what can we do now ...Belize City

[Vacaydog]

Everyone told us Caye Caulker and we kind of planned on it, reviews say doesnt seem teenager oriented.. We are In Belize in 2 weeks...obviously we havent planned anything....13 and 15 year old with us....cavetubing didnt strike us ?? are we to late ?? Need some Guidance !!

[crewsweeper]

Snorkeling or cave tubing or mayan ruins are the major choices in this port. If you do the Shark Ray Alley excursion out of the Wet Lizard (register on line), the teens get to swim with the sharks. Nurse sharks but large. And the manta rays. Lots of younger folks do th ecave tubing. Unless you're really up on archeology the ruins could be a bit boring for teens, though. Otherwise, the ships all have beach break type excursions that go out to small cayes.

[mousecrazy]

If you would like snorkeling and a unique beach day, Goff's Caye might work for you.

 

http://www.ecotoursbelize.com/snorkeling.html#goff_caye

 

Been on this tour twice and both times it was well ran and we had a wonderful day! But keep in mind, there are really no 'thrills' on the island...just snorkeling (from the boat and/or shore), sandy beach and beautiful, blue Caribbean waters...as well as a bbq (the day we were there, they were serving fresh...just speared...grilled squirrel fish). My teen (DD13) loves it here and would go back in a heartbeat.

[Will in sunny FL]

Everyone told us Caye Caulker and we kind of planned on it, reviews say doesnt seem teenager oriented.. We are In Belize in 2 weeks...obviously we havent planned anything....13 and 15 year old with us....cavetubing didnt strike us ?? are we to late ?? Need some Guidance !!

 

I'd second Crewsweeper's suggestion for a snorkeling trip with a local lunch on Caye Caulker, to have a chance for a look see for yourselves what it really is.

We do this trip with Coral breeze Tours twice each year & it is a ball with Heni leading her small group thru the coral reef & showing off the Moray Eel she has about tamed.

This beats the heck out of a cruise ship tour with 100 of your closest buds !

Look up their web site for the details on this trip.

Enjoy Belize.

Bill in FL

[Vacaydog]

Thanks Bill.....do they pick you up from ship and is there concern getting back on time ??

[Will in sunny FL]

You get an early tender from the ship to the Belize Tourist Village where you meet up with your snorkel group, board their boat for the reef & caye Caulker.

These people make their living by getting you back to the Tourist Village in plenty of time for your tender back to the ship.

Check out their site.

Bill in FL

[gemt52]

Will be stopping at this port in July, on my 2nd cruise ever and don't want to do cave tubing so looking for a fun beach day. Have never been here and want to know about booking through Carnival or other locations. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)

[Carmelita]

Caye Caulker is great, however, Corral Breeze is definitely NOT. Get off on first tender, arrive at their booth before 8:00am, hang around until 10:15 waiting to leave. Take the boat out 5 minutes, turn off the engines & sit for 10 minutes while they tell you "the plan". Continue on to Caye Caulker, pull into dock and listen for another 15 minutes while they explain snorkelling 101 to you and the other 48 passengers on board. Find out it is election day and their are no restaurants open on Caye Caulker so no lunch afterall - but you will get refund of the $6 paid. Boat out to the snorkel site (one "pro" of the trip, coral gardens is great), put on "mandatory" lifejacket (couple of smaller boats had people in the water without life jackets so not sure the meaning of "mandatory") wait for 45 people to offload into the water before you start to snorkel, listen to guides yell at you for 30 minutes, try to avoid the 88 other fins in your face while trying to take in as much of the underwater world as you can. Wait for 45 people to upload onto the boat and motor over to shark ray alley. Repeat process but as it is just standing around in shallow water the crowd isn't quite as bad. Lots of sharks and rays. Back to Caye Caulker, wander around find a grocery store open for chips & soda ($8 US for 2 - do you think they had a captive audience?). Advised boat trip back to Belize city would be 30-35 minutes, arrive 57 minutes later and wait for panicked HAL passengers to disembark as their last tender was scheduled to depart 5 minutes before our arrival. Other than the underwater life in the area, this tour totally sucked. It wasn't inexpensive and we would have been better off taking the ship tour or just taking the water taxi to Caye Caulker and finding a boat to take us to the reef for $20 each. At least with the ship tour, the organization would have been significantly better and it probably would not have been any more crowded.

[monicajay]

Everyone told us Caye Caulker and we kind of planned on it, reviews say doesnt seem teenager oriented.. We are In Belize in 2 weeks...obviously we havent planned anything....13 and 15 year old with us....cavetubing didnt strike us ?? are we to late ?? Need some Guidance !!

 

 

Not sure who 'everyone' is but I just got back from a self-organized trip to Caye Caulker. We did not have teens but I could see not reason they wouldn't have enjoyed it. We rented bikes for $4 per person per hour and had a great time roaming around the island. Water taxi trip over was $17.50 per person return. Just make sure you keep an eye on the clock as you don't want to miss your return water taxi.

 

One cruiser keeps promoting Coral Breeze on these boards. Before booking I would suggest you also read reviews on Tripadvisor. If you go to Caye Caulker on your own and get there early enough you can also find a local boat to take you out snorkeling. Unfortunately, the day we were there it was a bit rough.

[World Gallery]

We went to Caye Caulker with teens. They had an average/okay time. We rented golf carts, ate lunch, hung out at the split, and swam there. They didn't like the 45 minute water taxi ride one way after being on the tender boat for 20 minutes. Plus, waiting in line in a crowd to board the water taxi added about 40 more minutes. To us, Caye Caulker is not worth the long travel time when you add up all of the "travel pieces" just to get there.

We have also done cave tubing with teens, which they really enjoyed and remembered since it was so different. My husband thought it was just okay.