Captain your own river boat?

[SDMT]

Has anyone used CoralBreeze tours to do this excrusion? It sould like a fun way to spend time in Belize.

[elgato2]

I'd love to hear from someone who's done this also..we are going to be in Belize on the 7th..and have booked this tour.....really looking forward to it!

[SDMT]

elgato2-I hope that you will be able to give me some feed back on this tour when you return. We are going the first part of Jan. and have not booked this tour yet. Thanks

[mikvie]

I took this tour last March. I am going to Belize again in January. I am signed up for the tour again. I can't say enough about it. The boats are great, tour operators are great and the wildlife was abundant. The trip through the mangroves is a little tricky if you havent driven a boat before, but they do give you good instructions. Just don't stop! It is like a Disney ride, but you are in charge of the controls.

[boaterkeith]

We took the tour in April 07, it was great. The tour guides were informative about the history of Belize. It was very nice having your own boat, we passed several boats that were packed with people(like cattle). The boats were fast an easy too handle. We stopped for lunch and had a few beers at this river side restaurant. We saw several dolphins, crocs, and iguanas. It was a very nice private tour.

[elgato2]

Thanks mikvie and boaterkeith for the info. DH has owned boats all of his life so the piloting will be no problem..My biggest concern was noise-level but have been assured they are quiet. We rented airboats for a river tour years ago and of course all THEY do is scare the wildlife away!

[Silverscreen]

Just back from the Valor yesterday! We did this tour in Belize. The above posts are all so true! James was our tour guide, and Anthony was their driver. My husband and I were the only ones on the tour on that day. (there were only 4 boats in port, James said when they have more, sometimes up to 7, they are more busy) It was great. A little tricky going through the mangroves, but it was sooo cool. We too passed a LARGE group of OLDer people that looked like cattle. We saw tons of iguanas, crocs, birds, monkeys. And man, the knowledge James had was awesome!!! He said to be a tour guide for them they require a 6-8 month class, and it is ~400$ to take the class. Anything you asked he knew, and then some. Great tour, great price!! Anyone who goes will enjoy!!

[BRITISH CRUISER 66]

Belize will be one of the ports of call on my next cruise and i would be grateful to hear views on whether it would be sensible to allow my two sons aged 15 and 13 to drive their own boat or whether i should book to send them in the guide's boat. I shall be going to Bannister island with my wife and young daughter.

[mikvie]

Belize will be one of the ports of call on my next cruise and i would be grateful to hear views on whether it would be sensible to allow my two sons aged 15 and 13 to drive their own boat or whether i should book to send them in the guide's boat. I shall be going to Bannister island with my wife and young daughter.

 

Going thru the mangroves is a little tricky, but it scould be O.K. for a 15 year old. I don't know about a 13 year old. You might consider putting them both in one boat, with the 15 year old driving.

[BRITISH CRUISER 66]

Thanks for your reply Mikvie,

Coral Breeze have told me that they only allow people to drive the boats if they have a driving licence. Given that my sons are so keen on doing this tour it looks as if i will have to forego the pleasures of bannister island and drive the boat for them.

[mikvie]

Just back from the Valor yesterday! We did this tour in Belize. The above posts are all so true! James was our tour guide, and Anthony was their driver. My husband and I were the only ones on the tour on that day. (there were only 4 boats in port, James said when they have more, sometimes up to 7, they are more busy) It was great. A little tricky going through the mangroves, but it was sooo cool. We too passed a LARGE group of OLDer people that looked like cattle. We saw tons of iguanas, crocs, birds, monkeys. And man, the knowledge James had was awesome!!! He said to be a tour guide for them they require a 6-8 month class, and it is ~400$ to take the class. Anything you asked he knew, and then some. Great tour, great price!! Anyone who goes will enjoy!!

 

We took this tour last Thursday for the 2nd time. It was even better than the 1st. I agree with you about the big boats. They don't get up close and personal with the wildlife. James was our guide also. He is really knowledgable and passionate about his country. Try this tour. I'll guarantee you will love it!

[livesinwoods]

We just returned from our cruise. I just had to post and tell how pleased we were with the Captain Your Own Boat tour in Belize. James was our guide and he did a great job. We had 9 people in our group, so it took 3 boats. We have all owned boats, so knew how to drive the boats. The mangrove forest that we drove through was awesome. At the end of the tour - just as we had been dropped off at the pier - I discovered that i had left a bag on the boat and James went back and retrieved it for me. (It was about a 20 minute trip for James). I was very impressed with the entire experience - as was everyone in our group. (We varied in age from 3 to 60!) We booked through Coral Breeze.

 

 

 

 

-

[CruiserWKB]

We are going to do this on our next cruise on the Glory.

 

Looking forward to it.

[Rochesterboatingdotcom]

We took this tour on March 7th. We had booked with another couple on our cruise, but they were not feeling well, so we got a private tour. As everyone else has said, James, Tony and Kareem were top notch guides. We have a boat, so we really enjoyed getting out on the water in a boat we were piloting.

 

This was the best tour we have taken in the 4 cruises we have done. We saw crocs, iguanas, tons of birds and we even saw 2 manatees. The tour lasted the whole day and the beer stop halfway through was great.

 

I would highly recommend this tour to anyone interested!

 

My wife took a movie of us blasting through the mangroves, check it out:

 

http://travel.webshots.com/video/3020864590035125439vZgMKh?vhost=travel

[mom2girls]

My boyfriend and I would love to do this tour. We tried to make reservations on the Coral Breeze website, but it said there had to be a minimum of 4 people. It did say that the web page would change if a group with 4 people had already booked. Does anyone know our chances of being able to go on this tour?

[welldone60]

Go to your roll call for your cruise and see if anyone else would like to do this with you.

[mom2girls]

I have gone to my roll call board. Most of them are doing the cave tubing, which I have already done.

[welldone60]

Mom2girls

When are you going? If it is months out you could keep asking on your roll call. There might be other ships in that day. You could check there roll call.

 

A little costly, but you could book for four and try to find a couple after you board.

[mom2girls]

We're going in 7 weeks. We'll probably do something else.

[babsinpbg]

hello...can you tell me..did you all book this excursion through your cruise, or on your own. I'm not seeing anything like this offered through our cruise on RCCL in August. Can you post a link for me? Thanks.

[mom2girls]

The ships don't offer anything like this. It's through coralbreezetoursdotcom. You need to have at least 4 people going on the day you plan to go or the site won't let you book it.

[babsinpbg]

Thanks...that's the info. I needed.

[5-5-07]

The ships don't offer anything like this. It's through coralbreezetoursdotcom. You need to have at least 4 people going on the day you plan to go or the site won't let you book it.

 

 

I booked this same excursion through coralbreeze for this Tuesday coming up for just my husband and I. According to the people at coral breeze as long as they have their minimum amount of people for that day booked they will allow you to book for groups smaller than 4. We just kept checking back until one day it let us book for 2 people.

[mom2girls]

I've been checking every couple of days or so. It still won't let me book the tour. Hopefully, I will be able to book it in within the next 2 weeks or so. If it doesn't I will book something else.

[muggo11]

Based on your reviews, I'm going to give this one a try. . . Think I'll take my chances and book for 4 (there's only my son and I going) and hope to find someone on board (perhaps some fellow teen club members) to take along.