Ruins and River tour. Wallace? Ole Belize? So confused

[jdmaillet]

We will be on the Feb 7th Liberty and my DD17 wants to see some Ruins. For some reason I'm feeling overwhelmed trying to plan this. I really don't want to spend an entire day. Also, my DGD 12 is going with us and she has minor mobility issues. She had surgery 6 months ago and still has a limp (although active she can't stand for long periods of time without an aching foot). We have never done Western Caribbean so I am trying to get familiar with the ports and feel of the whole thing. I think we will do this in Belize because I hear it's an iffy port and if we are going to do something thru the ship then this would probably be the place to do it. I see there is a Bus/ River tour that is about 6 hours and it refers to the Ole Belize River. I also see post about the River Wallace. What's the difference? Is there anyone familiar with all this who can spell it out for me? Will these be good ruins to see? Will the boat ride be enjoyable? Is Belize even a good place to see Ruins? Our other stops are Costa Maya, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. Does the Riverboat feel safe? I'm a big wus and keep thinking about crocodile infested waters (especially after watching animal planets I'M ALIVE segments this week!) This is not something I'm really gung ho on but ya know, trying to give everyone something of what they'd like to do. Thanks for any and all input!

Jenn

[sbhdmh]

Just off IOS today and we did this tour in Belize. We rarely do ship's tours but I got the sense that for Belize cave tubing through a private company would be ok but a ship's tour would be a safer bet for other options. I was traveling with 5 year old dd and 74 year old mother who cannot walk long distances. The ruins at Altun Ha were quite small (dh and I have done 2 land tours visiting lots and lots of ruins throughout the Yucatan so small to us may still be impressive to someone who hasn't seen them before.) We had very limited time at the ruins. The group climbed the largest pyramid (very steep, treacherous stairs - might not be good for DGD recovering from surgery) without our guide ("I have bad knees"). Other groups were climbing some of the other structures but our guide said we didn't have the time. He allowed dh and dd to climb one other while he was explaining about the large pyramid - that was it.

 

The riverboat was 2 rows of 2 seat benchs about 8 rows deep. Ours was not covered but another group leaving at the same time did have a roof covering them. I asked our guide about seeing howler monkeys - the main reason I booked the tour was to give dd the chance to see monkeys in their natural habitat. He said that 9 out of 10 times they find monkeys. Of course we were number 10 - no monkeys. We saw one crododile sleeping on the shore, lots of iguanas, several types of herons and some bats. We went to an area where manatee live and "saw" them. Seeing a manatee meant watching very still water looking for the 4" or so of their snouts that they put out of the water for about 3 seconds at a time to breathe. We saw a lot of that but I can't really say we saw manatee.

 

We also visited Mayan ruins in Costa Maya and it was MUCH better. If you only want to do one set of ruins I would do these instead. We did the Mayan Experience tour through Native Choice where we visited a current day Mayan family who prepared a traditional Mayan meal for us after we visited the ruins. This was a great experience. If I had it to do over I would probably opt for a tour that included the Belize Zoo or one of the preserves since we really didn't see much wildlife on our Old Belize River cruise. It was a great experience to cruise down a river in the jungle of Belize but we did not see nearly as much wild life as I had hoped. I think if we did the zoo or sanctuaries it would have actually been okay to use a private tour.

 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions I may be able to answer.

[jdmaillet]

Thanks so much for the info. The family really wants to do a beach break in Costa Maya so I think we will do this tour in Belize. When doing a search for reviews I can't come up with much. Mostly its the river wallace excursion that from my research I'm gathering is Carnival's excursion as opposed to RCCL. And, that one gets rave reviews. What about lunch? How was that? And am I correct in reading between the lines that you weren't crazy about your guide?

[jcjky]

We will be on the Feb 7th Liberty and my DD17 wants to see some Ruins. For some reason I'm feeling overwhelmed trying to plan this. I really don't want to spend an entire day. Also, my DGD 12 is going with us and she has minor mobility issues. She had surgery 6 months ago and still has a limp (although active she can't stand for long periods of time without an aching foot). We have never done Western Caribbean so I am trying to get familiar with the ports and feel of the whole thing. I think we will do this in Belize because I hear it's an iffy port and if we are going to do something thru the ship then this would probably be the place to do it. I see there is a Bus/ River tour that is about 6 hours and it refers to the Ole Belize River. I also see post about the River Wallace. What's the difference? Is there anyone familiar with all this who can spell it out for me? Will these be good ruins to see? Will the boat ride be enjoyable? Is Belize even a good place to see Ruins? Our other stops are Costa Maya, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. Does the Riverboat feel safe? I'm a big wus and keep thinking about crocodile infested waters (especially after watching animal planets I'M ALIVE segments this week!) This is not something I'm really gung ho on but ya know, trying to give everyone something of what they'd like to do. Thanks for any and all input!

Jenn

River Wallace and Ole Belize river are the same river different names. This tour should be very safe for all of you. Costa Maya has a tour to Chacchoben ruins that is buy bus that would be nice too.

[jdmaillet]

Thank you, that is making more sense to me now. Family has heart set on doing an all inclusive beach break in Costa Maya and Belize is where is I was really looking to do a ship excursion as we generally always go with private companies. Thanks for the info. Especially about the river being the same. I was googling trying to figure out but wasn't getting much!

Jenn

[MDSue]

I really enjoyed the river/ruins tour. We saw a ton of wildlife on the river part [a hat, sunscreen and bug spray is essential]. The ruins at Altun Ha were on level ground and there is not a lot of walking necessary unless you want to climb the ruins.

Belize is a great port to do a tour because the area around the dock is not so nice. Costa Maya, especially the little town of Majahual, is great for a beach day.