NCL "Arial Trek & Cave Tubing" Excursion???

[UCFalum]

Greetings all! I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season!!!

 

My partner and I will be cruising on the NCL Sun on 1/28/2006 and are looking for some excursion suggestions/advice. We have done Cozumel several times, but our other three ports of call will be new to us. Any help in figuring out what we "must see" would be greatly appreciated!!! :)

 

**Belize**

The Arial Trek looks VERY appealing to us, and we hear that cave tubing is THE THING to do in Belize. We are thinking of doing the ship's "Arial Trek & Cave Tubing" excursion, mostly because it seems to be an all-day excursion and we don't want to have to worry about time and missing the boat with what seems to be essentially a "double excursion". Has anyone else done this excursion? Are we cheating ourselves by trying to do both in one day? Is the Arial Trek worth doing in Belize (I don't see it offerred in any other of our ports)?

 

Any suggestions for Costa Maya or Santo Tomas De Dastilla Guatemala???

 

Thanks in advance,

Keith

[NJ_Mike]

I wouldn't recommend doing it through the ship. We just returned from the Dawn on 12/22. I was looking forward to this excusion the most

 

I originally booked through Cynthia & Nacho, but backed out the night before and booked thru the ship. Tendering was a nightmare the day b/f so I was nervous I wouldn't get off in time (and prices were similar). The Cave Tubing & Ariel trek were really cool, but we were rushed through them both. There is plenty of time to do it through an independent operator. Ariel trek took about 1/2 hour in TOTAL. We didn't get any talks aboutthe local vegetation or anything. The cave tubing was over in about 45 minutes. As far as I can tell we only went through one big cave.

 

Friends we met took the same tour through a local hotel in the area. I think it might have been the Radisson (maybe?). They only paid $100pp verus the $140pp we paid thru the ship.

 

Definately swim with the Sting Rays in Grand Caymen if you are going there. I recommend Capt Marvin.

 

For a good tour of the island in Hondorous, use Juan Carlos Rodriguez. Very nice guy who you can trust completely. He will take you anywhere you want to go.

 

Dunns River was a lot of fun also. Local people are very pushy in trying to sell stuff.

 

Playa Mia was a great play for a relaxing beach day at Cozumel.

 

I hope this helps a bit. Btw, I went w/ my girlfriend (late twenties, also). The Dawn was def an older crowd. Not much to do at night.

[UCFalum]

Thanks for the info Mike!

 

Do you remember how many "zip lines" you went on? Just a half-hour seems pretty short!?! The 45 minutes of tubing seems about right though, I guess.

 

Thanks again! :D

 

--Keith

[bauerdogs]

If your doing cave tubing in Belize--Look up reggie tours--Had a blast with him, and he is cheaper and only takes around a dozen people. Gets you back to the ship with lots of time to spare. We met the ships tour out there, about 40 of them and no one knew what they were doing. They tried to follow our group thru the caves, but we lost them :) We were back to the ship about an hour before them, and we stopped to eat :) Ron