hello all, i'm going to Belize on VOS 03/21/04. Can anyone help me out with information on the city and some of the excursions there? I have a 10yr.old so alot of the excursions are out for us. Any advice would be greatly appriciative. Thanks.
We just returned from a cruise that included Belize. Beautiful country. We took our kids ages 14, 7 & 5, and took the excursion to Altun Ha, the kids were excited about seeing the crocodiles in the wild along the way and the Iguanas roaming around. They liked the ruins, mainly because you are allowed to climb to the top. The Tourist Village there where the tender drops you off at is nice, the people haggle the prices and you get some good deals. They have 1 ATM at the tourist mall, use it at your own risk, we are still trying to get the $750.00 that it did not give us, back. When you slide your card and enter your pin the machine says the transaction was cancelled due to a hardware malfunction and to try again, what it neglects to tell you is that the money is deducted fromn your account anyway....The mall manager had the same problem with that ATM himself so he knew what I was talking about and put me in contact with the ATM mgr at the bank, who was 0 help, saying that if it was still showing on the account when i got home to have my bank do a chargeback....Other than that and the girls hanging around the door wanting to braid everyones hair, even saw them braiding some guys chest hair..that was.......different. . The merchants at the mall are friendly as are all the tour guides and others that we ran into.
Some of the shore excursions, again depending on what ship you're on, the wildlife adventure might be fun for a 10 yr old or the new river safari (doesn't have a min. age) and there are a variety of ruins to visit. Hope you have fun! We did, even with the atm hassle!
Thank you for the info. it is just my son and i going and i have heard that Belize is not really a safe town to be walking around in. I will check into Altuna.
Alot of people like going on the cave tubbing tour. Where you basically float down a river in an innertube while going in and out of some large caves. If you do that tour, you may want to book with an independant tour operator which should cost you about $60pp. I did that excursion last year and thought it was enjoyable. This year I am doing the Lamanai / New river excursion which takes you down a river in a speed boat for an hour or so and then takes you to some Mayan ruins. For this one, I booked via NCL because it is pretty far away from the dock and is an all day tour.
I would say that if you were not going somewhere in Belize with a guide to stay inside the tourist village mall. You will find, inside the mall area, a lot of men in uniform with automatic weapons, (military?or police?) was never sure which, but they guard all the doors that lead to the outside, a lot of the 'locals' hang around outside trying to get you to buy this or that, and I did see one of the guards put his gun against a 'local' woman that was trying to come into the mall, I asked him later why she couldn't come in and he said the mall was for the tourists and he was to keep locals out in the interest of safety (??). But I had no problems and I was both inside the mall and walked to the local bank, alone, several blocks away. So, I guess it's a judgement call, just go with the gut instinct......
Those interested about all of Belize's most popular attractions can visit the website (www.royalmayanadventures.bz ) to choose what could be the best time you ever had.
We'll be there next week...can't wait!!! We are doing a 5 hr snorkel trip w/an American run company called Coral Breeze Limited. 2 snorkel stops, a stop on Caye Caulker for lunch, beach time, shopping etc then they drop you right back at your ship. I've read great reviews of them...have had no problems w/them thus far. Cost= $125 for both of us. Check them out!
We just booked the CAVE TUBING!!!! We've read nothing but rave review about it being "THE" trip to do in Belize and X-Stream is the one we decided on.
We looked at Reggie and X-Stream and X-Stream won out. They meet you in the port, with Reggies you have to walk a few blocks outside of the terminal and I don't like the idea about leaving the terminal on our own. X-Stream also does extra caves and so far every review I've read, they have been true to the 14 people maximum but I've read some posts that say Reggie has done some 60 people groups and was surprised when he had complaints.
Our snorkel trip got cancelled due to choppy waters, but we were able to book Marvin from www.belizecavetubing.com for $65 per person for a 5 hr trip into the rainforest, cave tubing and it included a great lunch and lemonade. He did a GREAT job, was very well informed about his country, had a good sense of humor, was great w/the 2 kids in our group (5 of us total), spoke great english and was very invested in our satisfaction. You can also book him now thru www.coralbreezes.com We did the "Wet n Wild" trip.
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. The merchants at the mall are friendly as are all the tour guides and others that we ran into. 
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