Tendering & Private Excursion

I've read that Belize tendering is a nightmare. I have booked a private tour with Cavetubing.bz and I am concerned about the length of the tour based on what I have read. The tour is is 6 - 6 1/2 hours. We are the only one ship in the port that day. We are there from 9:00 - 6:00. What time do you think I will get off the ship? Secondly, is this tour to long to make it back to the ship on time, seeing that they take all their own tour groups first? What time will the last tender leave to return to the ship?

I've read that Belize tendering is a nightmare. I have booked a private tour with Cavetubing.bz and I am concerned about the length of the tour based on what I have read. The tour is is 6 - 6 1/2 hours. We are the only one ship in the port that day. We are there from 9:00 - 6:00. What time do you think I will get off the ship? Secondly, is this tour to long to make it back to the ship on time, seeing that they take all their own tour groups first? What time will the last tender leave to return to the ship?

1) what cruiseline are you on?

For instance, Carnival's ship time, stays on the time of your departure port, the entire cruise. (so if you leave from a FLA port, ships time will be 1-2 hours ahead of Belize time. So 9-6 could be 7-4 Belize time.)

Just sailed NCL last week and we changed ship's time each day as we moved from port to port. (turned the clocks back an hour each night on the way to Belize. Then an hour forward on the way to Mexico and again ahead an hour on the way back to Tampa.)

2) when are you cruising?

Belize does not observe Daylight Savings Time.

So during the summer, Belize is 2 hours different from Eastern time and 1 hour behind Central.

In the winter it is just 1 hour and the same time.

3) If you are the only ship in Belize that day (we had 4 last Wednesday) you should have all the tenders in town helping unload, so it should go as quickly as is possible.

Now you can't get around the 10 minutes to load or 20 minute ride each way. So best case scenario, you have 1 hour of your port time wasted in the tendering process.

You also can't get around every cruiseline tendering their own excursions first before tendering people without their excursion.

4) On my one stop in Belize on Carnival and last week on NCL, the final tender was 30 minutes before departure.

Hope that helps a bit.

There were a total of two large ships in port when we went earlier this month. Tendering is WAY better than it used to be. It does take about 15-20 minutes to tender in and 20 - 25 minutes to tender back to the ship. The tenders were nice, open-air boats.

If you've researched the tour and it gets good reviews on Cruise Critic, then I would not worry at all about getting back to the ship on time.

Thanks for your replies. I am on Liberty of the Seas, departing 4/26/14. We are in Belize on 4/28/14 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. According to everything I have read, we are the only ship there that day. The excursion was rated very highly on trip advisor and about half the price with more caves than on the ship. They just keep saying that it takes 2 hrs or so to get off the ship. The excursion guy told me in an email to get off as quickly as possible so we could get the tour in. Just don't want to miss the last tender and miss the ship.

Thanks for your replies. I am on Liberty of the Seas, departing 4/26/14. We are in Belize on 4/28/14 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. According to everything I have read, we are the only ship there that day. The excursion was rated very highly on trip advisor and about half the price with more caves than on the ship. They just keep saying that it takes 2 hrs or so to get off the ship. The excursion guy told me in an email to get off as quickly as possible so we could get the tour in. Just don't want to miss the last tender and miss the ship.

When we did Liberty last fall they had in FunTimes to line up at a specific time to get tender tickets. It was on 5th floor outside Victoria lounge. We got in line 30 min early and ended up with the first tender.

Just got off liberty onThursday! What an awesome time we had on that ship! We had an excursion through the ship. We had to be in the theatre at 8:30. We sat & waiting til they called our excursion number it was about an hour They r very organized on the liberty, took about 30 mins to get ashore then we we off to our excursion. When we got back from our excursion we lined up at dock & was tendered back. Just plan on at least 30 mins to get back to ship!

we will be in Belize in August and plan to do cave tubing with a private company, we purchased FTTF as well so that will give up priority tendering and hopefully get us off the ship quicker,

Belize is one of my cruise stops in May. Is it worth it to take the tender to Belize if you're not doing an excursion? What's at the tender stop...any shops or souvenir spots there? If not, then maybe it would be best to simply stay on my ship. Need some input. :confused:

We have tendered to the port and did an excursion with .bz twice now. They will always wait for you (the excursion people) and they usually come with a few buses just in case people are late getting off the tenders and can't get one of the first tickets off the ship.

As for the tour, they have always got us back with about 2 1/2 hours or so left to do some port shopping and tender back with no worries. They know their reputation is on the line and always have back up plans (like in case of a flat tire or something). The owners house is right down the road from the cave tubing (which is where you'll stop on your way back to eat). They are also well aware of cruise critic and trip advisor and want to do the best to earn your positive review. :)

Belize is one of my cruise stops in May. Is it worth it to take the tender to Belize if you're not doing an excursion? What's at the tender stop...any shops or souvenir spots there? If not, then maybe it would be best to simply stay on my ship. Need some input.

Yes, there are places there to pick up souvenirs. They have some little shops along the sides:

Then shopping along the front facing the ships in buildings:

Here is a map of the place done by another cruiser

thanks mitsugirly that was great info for the Belize port, the way others have been posting their fears of getting off I figured you tendered to an empty dock with little on it, we will go with cave tubing.bz as you have done in the past, thanks for all your reviews,

thanks mitsugirly that was great info for the Belize port, the way others have been posting their fears of getting off I figured you tendered to an empty dock with little on it, we will go with cave tubing.bz as you have done in the past, thanks for all your reviews,

No, it's a port just like any of the other places you go to. Once you walk outside the gate there's a street and the vendors with .bz will be there waiting on you. They have bright yellow shirts on and you can't miss them.

Here's right outside the port at the street:

Once you meet up with them, they walk you down the street and to their vans where more employees will be waiting. There's a bunch of vans waiting for various tours.

It's located along the ocean water and a very nice shot of the ships anchored out there.

When they bring you back from cavetubing, they drop you right back off where you walked out of the port building at. Easy peasy. :)