Mayan Ruins: Xunantunich, Lamanai, or Altun Ha

For anyone who has toured any or all of the 3 Mayan ruins sites offered by Carnival....which do you recommend and why?

I have researched all of them, and understand that Altun Ha is the smallest, but closest. Lamanai is the most "jungle like", and X has the tallest, most intricate temple. I'm leaning towards L or X. Also, even though the "You Tube" videos I have seen do not show this, I have read that the main temple at Lamanai now has access on the back side with stairs and hand rails. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks for any and all opinions!

Have not done Lamanai, but if you are doing a ship sponsored excursion, you may wish to do this one. Supposedly the ride up the river is beautiful. It's all day so be prepared to not do anything else in Belize.

If, on the other hand you wish to have the possibility of having a brief time in port to look around and would like a good lunch and see some of the countryside, then the tour to Xunantunich is a good one to take. You can climb on the temples and believe me the tallest one is indeed tall and difficult to climb for some people.

Or if you'd like to do something else in Belize or just head back to the ship before the last tender, then Altun Ha will certainly give you a quick fix on your ruins joneses.

Xunantunich.... loved it, loved the guides who were funny and informative, loved the lunch afterwards at the little restaurant.

Yes.... you can climb the tallest pyramid, with the group and guide...it is TALL and you can see into Guatamala from there.

there are stairs with handrails coming down the hill on the backside

Fun fun day, but it is hot and bus ride is 90 minutes each way.

robin

Thanks to you both for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your thoughts.

Any others?

Thanks to you both for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

Any others?

Visited L through Carnival and loved it. Our guide was Elvis and he was exceptional...lots of knowledge and personality. The ruins were great and the bus and boat rides were interesting.

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I hate to hijack your thread, OP, sorry!

DH has some mobility issues and as I understand it one of the ruins tours will be better for him to visit. We know that he won't be able to climb the ruins, but I was told that one of them had fairly even grounds and a short walk from the parking lot. Can anyone tell me which one that is?

I hate to hijack your thread, OP, sorry!

 

DH has some mobility issues and as I understand it one of the ruins tours will be better for him to visit. We know that he won't be able to climb the ruins, but I was told that one of them had fairly even grounds and a short walk from the parking lot. Can anyone tell me which one that is?

Altun Ha.

We did Lamanai with a Carnival excursion in December and LOVED it!! Some people chose not to climb the ruins and that was fine as walking around the grounds is super nice. Some of the ruins are relatively easy to climb and people of all ages were venturing up. Some were tough - I'm not young but I did them all. The riverboat tour is nice and the lunch was really good. All in all it was a really nice tour!

We have done Lamanai and Alton Ha so are considering Xunantunich, Will we have a little time to shop in the dock area after the tour.

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Xunantunich.... loved it, loved the guides who were funny and informative, loved the lunch afterwards at the little restaurant.

 

Yes.... you can climb the tallest pyramid, with the group and guide...it is TALL and you can see into Guatamala from there.

 

there are stairs with handrails coming down the hill on the backside

 

Fun fun day, but it is hot and bus ride is 90 minutes each way.

 

robin

Thank you for sharing. Whom did you book the excursion with? I really want to book with King David bit worried about the time we need and missing the boat!

For anyone who has toured any or all of the 3 Mayan ruins sites offered by Carnival....which do you recommend and why?

 

I have researched all of them, and understand that Altun Ha is the smallest, but closest. Lamanai is the most "jungle like", and X has the tallest, most intricate temple. I'm leaning towards L or X. Also, even though the "You Tube" videos I have seen do not show this, I have read that the main temple at Lamanai now has access on the back side with stairs and hand rails. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Thanks for any and all opinions!

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We've been to Lamanai and Altun Ha. Both on ships tours due to the distance. Both had rides to the sites on the river where we saw lots of wildlife. Lamanai is in the jungle and much of the site is not excavated. Altun Ha is much smaller. If this is your first trip to a Mayan site I would do Lamanai.

Note traffic in Belize can get backed up. Our bus was late coming back from Lamanai due to the traffic and the cruise line held the ship for us (whew!)

I've been to all 3 - my fav was Xunantunich. It is near the western boarder - I recommend only using a ship sponsored tour due to the distance and traffic.

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you can look at all of them on youtube

I went to Lamanai with my husband in Sept 2014 and it was AMAZING. I loved the tour up the river and I loved the trek through a rain forest. We were prepared with parkas and ready to tromp through mud - so that in the case of rain, that should be your expectations. The ruins were very neat, but the trek through the forest was equally cool. Howler monkeys scurried overhead. Yes, you could climb them. My husband climbed the jaguar temple and the big one at the end. No handrails - I think there was a rope on one of them. We absolutely LOVED Lamanai and had a delicious meal prepared by our tour guide's wife along the way. We did not book through Carnival - at that time, they had no Lamanai tour available. It was a small private tour of about 6 people with our guide. I booked through Island Marketing Ltd (Cayman) - Belize Cruise Excursions. Everything went smoothly, and we arrived back on time. We had about 30 minutes to walk through the shops quickly on our way back. We bought some local chocolate and that's about it. We got in line for the last tender boat back to the ship. If Carnival books it now, that is probably the way to go. Had we hit traffic, had a flat, or any other issues, that would not have been good!

We've been to Lamanai and Altun Ha.

We are taking a Western Caribbean cruise in November, and would like to tour one of the larger ruins in Belize. My husband visited Altun Ha several years ago, but somehow all of his pictures were erased. I'm looking for someone willing to share their Altun Ha pictures. Would that be something you would do? You can email them; post them to your Facebook page and i can download them, or i can mail you a flash drive for you to copy to.

Please let me know if you would be interested. We are, of course, only interested in the scenery and ruins. :) If it makes you uncomfortable, that's ok too.

thanks for your consideration,

Cheryl and Phil Corcoran

shovelrae1@charter.net

We've been to Lamanai. The other two are on our Bucket List. We enjoy seeing Mayan ruins as often as possible when we cruise. It's a long day but the excursion is fantastic. Seeing pictures may give you an idea of what to expect. Take a look at the ones my wife took for her website at the link below.

Lamanai Mayan Ruins Excursion

For those who have gone on ship tours . . .how much time do you actually have to see the ruins? Carnival says L is a 6 hour tour. If 3 hours are spent traveling and lunch is an hour do you really have any time to see the ruins? The X trip says it's 7 hours but with more travel time . . .

For those who have gone on ship tours . . .how much time do you actually have to see the ruins? Carnival says L is a 6 hour tour. If 3 hours are spent traveling and lunch is an hour do you really have any time to see the ruins? The X trip says it's 7 hours but with more travel time . . .

Which one of the three Mayan ruins are you planning to visit?

Not entirely sure. We are looking at cruises for next March and CCL Glory fits our schedule. Belize is one of the stops and I'm in charge of investigating excursions/things to do. Of the 4 stops I will get to pick 1 for me, which this would be, and family gets the rest. I would probably lean towards Lamanai simply b/c it's a little shorter and even though it's "my" pick I'm gonna get grief ("this was too far") either way. At least wildlife viewing on river would make up some of that. But if we are going to have an hour or less at actual ruins I'm not sure that's worth it.

We've been to Lamanai. The other two are on our Bucket List. We enjoy seeing Mayan ruins as often as possible when we cruise. It's a long day but the excursion is fantastic. Seeing pictures may give you an idea of what to expect. Take a look at the ones my wife took for her website at the link below.

Lamanai Mayan Ruins Excursion

THANK YOU so very much -the pictures were beautiful!! Since Celebrity is not offering the tour to Lamanai on our cruise, we tossed around lots of ideas. With the distance to travel to get there, and the length of time we have to see stuff, I think we are going to go see Yunantunich. It sounds like the best deal and looks very impressive from what pictures I've seen.

Again, Thank you for the access to your photos from Lamanai.

Cheryl (and Phil) Corcoran

Thanks for taking the time to visit my wife's website. Have a great cruise wherever you go.

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