Zip lining in Roatan or Belize?? Best tour opinions....

[Artisticgirl]

I'm taking the May 29, 2011 Legend cruise and am trying to decide the best excursions per port. I was going to go cave tubing in Belize and Zip lining in Roatan. Any suggestions on this? My husband is very nervous about going these ports and using an outside tour guide. I've read the reviews on cave tubing.bz and .com but still not sure if it is safer to book with the cruiseline. This will be my first time booking an excursion outside the cruiseline and don't want to have a bad experience so my husband can say "I told you so"... HELP!

[preslkat]

We went to Belize about 3 years ago and used http://www.cave-tubing.com. BEST excursion ever for our group of 15. Had a wonderful time and are considering going again on our cruise on the Valor on May 29, 2011 :)

[tulipcityfamily]

We used Clip and Zip during our stop in Roatan last week. It is located right outside the shop area, so no cabs. Our family had a wonderful time, and we would use them again.

[DAP2]

My months of research has led me to believe that the best zip-line in the Western Caribbean is South Shore Canopy in Roatan. You are actually zipping through the natural rain forest, not over fields like you will be in Belize.

 

We are using Victor Bodden tours for the full day tour and even though he offers his own zipline, they agreed to take us to South Shore. I think that speaks very highly of them that would take us to a competitor. :D

 

South Shore Canopy also has there own tours where they will come pick u up and take you back to the ship. We will most likely do something like that on our next trip but wanted to see more of the island this time around so we are going with Bodden Tours.

 

southshorezipline.com

[DAP2]

Just reread your post and realized you want some information on the cave tubing in Belize as well. Trust me, I've contacted almost every cave tubing provider and read nearly all the reviews...haha, I think the servers at tripadvisor are sick of my i.p.adress ;) on those boards.

 

The long and the short is this: of all the stops and excursions on cruise ships, Cave Tubing in Belize is the #1 stop where almost everyone agrees that the private tour providers are WAY better than the ship tours.

 

However, from what I haver read, when your private excursion is good, it is GREAT :D! and on the rarer times when it is bad it is HORRIBLE :eek:! A side note is that if you are your own large group, like an extended family of 10-12 people, you seem to get your own private tour anyway. The problems seem to be when they are combining the smaller families into the larger groups to fill the vehicles. What appealed to me about Carnival is that the entire group (usually well over 100 people) is already assembled on the ship. You all take the same tender over. You all board your bus and your off. The downer is you do fewer caves and are hit and miss with the guides on the bus and during the walk through the jungle.

 

Ultimately, we have booked with Charlie Chan from charliescavetubing.com. We very nearly threw the towel in and we were just going to go with Carnival until a family in our area referred us to him. A normal private cave tubing trip is in the $50 range. We have worked out a private tour for our family of 4 for $70 per person. We get our own vehicle that will leave the second we get on the pier and find them...no waiting for other people. He's also guaranteed we will have an informative guide for both the ride to the cave's and during the walk/caving. We should be able to beat the larger tour buses and vans to the river so it will hopefully be less crowded. We are physically fit so we will be able to add the extra time to the hike to do the extra cave. We will go straight back to the ship, which is our preference. They do use the older black tubes...but we decided the pay off of a private tour outweighed the tubes because the water right now is low. I had ruled out the other providers for the following reasons:

 

.com--slipping reviews on the boards and tripadvisor. Horrible stories about waiting at the dock to leave. If I have to wake MY teenagers up early to get the 1st tender we can, I'm NOT going to be happy waiting at the dock for someone who DIDN'T wake up early. Mandatory lunch stop. Older equipment.

 

.net--has the NICE yellow tubes. The problem is they will tell you that you will be put only with other groups who are cave tubing. The reality is that you FREQUENTLY get stuck waiting for people who are doing a zip-line or ATV excursion. I also didn't like having to go back to their home base for the mandatory lunch. I would rather just save the extra 30-45 minutes and get back to the boat.

 

.bz--didn't replay to our email for 2 1/2 weeks! yikes! Looks like they might provide the private tours but we had already booked. Often get an unfair bad wrap about serving lunch out of their "house" it is a "restaurant" attached to their house. Mandatory lunch stop.

 

I've read TONS of reviews about the vehicles having to stop on the side of the road to wait for late comers who are being sent in taxis or vans to catch up to the larger vehicles. Also, a few hit and miss for all three about the guides getting out of the water walking along the bank :eek:.

 

I know this is long but I hope that helps you make your own decision. Like I said at the start, the private tours really are known to be much better, I just wanted to minimize a crappy time.

[Artisticgirl]

Wow! Thanks for all the great info! I will investigate both cave tour companies and make my decision.

 

 

After hours of research last night I was leaning towards the South Shore zip line. I'm such a chicken and am petrified to do the zip lining but I am going for my husband and son. The SS seemed less extreme and had good reviews. Any suggestions on the best and most economical company to use? I'm so worried about being safe in some of these countries.

[maggiek99]

We were on the NCL Spirit last week and stopped in both Belize and Roatan. We did the aerial trek and cave tubing in Belize booked through NCL. We had thought about booking independently, but got a little nervous about the ship not waiting if we were running late coming back to the tenders. Anyway, it was great! I was worried that we'd be herded like cattle as is the case with many ship sponsored excursions, but we were not. Although there were 32 of us on our bus, we were split up into groups of 8 for the cave tubing, and had a fantastic guide (Ralph). We actually did the zip line first because our guides from the bus checked to see which was busiest, so we wouldn't have to wait. The zipline was good but it's definitely a strenuous climb up the steps, so if you're not in pretty good shape, it may be difficult. We loved the zips because they had guides stationed at each platform and you just worked your way through the course, rather than having to wait for a group to go through and move on. After ziplining, we had lunch in the restaurant right there on the property and it was delicious! We did the cave tubing last which was good because it is way more relaxing.

 

In Roatan, we did Pirates of the Caribbeans zipline (we did the Extremely Extreme Tour). We chose them because they have the longest and highest zips and our family has done many ziplines in the past. We ended up having a private tour, which was fantastic, and the lines had beautiful vistas. We thought that these zips were even better than those we did in Kauai.

 

We decided to do both zips cuz we are kind of like zip line junkies, but if I had to choose which one, I would definitely recommend Pirates of the Caribbean in Roatan.

[Artisticgirl]

I'm leaning towards booking with South shore zipline the Zip and Dip excursion. My biggest concern is getting back to the ship on time since we are only porting in Roatan until 3pm. Has anyone used this company and did they have issues with getting back on time? Also if you are using an outside excursion vendor are you all bringing your passports with you?

[cruisemainiac]

South Shore is only about 15 minutes from Coxen Hole. If you get an early start you should be able to get some beach/snorkle time in first then hit South Shore about noon. It will take 1 - 1 1/2 hours to zip, back at the dock about 2pm, a little shopping and you're good to go.

As far as passports go, make some copies before you leave home and put the original in the safe in your state room.

[dabeers1]

I researched all the zip lines too (thanks to DAP2 for the recommendation) and went to South Shore. We arrived about 1.5 hours after docking and got right in. It took about an hour to zip.

 

South Shore has beautiful scenery, great guides and high ziplines. A great thrill!

 

If you prebook and pay with Paypal, you save $5pp (which we did). The only problem with that is that if you decide not to go or if the ship doesn't dock, there may be a 15% non-refundable fee per their website.

[Artisticgirl]

Dabeers1 - I did see that on there website and was hesitant to pre-book. Not sure if there are any other tour companies that go there and do not require pre-payment. I am a little worried about the ports being dropped or itinerary changing.

 

I didn't think a copy of a passport would be sufficient as proof of citizenship?