Just booked Lamanai privatly, are we crazy?

[bklsmom]

We just booked the Lamanai ruins tour through Island Marketing. Carnival doesn't offer a shore excursion to the Lamanai ruins and we really want to go, so we are taking the plunge and doing it privatly. I've read where everyone suggest not to venture on our own to do this tour since it is far from the port and a long day....website says it is a 6 hour tour and we are in port for 9 hours...Have we made a mistake to do this privately?

[dgack1]

we did this tour a few years ago, it is still my favorite! Time will be tight, but I would do it again in a minute. I did post a review, listing the pros and cons....now I just remember the pros. :p enjoy your cruise

[Mom2B&Z]

Having done the tour in January, I would pay close attention to how long it takes you to drive on the bus to the boat drop off, and how long it takes the boat to get to Lamanai. On the boat trip there we took our time looking for wildlife, which added about 30 mins to the trip (1.25 hrs total), the way back was about 45 mins. The bus ride iirc is just over an hour. If it takes you more than 2 hours to get there, walk fast and consider skipping lunch so you can get back to the ship.

You'll love it, the ruins are beautiful and the boat ride there is half the adventure!

[Big Tillie]

We did this excursion in October 2011 while on the Carnival Dream. Booked through Island Marketing. We were about 30 minutes late leaving the port, but still had plenty of time. This was probably the best excursion we have taken. The boat ride up the river was a blast and the ruins were fantastic. The lunch was basic, but really good. Don't worry about getting back late. They know what they are doing. Their livelihood depends on it.

[Tree Hugger]

I'm really leaning towards booking this one, just have to accept the time constraint. On paper it looks like we should have enough time though.

 

How big are the groups they send? Their website says minimum of two per reservation so it was making me wonder if it is very small groups, or possibly just us??? We would be booking a family of four.

[dgack1]

I'm really leaning towards booking this one, just have to accept the time constraint. On paper it looks like we should have enough time though.

 

How big are the groups they send? Their website says minimum of two per reservation so it was making me wonder if it is very small groups, or possibly just us??? We would be booking a family of four.

 

Our tour was just our family of four..:)

[ChattTenn]

We just booked the Lamanai ruins tour through Island Marketing. Carnival doesn't offer a shore excursion to the Lamanai ruins and we really want to go, so we are taking the plunge and doing it privatly. I've read where everyone suggest not to venture on our own to do this tour since it is far from the port and a long day....website says it is a 6 hour tour and we are in port for 9 hours...Have we made a mistake to do this privately?

 

You will need to be mindful about the time.

 

We did this tour a few years back with the cruise line and were on the last 3 tenders returned to the ship (had no time to buy anything around the pier).

 

Happy Cruising

[MichaelZ]

I know what you mean, you are concerned about timing. One thing i know from having used this company in many countries, including Belize, is that they will get you back to your ship on time. Because they are private, they have control over every aspect of your day, and have designed the tours to ensure you get back on time. We use them over and over again as the quality of tours and their concern with us getting back on time is definitely a top priority to them. If you are worried about anything, get on their live chat, i use it alot and ask every question i can think of. Have fun!

[ibcnusoon]

Semi related, but we took the ship's excursion to Xunantunich mayan ruins, also a 6-7 hour trip, even though we were supposed to be at the port for 8 hours.

Remember, this is a tendered port, so that 8 hours now is down to 7 hours because it'll take about 1/2 hour two board the tender and get over to the port.

To make matters worse, we arrived on time but had to wait an hour before all passengers were allowed to leave the ship. I'm thinkin this happens alot in Belieze because I overheard a port person and a ship person joke about it when we were departing for the tender.

As expected, we were delayed at the end of our excursion. The ship was supposed to leave at 5:00pm so we were supposed to be back by 4pm. Well, because of the long commute and having an all-day excursion, we didn't make it back to the port until 5:30pm. Because it was a ship's tour, they waited for us.

If there is any country that I would DEFINATELY book a ship's tour is Belize. There is NO WAY I would want to be left behind, although Belize is very beautiful (interior sections) the hotels we passed in the city were VERY scary, even the one on the waterfront.

[CaribbeanCrazy]

bklsmom,

Just wondering if you have done this tour yet? In your post you didn't mention when you were going so I didn't know if you already went on it or not. Anyway thinking of booking this tour with island marketing but also worried about the time. We will be in Belize from 8:00-6:00 on Feb 5th so on paper it looks to be plenty of time. But with tendering and figuring in the what ifs I'm a little nervous. Would love to hear about your experience the good and the bad (if any).

Thanks:)

[EthelnElmer]

We were on the same ship with BLKSMOM in May...Lamani was awesome.... its a dont miss excursion but if you are sailing with Carnival this is not offered through them any longer and you will have to book through an independant excursion operator like we did! We used "cruise excursion group" because they offer an on time return Guarantee but they are also about $40.00 per person higher than the other guys....we wanted the "guarantee" so that my inlaws would allow me to relax. With that said.... I think any of the operators would be fine as long as there are no unexpected issues.... I think we arrived back to port about 15 minutes early and had time to take a bathroom break before we boarded the tender back. The thing to remember is that these operators do this several days a week for a living and thier existance depends on not having negative reviews...ever.... so relax and enjoy and dont be a clock watcher.... thats thier job!

[CaribbeanCrazy]

Thanks for the reply:) Just wondering how the guarantee works? You say you got back with only 15 minutes to spare. What if vehicle you were touring in would have had trouble? How would they have had you back in time? That's cutting it pretty close...and that's what scares me! If there was an hour or two to spare I wouldn't worry because there would be time to problem solve! As much as this tour sounds amazing I not sure it's worth the worry! Glad you got to go and didn't have any problems;)

[EthelnElmer]

The Guarantee was in writing on thier webpage and basically stated that if we missed the ship due to the excursion returning late that they would pay for Hotel, meals and transportation to the next port of call as required for us to catch up to the ship.... as for the 15 minutes - keep in mind that the "Last Tender" as stated by Carnival is almost never the last tender and in reality we probably had another 20 minutes to shop if we had wanted to push the envelope! Hope you get a chance to visit Lamani.... you wont be disappointed

 

Steven

[JimAOk1945]

Last December, DW and I took a ship sponsored tour to Lamanai. We were on Mariner of the Seas. It was a very long day but well worth it.

 

However, on our way back, our tour bus was stuck in traffic, and we were 45min. late getting back to the ship. :eek:

 

Had we been on a private tour, I'm not sure the ship would have waited for us.

 

If you are interested, you can view my wife's pictures at this link to her website.

 

http://nancysoasis.com/belize/belize.html

[cruisernh]

I really wan to do Lamanai but,I don't want to do belize without the ship. Toomany factors. anyone ever see a hope of Carnival doing Lumanai ?

 

 

or do I go with the Xunantunich excursion it just seems so long with so little time at ruins...........................