, you probably want to stick to a guided tour or excursion of some kind (either a ship tour or a reputable 3rd party) while in Belize. Going out on your own looked like it could be dicey. It's a long tender ride to the ship, and you want the help of a tour operator to insure that you will make it back in time.

On our Princess cruise there, my wife started talking to a deck hand on the tender.He said to look for Dion at the port and to tell him he ( forgot the kids name ) had recommended him. We were with my 91yr old Mom, so a local tour was it for us. Big guy in a neon shirt with Dion on the front. We took the Good, Bad, and Ugly tour. Good history, stopped at a rum distillery, and saw a lot of the town. Got back and did sightseeing and walking around port area. Easy informative and relaxing.

I typically am very comfortable booking excursions through private vendors rather than the ship. But Belize is one location that I prefer booking through the ship. Many of the excursions are located a fair distance away from the port - including the ziplining, cave tubing and ruins. The tours that we have done there all included about a 75-90 minute drive to the tour location. Our mode of transportation has been a fairly old school bus and the last 1/2 of the trip was on very bumpy, gravel roads. I was more concerned than normal about the possibility of having vehicle trouble given the age/condition of the bus and the conditions of the roads. It gave us peace of mind to know that if something happened unexpectedly, Carnival would take care of us.

That being said - all of the tours mentioned above were fantastic! Belize has some beautiful rain forests and the guides were all top notch! If we go to Belize again, we'll stick the beaches though. Those long rides to the rain forests are no fun! lol

We had some OBC on our most recent cruise on Carnival Dream, so we booked the Carnival excursion called 'River Wallace and Altun Ha'. The cruise up the river was fascinating, lasting about 2 hours. We saw quite the variety of animal life. The cruise portion ended at a rustic resort where we had a Jerk Chicken lunch break and then we got on a bus to go to the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha. Unfortunately we only had about an hour to spend at the site, but what we did see was impressive. Then came a bus ride of about an hour or so on poorly maintained roads back to town and the tenders. It was a nice excursion.

 

Normally I don't take ship tours, preferring to explore on my own. However, you probably want to stick to a guided tour or excursion of some kind (either a ship tour or a reputable 3rd party) while in Belize. Going out on your own looked like it could be dicey. It's a long tender ride to the ship, and you want the help of a tour operator to insure that you will make it back in time.

Glad you enjoyed Altun Ha. I did a bus ride there and the river float back, as you said, the river was interesting with caimans and other wildlife.

However, I thought the ruins were small, absolutely terrible and horribly patched up and "restored". I've been to Chichen Itza, Tulum, Coba, Xunantunich, El Balaam, and Altun Ha would be at the very bottom of that list.

I'm hoping to get to Lamanai, Uxmal and Copan at some point, and have gone to some ruins several times, but I would never return to Altun Ha.

Going on the Carnival glory, November 5 sailing, what would you recommend to do in Belize

 

Thanks in advance

As said above, it depends on your interest and what other excursions you are doing at the other ports, if any.

Realize there is no reason to allow time for "shopping" at the pier. Belize City is an armpit of a city if you ask me.

We booked a biking excursion through Carnival. Had a great time. It was just my family of four and another young couple. The bikes were decent enough for the distance and terrain. The ride included stops where the guide pointed out unique features, etc. My kids ate termites, we skipped rocks in a river, had photo ops in some pretty neat tree formations, etc. Most the biking was under the canopy of the trees, so it was not uncomfortable at all. We had about 2 hours back at a resort-style freshwater pool to eat a pretty good chicken lunch, swim and relax. Price was reasonable. It was all good!

We went to Belize on a Princess cruise a couple years ago and did an excursion to the Lamanai Mayan ruins. We did a ship's excursion, but private tours are available as well. The tour included a riverboat ride, a guided tour of the site, time to see the museum and lunch. Like most guided tours, there was too much waiting around on this one, but I will say the tour of Lamanai was very good. We couldn't imagine going to Belize and not seeing these ruins.

I agree. We did the Lamanai Ruins tour thru NCL this past January. It was fantastic! It was a very long journey to get there but well worth it.

We did cavetubing with Vitalino's group cavetubing.bz We chose this group for several reasons. They were highly recommended here. They carry your tubes up to the river for you. Their tubes have backs on them, so you don't have to constantly hold your head forward. Then afterwards, they feed you an amazing lunch. Great price too.