jsjjkelly
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Posts posted by jsjjkelly
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Hi!
We are returning to Belize next week. The first time we did cavetubing through cavetubing dot bz. Vitilino jr was our Guide, and although our group thought the caves were kinda boring, they did a pretty good job.
So this time we wanted to visit a ruin, but don't want to pay the cruise line price. So i emailed him again and said we're returning and would like to see Altun Ha and do a city tour. The whole thing is 4 hours. There's other sites out there offering less than he is on his website,but he said he'd match it and give us a private driver versus being in a big group like his competition. It was $50 for adults and $30 for kids. I wouldn't hesitate to go with him again. I'll post a review when we get back. He also gives a break if you have 10 or more people. Last time we had 10 but we only have 4 this time.
Being Altun ha is pretty close, i felt going independent was fine. The other one is like 2 hours bus ride away.... I think I'd do carnival for that one.
Hope this helps!
Shawn
Hi! We just got off our boat this morning and I'm already suffering from withdrawal. So I thought I'd come on here and let y'all know how it went
We used cave tubing dot bz the last time we were in Belize, so I emailed him again and said we wanted to do a city tour and Altun ha. For just the 4 of us, we had our own guide (jenny) who stayed with us the whole time. We got the first tender off, and by the time we got to Altun ha there were only a few people here. It was nice to have it so quiet and private.
As we were done, you should see all the people offload from the busses!! We would have been miserable for sure with all those people. Jenny answered our every question which we all agreed wouldn't have happened in a big group like that.
We did get eaten up by these little black gnats. We thought they were like the ones we have here in the states (harmless). Nope. I didn't bring off but I'm now wishing I should have. They itch really bad. I didn't think they were sand fleas because we were nowhere near a beach! Whatever they are, make sure when you go to spray with bug spray.
Hope this helps someone else make a decision on their excursions. We'd go with vitalino again if we go back to Belize!
Shawn z:-)
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Hi!
We are returning to Belize next week. The first time we did cavetubing through cavetubing dot bz. Vitilino jr was our Guide, and although our group thought the caves were kinda boring, they did a pretty good job.
So this time we wanted to visit a ruin, but don't want to pay the cruise line price. So i emailed him again and said we're returning and would like to see Altun Ha and do a city tour. The whole thing is 4 hours. There's other sites out there offering less than he is on his website,but he said he'd match it and give us a private driver versus being in a big group like his competition. It was $50 for adults and $30 for kids. I wouldn't hesitate to go with him again. I'll post a review when we get back. He also gives a break if you have 10 or more people. Last time we had 10 but we only have 4 this time.
Being Altun ha is pretty close, i felt going independent was fine. The other one is like 2 hours bus ride away.... I think I'd do carnival for that one.
Hope this helps!
Shawn
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I had surgery 10 days before a cruise in 1996, dr said that the staples could come out in 10 days, told him no, they would be coming out in 8 days as I had a flight scheduled and that I don't think the ships dr would remove staples, they came out and I made the cruise.
This happened to us. My son fell at school 3 days before our cruise resulting in 8 stitches above his eye. The nurse kept arguing we had to come back in a week to get them removed, and when we told her we were going to be on a cruise, she said well, you can't go! Really? My husband is a nurse and he removed them.
Like we'd really miss a cruise for that.... Sheesh.
Shawn
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http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2013/05/09/451603_gold-coast-news.html
Fair Use Extract
The Carnival Legend will sail seasonally out of Sydney to the South Pacific from September 24 in what is a major vote of confidence in the Australian cruise industry by the world's biggest cruising company.
The Legend is the sister ship to Carnival Spirit which has carried more than 100,000 passengers since coming to Australia last October.
The hugely successful Spirit was the first ship Carnival has ever home ported outside America.
"Carnival Legend will go into dry dock in 2014 where she will receive a range of upgrades to ensure she's perfectly suited for the tastes of the Aussie market," Ms Vandekreeke said.
"We will be using our valuable learnings from the first year of Carnival Spirit's deployment to decide on the best features and enhancements for Australians."
Passengers will be able to start booking in June.
It's a shame Tampa is losing her. They need a smaller ship to fit under the Sunshine Skyway. Wonder if she'll get replaced and by which ship?
Shawn
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We went cave tubing with VIV back in May. It was fantastic!! The only thing I wish I knew was to bring a snack. We got really hungry after we were done, and still had an hour ride back to port so we bought a very expensive tube of Pringles for lunch at the caves.
Can't answer about zipping. Sorry.
We did cave tubing dot bz (for belize) and it was only $45 and it came with lunch. That was perfect because you're right, you're starving when you're done!!
We enjoyed our time with them and would do it again.
:-)
Shawn
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I always take the big plastic bottles of Diet Coke with me. Like the size you'd buy when you're thirsty at the grocery store and they're right there at the check out. They're just so much nicer. On a side note, we also take Powerade since my kids like that. Those bottles are 20 ounces. Then we take a case of water. When we checked in on the Legend, we had all 48 bottles loose together in 2 carryons. My husband had the water, and the scanner lady stopped it, asked a question, they took out the water and shook it then put it back. I was silently cursing if they were going to shake my Diet Coke.... but she just looked at it and said "You're with him?" and when I said yes, she moved us along.
You'll be fine :-) I think they just don't want you to bring on 2 litres!! :-)
Shawn
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Now, now, not so fast there, Ricochet Rabbit. If CCL began offering specific cabana rentals in advance, they might also start offering pre-sail purchases of their Bottomless Bubbles soda program like other lines (notably RCCL) do, and THEN where would we be?
Oh but they do!!! Just call Bon Voyage!! I buy them (Bottomless Bubbles that is) in advance every time we go.... :-) When we get in our cabin, there's always a piece of paper waiting for us to take it to some place (usually the coffee shop) to get our sticker.
Shawn
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For Carnival cruisers, I just confirmed: if you've got a cabana booked and paid for for an upcoming cruise, e-mail shoreexcursions@carnival.com with your booking number and the cabana you'd like; they'd be happy to oblige.
Thanks so much this. The worst they can so is no to an email, so I think it's worth a shot!!
:-)
Shawn
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Thanks so much to everyone who provided info on this thread. I went ahead today and booked a cabana for our Novmber Carnival cruise. There's a discount code thread on the Carnival board that you can use to save 10%. I thought they'd all be gone but it said there were 11 left. But then again, no one has even started a roll call for it.
It was $229.99 less $23 discount came to $206.99
Just giving everyone the updated info!
And being we've never had anything like this befor, we are SO excited!!!!
Shawn
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Wow!! Thanks for doing all this! This is definitely a thread to bookmark!!
With all that's been going on, it's great that you did this for all of us!!
Shawn
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Nope. Not at all. I'd prefer not to have to pack enough dress up clothes for 4 people thanks!
We go to the buffet for elegant nights. Our last cruise, on our buffet nights, we even finished up early enough to catch the early show!! Then we felt like we had our whole evening open to us and got to do more because we didn't spend 1 1/2 - 2 hours at dinner!
I see everyone posting how much they like it. We're just more casual I guess.
Shawn
ATV Adventure Tour
in Costa Maya
Posted
We just did this on Thanksgiving! We had an absolute blast and as many cruises as we've done fun things on, this excursion ranked top 3 for my family! It was truly fun.
However, one of the things I want to recommend is to be early. The problem with booking through Island Marketing (it was costa maya cruise excursions dot com is who I was emailing with), and my arrival time was 8:30. And the paper work STRESSED it was island time, not ship time. Island time is an hour ahead of ship time. So we showed up at 8 local time. The group had already left. The booth and everything is marked SHARK TOURS so once you see Shark Tours, you're there.
The guy at the booth said no problem, they just had to find us a guide as the group already left. And this comment is for you to decide based on your group--- if you have a group who likes to go fast and get muddy, I would have probably paid extra just to have your own guide so you can do just that.
On the way there, because we only had 2 ATV's plus the guide, we could go fast, go through mud puddles, there wasn't really any lag time waiting on any one. Once we got to a certain point though, we met up with the group and they were on their way back. So we did miss out on some, but being we got to do things at the speed we wanted to, I think it more than made up for it.
We usually travel with Grandma and Grandpa in tow, so if you have those in your group that aren't as adventurous, going in a group would be fine. But once we got with the group, the tempo became markedly slower. Some in the other group had littler ones riding with them, and the little girl put her leg next to the motor and had a pretty nice burn. And travelling back there were speed bumps, so as one cautious driver went over, we all had to wait to go in line... it just made it slower.
We commented to our guide that we would have probably paid extra just to go by ourselves with the guide next time, and he said they'd do that, you just have to ask in advance.
They stop at this really nice and quiet private beach and we really liked it there. There's bathrooms and a drink (coke or beer) is included. Then we went to Mahahual which is more commercialized. After going to the nice quiet place, it was kind of a turn off to us to go there. We would have rather stayed at the first place. There wasn't any vendors to buy from, and we weren't there long enough to eat at any of the chain restaurants there. Just a bunch of people trying to get us to do massages or hair braiding.
But, we definitely want to go back to Costa Maya to do this excursion again. My kids are 9 and 13, and we had a ton of fun.
Hope this helps someone else!
Shawn