Belize City Tour and Zoo

[bagelmom6]

We booked the Belize City Tour and Zoo through Carnival. Has anyone done this tour? What I'm wondering is if there is if there is a chance to get something to eat during the tour. The tour leaves too early to have lunch before hand and once we get back we only have an hour or so before the last tender so I'm wondering what we're going to do about lunch that day.

[crewsweeper]

Are you stopping at Old Belize? (Cucumber Beach?) One Carnival tour to the zoo used to stop here and you can get lunch at the restaurant there. They have a variety of Belizean dishes and other things like hamburgers.

[bagelmom6]

The description of the tour didn't mention stopping at Old Belize but maybe we'll be lucky. It looks like a fun place.

[tigger-ttfn]

The description of the tour didn't mention stopping at Old Belize but maybe we'll be lucky. It looks like a fun place.

Fun...... but is it safe. been to belise some areas questionable

[wendygrace]

We booked the Belize City Tour and Zoo through Carnival. Has anyone done this tour? What I'm wondering is if there is if there is a chance to get something to eat during the tour. The tour leaves too early to have lunch before hand and once we get back we only have an hour or so before the last tender so I'm wondering what we're going to do about lunch that day.

 

Was considering booking this and was wondering how it went. Mind coming back and posting a trip report?

[bagelmom6]

The tour was interesting but very, very hot. The description of the tour said that we made some stops along the way before getting to the zoo but the only stop we made was at the zoo. They drove us around the city for about 45 minutes and then we headed to the zoo, which was another 45 minutes away. The zoo tour lasted over an hour. It was fairly small but they had quite a few animals. We saw jaguars, vultures, parrots, monkeys, warthogs, a crocodile and some other animals that I can't remember at the moment. It was just so unbearably hot that it was hard to enjoy it. We brought our own water bottles and the tour guide handed out water too and we drank it all. We even poured some of the water down the backs of our shirts because we were so hot. There were no opportunities to get something to eat on the tour but they did have ice cream in the zoo gift shop so we had that on the bus back. I'm not sure I'd do that tour again. It was interesting but I don't think we saw everything we were supposed to. Even DD, who is a bundle of energy and loves all animals, started to lose interest and just wanted to go back to the ship.

[bagelmom6]

One more thing, if you do this excursion I would recommend bringing bug spray. We didn't get bitten by anything but there were a lot of bugs flying/crawling around.

[wendygrace]

Thanks. Sounds like Carnival vendor does a poor job of this tour. Some others tour groups seem to have better luck. Were you guys alone (just your family) or were there others in your group?

[bagelmom6]

It was a fairly large tour group. We had a big motorcoach and it was close to full. The one good thing was that the a/c on the bus worked perfectly.

[wendygrace]

That sounds awful. ugh! Now I have no idea what to do with my two. I really wanted to see Belize and the Zoo but can't find a good way of doing it. *sigh*

[Azure Moon]

In October of 2008 my husband and I took the City Tour and Belize Zoo booked through Carnival.

 

We loved the excursion. We didn't get out of the bus except for at the Zoo. The zoo is not like in the United States, and that's one of the great things about it. It's jungly, the paths are unpaved, you get up very close to the animals because of the fencing. Loved seeing the animals native to Belize - jaguar, kinkajoo, peccaries (sp?), macaw, ocelot, etc. Take a look at the Belize Zoo's website and you'll get an idea of like.

 

The history of the zoo is interesting.

 

I'll echo the previous poster, take a bug repellent that works for you. Also, wear closed toe shoes or spray your feet if you choose to wear no socks and open toe shoes. A couple of people on our tour (hubby was one of them) got bitten by a fire ant.

 

We don't remember any children getting antsy ( :Dgroan:p) during our tour, but then we weren't paying much attention to them.

 

Remember, it's a jungle out there and enjoy the difference.

 

One thing that made my trip to the Belize Zoo even sweeter was that I went to my local city zoo shortly after getting home from the cruise. While walking around and taking pictures, I'd flip through the Belize Zoo pictures. Found myself marveling at the similarities and differences. Very cool!