Not leaving ship while in port

[canadianjovigirl]

Probably a silly question, but we are booked for our first cruise Feb 2014 on the Dawn and cant seem to find an excursion listed on NCL for while we are in port in Belize.

 

I am thinking maybe it would be a good thing to just skip getting off the boat and spend some time checking out the boat and enjoying the day on board. We do have 3 other ports that we will have activities planned for so thinking it may be nice to have a down day and some extra time on the ship to explore since i am sure the week will fly by.

 

Is it okay to do this? Do others do this? If we change our minds are we able to then get off upon arrival or do you need to have everything booked ahead of time?

[luddite]

Go to Belize. I cannot imagine staying on the ship.

[sdmike]

Go for it. Lots of folks LOVE how quiet the ship is when everyone else gets off. There will likely be some things not open on the ship while in port, like the Casino, shops, and maybe some restaurants, but you won't be alone. I tend to stay on the ship in Nassau, and out here in Ensenada when we do a short cruise out of SoCal. I have zero interest in visiting those places again

Edited March 19, 2013 by sdmike

[smeyer418]

Probably a silly question, but we are booked for our first cruise Feb 2014 on the Dawn and cant seem to find an excursion listed on NCL for while we are in port in Belize.

 

I am thinking maybe it would be a good thing to just skip getting off the boat and spend some time checking out the boat and enjoying the day on board. We do have 3 other ports that we will have activities planned for so thinking it may be nice to have a down day and some extra time on the ship to explore since i am sure the week will fly by.

 

Is it okay to do this? Do others do this? If we change our minds are we able to then get off upon arrival or do you need to have everything booked ahead of time?

of course you can stay on the ship. They don't push you off. It becomes very quiet on the ship on port days...a nice quiet way to spend a day

[Warmer Climes]

Probably a silly question, but we are booked for our first cruise Feb 2014 on the Dawn and cant seem to find an excursion listed on NCL for while we are in port in Belize.

 

I am thinking maybe it would be a good thing to just skip getting off the boat and spend some time checking out the boat and enjoying the day on board. We do have 3 other ports that we will have activities planned for so thinking it may be nice to have a down day and some extra time on the ship to explore since i am sure the week will fly by.

 

Is it okay to do this? Do others do this? If we change our minds are we able to then get off upon arrival or do you need to have everything booked ahead of time?

 

Plenty of people stay on the ship in port. We loved all our Belize excursions but its up to you.

[jamminlion]

It's a great time to visit the spa - often they offer discounted rates on port days.

No (or fewer anyway) chair hogs, and overall a very relaxing day.

[Seago2]

Yes, if you're doing something in the other ports you need a down day with an empty ship. Then again, cave tubing is a lot of fun. You can arrange those with independent operators for $50 a head and it only takes a few hours. Then again, you have to tender!

[canadianjovigirl]

Go to Belize. I cannot imagine staying on the ship.

 

 

We just havent found something that everyone will enjoy.

 

Son would love to zipline - but i am terrified of heights and bridges so there is no way that is happening.......

 

Some of us would like to try cave tubing, but the non swimmers of fearful of doing that...............

 

We really are beach people, but the island excursion seems to be so short and far away for the price............

 

Some of the other excursions dont really have great reviews so hesitant over them.

 

Maybe i can get the not so great swimmers more confident and they will get off a boat to snorkel in the ocean (didnt happen in Grand Cayman over the Christmas holidays - they stayed on the boat, so wasnt really all that great with 2 of us in the water and 2 of us on the boat)

[Carolina Daisy]

It's your vacation, you should do exactly what YOU want. I'm thinking of staying on the boat when we do our Med. cruise. 3 back to back days of Greek Isles - how different can they really be?? I've heard it's nice and quiet on the boat when most passengers are on excursions and I've also heard the spa might be discounted!!

 

Have a great trip!

 

Debra

Edited March 19, 2013 by Carolina Daisy

[mom2tcdx2]

Closest I ever did to staying on the ship was in Roatan, we got off walked the couple little shops that were there and got right back on the ship. Excursions didn't appeal to us and neither did the small shopping section.

 

Belize we did a nice little excursion with NCL, was actually one of the nicer excursions I have been on. I know we did a tour, river cruise (actually saw a dolphin in the river) and had a nice lunch.

[sdmike]

We just havent found something that everyone will enjoy.

 

Son would love to zipline - but i am terrified of heights and bridges so there is no way that is happening.......

 

Some of us would like to try cave tubing, but the non swimmers of fearful of doing that...............

 

We really are beach people, but the island excursion seems to be so short and far away for the price............

 

Some of the other excursions dont really have great reviews so hesitant over them.

 

Maybe i can get the not so great swimmers more confident and they will get off a boat to snorkel in the ocean (didnt happen in Grand Cayman over the Christmas holidays - they stayed on the boat, so wasnt really all that great with 2 of us in the water and 2 of us on the boat)

 

Not sure how this breaks down into adults/kids, but our group has headed off in different directions in the past. Maybe the swimmers go to the caves and the others go zip lining or stay on the ship. Just a thought.

[Moondawgie]

By all means, do what YOU want. I have stayed on the ship in Nassau although I've been there several times. It's a good day for spa specials.

 

If you change your mind, the tender will take you in after the rush - but if you don't have an excursion planned, I don't think the area where the tender drops you off has much to offer.

 

The ship is so quiet on port days - I say go for it. Enjoy whatever you do.

 

Oh, and there is an excursion where you can swim with (nurse) sharks. That would be adventurous and you don't have to know how to swim.

[canadianjovigirl]

Where are you folks all finding your excursions at as i am seeing some mentioned that i cant find on the NCL website...........is there somewhere else i should be looking?

[Anginette]

Sure you can. I rarely get off the ship at GSC.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Anginette

[toberman]

Where are you folks all finding your excursions at as i am seeing some mentioned that i cant find on the NCL website...........is there somewhere else i should be looking?

 

Google Belize shore excursions.... you'll find plenty along with reviews of some.

[mom2tcdx2]

I know when we did ours it was booked through NCL, though in glancing we did the Altun Ha and Old Belize River Tour. Though I guess that really depends on what someone likes to do. We had a great time, the tour guides were really great and it was one of the nicer excursions we have done. But again that is our opinion.

[shark with a laser]

I love staying on the ship! I wish my upcoming cruise had a couple more sea days because I just can't skip a port in the Mediterranean.

 

Belize, though, unless you have an excursion planned either through the ship or through a company on your own, isn't really that great a port. Mostly just shopping within the port area. The area outside the port isn't anywhere you want to walk around, unless it's changed since I've been there.

[jackparts]

We've done and are doing again, the boat excursion to the Belize Zoo. Really enjoyed it, except for the food they give you. Chicken and ??, small portions. We grab something prepackaged from the ship to take along for the kids. They do give you one drink, a coke with real cane sugar, verrrryy good.

[Twelvevman]

If we change our minds are we able to then get off upon arrival or do you need to have everything booked ahead of time?

 

In regards to this specific question, yes, you can decie to just get off without having an excursion booked. Belize is a tender port so if you want to get off early, you need to get tender passes for the initial period of tendering. If you are in no rush, just wait until they call open tendering. You do not need to book an excursion to get off the ship in any of the ports.

[Twelvevman]

W

Some of us would like to try cave tubing, but the non swimmers of fearful of doing that...............

 

 

If it helps, they do provide life vests for the cave tubing and I don't believe the water is very deep. Our guide walked along side our tubes for the majority of the trip.

[canadianjovigirl]

If it helps, they do provide life vests for the cave tubing and I don't believe the water is very deep. Our guide walked along side our tubes for the majority of the trip.

 

That may work as they are swimmers, just not confident ones in the middle of the ocean but can snorkel from shore etc. (they worry that the ocean currents will take them away)

 

Would love to be able to do the zip lining for my son, but my fear of heights is so great i am researching everything to pieces as if it involves bridges etc to walk over i am done - just cant do it lol

 

Also scared of booking on our own as afraid of missing the boat...............all these crazy worries trying to plan our first cruise, and being a planning nut does not help matters.

 

I am thinking tendering wont be much of an issue as we are in a suite and from what NCL tells me they arrange that for us and we just get there when they tell us to or am i misunderstanding them?

 

We are huge beach folk so trying to find all the best beaches on our stops, but would be nice to do something different one day and from my understanding there are not many great beaches near the port in belize

Edited March 19, 2013 by canadianjovigirl

[S&S Cruisers 1983]

We did the Altun Ha excursion in Belize with NCL. We enjoyed it. We didn't book it early, we booked it on board the ship. We have also stayed on board in port. You can also come and go from the ship as much as you like in port if you don't have any excursions booked.

[luddite]

We just havent found something that everyone will enjoy.

 

Son would love to zipline - but i am terrified of heights and bridges so there is no way that is happening.......

 

Some of us would like to try cave tubing, but the non swimmers of fearful of doing that...............

 

We really are beach people, but the island excursion seems to be so short and far away for the price............

 

Some of the other excursions dont really have great reviews so hesitant over them.

 

Maybe i can get the not so great swimmers more confident and they will get off a boat to snorkel in the ocean (didnt happen in Grand Cayman over the Christmas holidays - they stayed on the boat, so wasnt really all that great with 2 of us in the water and 2 of us on the boat)

 

I wouldn't think everyone would want to do the same thing.

Belize has the second-largest reef.

Non-swimmers won't be endangered by cave-tubing-it ain't a swimming excursion.

You hafta go to belize to get Belikin and Marie's.

There are Mayan ruins to see.

I just cannot see staying on the ship as an option.

[coscab]

We tend to do private excursions, not through the ship, but we just tendered in Belize and found a place to use the internet (my own tablet)

I have to say from what I had read about Belize I did not feel safe booking privately, I know others feel differently but I was thankful that I didn't book anything because the day we were in port (second week of Jan. 2013) the NCL Belize city tour had been canceled due to a gang style murder of 4 people the night before, when we got off the tender we were told that the police had the area outside the immediate area blocked off but we did enjoy just being right around that immediate area, felt safe there because you could tell they didn't want tourists to feel uncomfortable.

There was a chocolate factory and bars and shops, if you do book an excursion I would think through NCL would be the best way to go for this particular port, just my opinion, that way if for some reason something isn't right they will cancel it, the incident that happened when we were there was all over the news, (very graphic) very sad, 4 young men.

[tweakes]

The tenders in Belize do take about 40 minutes though so don't wait too late... we stood in a looooooong line at the end of the day to get back.

 

There are a few shops around the port, but nothing special ... still there's something there to walk around and spend money on some junk. If you aren't doing an excursion, however, I would not want to sit on a tender for an hour and a half just to see the port. You'd probably have more fun on the boat.

 

There are some nice tours in Belize, but it's HOT (well it was in October). And very poor.