Excursions and Activity Suggestions at Port of Call

Hello,

We are planning to take a 7 day western cruise on the Glory April 9-April 16. I have been reading through threads and would love to get some additional input for excursions or things to do at the ports we will be stopping at. Also what ports it would be safe to book excursions through someone other than the boat. OR are there things in these ports you recommend doing on your own? We really appreciate any suggestions!

We are not big drinkers and would love to have a few calm relaxing beach days that we can do simple activities at, we also are interested in some adventurous things such as snorkeling and animal interactions.

The ports of call are Grand Cayman, Mahogany Bay, Belize & Cozumel.

Thanks so much!!!:)

The only one I can address is Belieze. DO NOT go out on a private excursion! I'm not even sure you can. On the ship sponsored excursion I went on, our driver made only one photo stop, and that was at a church along one of the coasts. The church was made of bricks which were used as ballast in early ships. He would not drive through the center of the city. I guess the highlight of our excursion was going to the country's sole brewery. We had the tasting room to ourselves, and we were able to taste any/all of the eight styles of beer they made. We also stopped at the aloe Vera factory for an interesting couple of hours. Belieze is a very poor country.

There is a ports of call section for each of these ports on Cruise Critic.

I would post this on each section.

Keith

Yes you absolutely CAN take a private excursion in Belize! You may not want a tour of the city, but any good private tour company will give you a great day. Most people will want to do cave tubing, Mayan ruins, or snorkeling at one of the many cayes. The downside with doing a private tour is you have to wait until all the tenders for the ship sponsored tours go first, then the people not on a ship tour can take the tenders to shore. If you are doing a snorkeling trip, you then will take a private boat back out past the cruise ships to your island.

If you do the Lamanai or Altun Ha tours you have to do it via the ship. It's a very long day. We did Lamanai and came back on the last tender, more than one hour late. If it was not a ship tour we would have been left long ago.

Grand Cayman, if you are planning on doing the Stingray city tour, I highly suggest you do a private tour. The ship tours oversell theirs and the boats are packed to the gills! Meanwhile our boat had about 11 people on it. Even the crew pointed out a boat that was totally packed and said that is a ship sponsored tour.

Mahogany Bay there is a beach and snorkel area right off the ship. You don't really have to book anything that day if you don't want. It's within walking distance. We paid for a tour to Maya Key and the snorkeling is not good. The reef is dead.

Coz there isn't anything really within walking distance that isn't owned by a restaurant or resort, so you would have to pay something to use their beach, but you def don't need to do a ship tour on Coz unless you are going to the mainland to do Tulum or the many cenotes in the area. For Tulum we also came back late that day, but being on a ship tour, no worry.

You can do private tours in all these ports.

In Grand Cayman look into Sting Ray City with Captain Marvin. You can Google this tour. Going to Hell is just a few t-shirt shops, post office and black rocks but I mailed myself a post card from Hell with its postmark. There is also the turtle farm where you see tiny baby turtles and HUGE big ones. Or you can take the local bus to 7 mile beach. But do go on the Sting Ray City tour even if you can't swim as you stand in maybe shoulder deep water and you feed the rays- they have no teeth!

Mahogany Bay is a port Carnival built. There is nothing there but shops (Diamond Internationals types) and a long walk to a big beach with restaurants, bars, etc. Or you can pay to take the cable car there. If you want a tour, you must leave the port.

We have done the cave tubing in Belize twice with Reggie. He has a max of 16 but seldom has that many. The Ship's tour can have more than 30. Ship's tours are from $79 and we have seen $$92! Reggie charges $48! These are same caves, same place, same tour but privately a LOT less the ship's tour.

In Cozumel the port is like a shopping center/mall. You can go to Chankanaub, a national park with big beach, good snorkeling, swim with the dolphin, a seal show, etc. Google this too.

It is safe to take a private tour. The tour leaders want to make sure you get back to the ship on time and have a good tour. If not, they will lose a lot of business. They want all to enjoy their tours and recommend them to others.

There is no need for an excursion to a beach in GC...very, very easy to do on your own. You know, a guidebook will give you the info you need to get the most from your days ashore. Libraries have them...go check one out! Saves you a bundle!!

Whether you can or can not take a private excursion is a personal decision. We have risk every day in our lives and we each determine whether what we want to do is worth the risk. Some ports I feel more comfortable doing private excursions than other ports. Nothing is risk free, not even driving to the airport.

We have only done private excursions in Belize (and most other ports as well).

That hogwash about only booking through the cruise line and safety outside of the protected gates has been spouted by the cruise lines for years in order to drive revenue to their excursions. We have strolled around Belize City and while not particularly scenic, we have had no issues nor felt inherently unsafe.

You'll find a ton of information in the Ports of Call section. Way more than you'll get here. :D

Thanks for the information! I was not sure how to post onto the ports of call to this page. I will try to look and figure that out as well!

You can do private tours in all these ports.

 

In Grand Cayman look into Sting Ray City with Captain Marvin. You can Google this tour. Going to Hell is just a few t-shirt shops, post office and black rocks but I mailed myself a post card from Hell with its postmark. There is also the turtle farm where you see tiny baby turtles and HUGE big ones. Or you can take the local bus to 7 mile beach. But do go on the Sting Ray City tour even if you can't swim as you stand in maybe shoulder deep water and you feed the rays- they have no teeth!

 

They do have some cartiledge in there. The guides tell you to hold the bait squid in your hand with your thumb tucked into your hand. Well I didn't listen and one grabbed the squid out of my hand and bit down on my thumb. No blood but it did hurt just a bit. Keep that thumb inside!

All excursions were booked thru Carnival.

Grand Cayman--This was by far my most favorite excursion. We did a stingray/snorkel tour. The stingray part was amazing. Water was a little too rough for the snorkel part but it was still enjoyable. The excursion took up most of the in port time.

Mahogany Bay- Dolphin Encounter..this was also amazing. We did have a little extra time at the port dock to shop around afterwards.

Cozumel- We did a beach excursion which was nice. I'm not a big sun person so just one day of the beach was fine for me. Lunch was provided. Cozumel was the only place that I had vendors chasing me and annoying me to buy.

Belize-- Saved Belize for last because it was stressful! We did a zipline/cave tubing tour. First off, you take a school bus to the place..and its a looooooong drive. You do get to see a lot but Belize is a very poor country. At one point, there were shirtless men along the dirt road with machetes and sawed off shotguns..being a 1st time cruiser AND the first time out of USA, I instantly thought "Okay, this is where I am kidnapped into white slavery and I die.." Once we got to the tour place, the actual excursion was fun. I loved the cave tubing, it was very interesting. But the excursion takes up ALL of your port time because of the long drive..in fact, we were so late back to the ship..as we raced to the ship on the tender, the cruise ship's anchor was coming up out of the ocean! We had to eat our included meal on the bus. It was very rushed and that makes me anxious. This is one that I was VERY glad we booked through the ship because we would have missed the ship otherwise.

If you have any specific questions about any of the excursions, I'll be happy to help.

The sting rays mouths are in the middle of the underside of the rays. You just hold the 'meat' FLAT on the palm of your hand and they suck it up! If a thumb or finger is not flat, they suck it up too!

The sting rays mouths are in the middle of the underside of the rays. You just hold the 'meat' FLAT on the palm of your hand and they suck it up! If a thumb or finger is not flat, they suck it up too!

We actually weren't allowed to feed the stingrays when I was there in 2014 :( They said that scientists were finding that the stingrays have high cholesterol because of all the frequent feedings they get.

I was there last year, well last, last year and we fed them. (Late 2014)

The sting rays mouths are in the middle of the underside of the rays. You just hold the 'meat' FLAT on the palm of your hand and they suck it up! If a thumb or finger is not flat, they suck it up too!

How can you hold it flat? With your palm open? The water current would just push it right off your hand! both times I went they told me to tuck in the thumb but have your hand in a fist and the squid sticking out. Just that one time I didn't.

We have fed the dolphins twice. There was never any current. You just open your hand flat, no fingers up just the flat palm of your hand. If people always had fingers grabbed they would no longer fed the dolphins.

In Barbados we 'fed the turtles' but we didn't feed them. The dive masters did- they have big sharp mouths!

We have fed the dolphins twice. There was never any current. You just open your hand flat, no fingers up just the flat palm of your hand. If people always had fingers grabbed they would no longer fed the dolphins.

In Barbados we 'fed the turtles' but we didn't feed them. The dive masters did- they have big sharp mouths!

They're talking about feeding stingrays, not dolphins. :)

We had the same experience as whataboutport where we were instructed to hold it closed-fisted with our thumbs tucked in and the food sticking out. They would do a quick suck and it was gone.

The sting rays mouths are in the middle of the underside of the rays. You just hold the 'meat' FLAT on the palm of your hand and they suck it up! If a thumb or finger is not flat, they suck it up too!

We have fed the dolphins twice. There was never any current. You just open your hand flat, no fingers up just the flat palm of your hand. If people always had fingers grabbed they would no longer fed the dolphins.

In Barbados we 'fed the turtles' but we didn't feed them. The dive masters did- they have big sharp mouths!

You WERE talking about stingrays, and now you are talking about dolphins. I was talking about stingrays. Dolphins DO certainly have teeth and can def do some damage.