Wanting to take a ruins tour...

[sports-mom]

I have been reading alot about how spectacular the Lamanai Mayan Ruins are, but can not find them on the carnival site. Have these been cancelled?

I have noticed the Xunantunich Ruins, are they the same/similar?

I really wanted to book this type tour with the cruiseline, since its a long excursion and seems too risky with missing the boat.

The last thing my DH & I need is to be stuck in Belize with my 3 boys :(

 

Thanks for any tips & advice.

[Toyz711]

some of the cruiseline don't go to lamanai...which is a good thing, it spreads the tourism out a little.

here's a website that you can use to see the differences between some of the mayan sites

http://www.belizeexplorer.com/cgi-local/explorer.cgi?db=explorer&uid=default&Category=Mayan+Sites&view_records=1&nh=1

[sports-mom]

Oh, Very cool, Cathi, thanks! :)

[Toyz711]

more then 2 river boats, at a time, would be the limit. lamanai's dock is a hand-made thing, wood planks with supports...couldn't handle many boats. lamanai is NOT like some of the other places that have been over-runned by tourists and tour companies for year. even the river dock, where you 1st get on the speed boats, is not that big of a area.

guess that's why lamanai is in such good shape?

1st photo is the docks on the river, 2nd is the river area of lamanai

[sports-mom]

wow.. you'd think with all the people coming thru there, they'd

fix it up alittle better. :)

Thanks for the additional info Cathi.

[cstrick]

We recently took the river boat tour to Lamani. The site is very interesting but the operator is to be avoided. They run two boats and on the day that we took the tour one of the boats lost an engine and the one that we were on lost it's steering and crashed into the shore at a high rate of speed. The operator had no means of communication and no tools to fix the boat. Several passengers cobbled something together to get the boat back in the main channel. If that had not happened we may have spent hours waiting for help. I was injured by branches and have many bruises. Be careful choosing an operator. This was a sanctioned shore excursion.

[sports-mom]

We recently took the river boat tour to Lamani. The site is very interesting but the operator is to be avoided. They run two boats and on the day that we took the tour one of the boats lost an engine and the one that we were on lost it's steering and crashed into the shore at a high rate of speed. The operator had no means of communication and no tools to fix the boat. Several passengers cobbled something together to get the boat back in the main channel. If that had not happened we may have spent hours waiting for help. I was injured by branches and have many bruises. Be careful choosing an operator. This was a sanctioned shore excursion.

 

Oh wow.. how awful :(

After reading this and a few other threads, I think i'm going to stick with the one that carnival offers and not run the risk of missing the boat and all.