Belize Dilemma

[Clearwater]

I booked with Coral Breeze for the Barrister Island and Great Reef Snorkel for my trip in 2 weeks. I just received an email that they may cancel it because we are the only 2 people who booked it?! I can't believe with all the reviews for them, we were the only 2 people.

 

So I am sad and back to the drawing board for Belize.

 

I am really not big on Carnival excursions because I don't want to be cattle herded with 200 people and the trip comes back SO early. Why would I want to come back at like noonish when there is an amazing deserted island??

 

I wonder if there is any other way to get to Barrister without Coral Breeze or Carnival?

 

I searched and searched on the Belize thread but only saw other questions.

 

Any recommendations from others? I would LOVE to see the reef and snorkel and would LOVE an amazing beach day with food and drinks after.

[truchattycathy]

Email them and ask what other excursions they have that involve snorkeling. Try Shark/Ray Alley with Coral Breeze for example. They should be able to suggest an alternative.

 

Good luck.

[ArizonaTracie]

clearwater..when are you sailing and when will you be in belize? We sail in 2 weeks also but I don't have anything planned yet for Belize..if the dates work and we like the excursion, I may be interested in signing up!

[Colorado Kat]

Maybe see if others on your roll call are interested in joining you?

[ArizonaTracie]

DUH!!! Clearwater..I just noticed your cruise ticker..we are both sailing on the Legend October 9!!! I will go to coral breezes website and check out the Bannister island excursion.

[ArizonaTracie]

Clearwater..we are booked for the coral breeze bannister island tour. There are 3 of us, so unless you cancelled your excursion that makes 5 of us and we should be good to go. If you cancelled, I will end up getting the email that there aren't enough participants.:p

[bguppies]

Whatever you do, if you do not find an excursion for Belize, do not get off the ship.

 

We did not have anything booked last week on the Legend and made the mistake of getting off to look around.

 

The water from the ship to shore is incredibly muddy (which is strange as every port around Belize is gorgeous, blue/green caribbean clear) and has lots of garbage floating everywhere. (I was stunned)

 

The little shopping area in the barbed wire port area has little Air Conditioning (and the few shops that do, leave their doors wide open, letting the AC out) and we docked at 8AM, which was 6AM in Belize time and it was already in the upper 80's and humid as heck at 6AM. (and I am from South Carolina, work outside all day, and am used to the heat and humidity)

I tried walking to the gate at the edge of the barb wired area and all I saw was alot of machine gunned armed soldiers outside the gate.

 

Then us and about 100 other Legend passenger tried to catch a tender back to the ship after about 60-90 minutes.

A tender was unloading as we stepped up, but after unloading they decided to take a break and pulled off with no pax.

A 2nd tender pulled in and unloaded and again, said they weren't returning and pulled off.

a 3rd tender pulled up, and I felt bad for the Carnival security girl, as the now 100 or so crowd was getting very vocal and unruly.

Luckily, they let us load onto this one after waiting out in the sun, with a line wrapping around the shop area, for over an hour.

 

Everybody got back to the ship and at least us, never left the air conditioning inside the ship for the rest of the day.

 

Belize makes Freeport in the Bahamas look like Half Moon Cay.

At least there are only 3 ports I have disliked in 9 cruises now.

Belize, Jamaica and Freeport.

 

I hope you are able to find enough people to get to go to bannister Island.

I wish we would have tried it last week.

 

Bill

[Clearwater]

T&K - Outstanding! He just emailed me to let me know someone else booked so he wasn't going to cancel it. I think I have some other family members who may also book so hopefully we should be good to go!!

 

I hadn't seen the replies so I apologize for the late response.

 

Bguppies:

Sorry you had that experience. I went to Belize a few yrs ago and I just jumped in a van and did a private tour. I absolutely loved seeing the island, the way people live, the city center, etc and we stopped and shopped and had an incredible lunch off the beaten path with a beautiful view.

 

I was supposed to go on the cave tubing and ended up getting a major chest cold, asthma, etc and the cold water of the caves did not seem appealing. So I ended up, on the fly, just getting a van and a driver with my family and while eye opening and poor, I am extremely interested in other cultures and how people live.

 

With that said, I have been to Negril many times and adore Jamaica and noticed you mentioned you didn't like it. So I guess everybody has different tastes and I am sorry you didn't get to see some of the beauty of Belize and instead had a bad experience.

 

This time I really want to see the reef since I already saw the city last time and Barrister seemed like a perfect way to end the trip.

[skylock]

Whatever you do, if you do not find an excursion for Belize, do not get off the ship.

 

We did not have anything booked last week on the Legend and made the mistake of getting off to look around.

 

The water from the ship to shore is incredibly muddy (which is strange as every port around Belize is gorgeous, blue/green caribbean clear) and has lots of garbage floating everywhere. (I was stunned)

 

The little shopping area in the barbed wire port area has little Air Conditioning (and the few shops that do, leave their doors wide open, letting the AC out) and we docked at 8AM, which was 6AM in Belize time and it was already in the upper 80's and humid as heck at 6AM. (and I am from South Carolina, work outside all day, and am used to the heat and humidity)

I tried walking to the gate at the edge of the barb wired area and all I saw was alot of machine gunned armed soldiers outside the gate.

 

Then us and about 100 other Legend passenger tried to catch a tender back to the ship after about 60-90 minutes.

A tender was unloading as we stepped up, but after unloading they decided to take a break and pulled off with no pax.

A 2nd tender pulled in and unloaded and again, said they weren't returning and pulled off.

a 3rd tender pulled up, and I felt bad for the Carnival security girl, as the now 100 or so crowd was getting very vocal and unruly.

Luckily, they let us load onto this one after waiting out in the sun, with a line wrapping around the shop area, for over an hour.

 

Everybody got back to the ship and at least us, never left the air conditioning inside the ship for the rest of the day.

 

Belize makes Freeport in the Bahamas look like Half Moon Cay.

At least there are only 3 ports I have disliked in 9 cruises now.

Belize, Jamaica and Freeport.

 

I hope you are able to find enough people to get to go to bannister Island.

I wish we would have tried it last week.

 

Bill

 

Bannister Island does not have air conditioner. I doubt you would have liked it.

[Clearwater]

I live in subtropical Florida and am used to humidity and heat. As long as there is water to cool off in, I am good to go :)

[bguppies]

Bguppies:

Sorry you had that experience. I went to Belize a few yrs ago and I just jumped in a van and did a private tour. I absolutely loved seeing the island, the way people live, the city center, etc and we stopped and shopped and had an incredible lunch off the beaten path with a beautiful view.

 

I was supposed to go on the cave tubing and ended up getting a major chest cold, asthma, etc and the cold water of the caves did not seem appealing. So I ended up, on the fly, just getting a van and a driver with my family and while eye opening and poor, I am extremely interested in other cultures and how people live.

 

With that said, I have been to Negril many times and adore Jamaica and noticed you mentioned you didn't like it. So I guess everybody has different tastes and I am sorry you didn't get to see some of the beauty of Belize and instead had a bad experience.

 

This time I really want to see the reef since I already saw the city last time and Barrister seemed like a perfect way to end the trip.

 

We loved touring Roatan and seeing the villages, even though they too were extremely poor.

Yet we never saw machine gun toting guards anywhere (lots of police with large handguns though) and never felt threatened.

Was fun interacting with the locals and politely peppering them with questions.

 

In jamaica we had the misfortune to stop in Ocho Rios.... Never had vendors on the street try to physically separate my Wife and I.

So far beyond pushy, it was dangerous.

 

When we go back to Belize, we are either going to try and book a Mayan excursion or head to Bannister beach. (hopefully in the cooler winter months. upper 80's at 6AM Belize time was ridiculous.)

 

Just the Belize port area was a bad day.

Still stunned at how disgusting the water was there versus every other Caribbean port we have been to.

More like a really bad stretch of the Jersey shore than the Caribbean.

 

Bill

[gail811]

Whatever you do, if you do not find an excursion for Belize, do not get off the ship.

 

We did not have anything booked last week on the Legend and made the mistake of getting off to look around.

 

The water from the ship to shore is incredibly muddy (which is strange as every port around Belize is gorgeous, blue/green caribbean clear) and has lots of garbage floating everywhere. (I was stunned)

 

The little shopping area in the barbed wire port area has little Air Conditioning (and the few shops that do, leave their doors wide open, letting the AC out) and we docked at 8AM, which was 6AM in Belize time and it was already in the upper 80's and humid as heck at 6AM. (and I am from South Carolina, work outside all day, and am used to the heat and humidity)

I tried walking to the gate at the edge of the barb wired area and all I saw was alot of machine gunned armed soldiers outside the gate.

 

Then us and about 100 other Legend passenger tried to catch a tender back to the ship after about 60-90 minutes.

A tender was unloading as we stepped up, but after unloading they decided to take a break and pulled off with no pax.

A 2nd tender pulled in and unloaded and again, said they weren't returning and pulled off.

a 3rd tender pulled up, and I felt bad for the Carnival security girl, as the now 100 or so crowd was getting very vocal and unruly.

Luckily, they let us load onto this one after waiting out in the sun, with a line wrapping around the shop area, for over an hour.

 

Everybody got back to the ship and at least us, never left the air conditioning inside the ship for the rest of the day.

 

Belize makes Freeport in the Bahamas look like Half Moon Cay.

At least there are only 3 ports I have disliked in 9 cruises now.

Belize, Jamaica and Freeport.

 

I hope you are able to find enough people to get to go to bannister Island.

I wish we would have tried it last week.

 

Bill

 

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience! My first trip to Belize I booked through Coral Breeze. We were late getting off the ship and a guide was left to wait for us. My mom and I, along with a few other ladies jumped in his van and rode out to go cave tubing. I made a friend for life that day that loves showing others the beauty of Belize. He pointed out the plants and animals and gave us a history lesson along our walk that day and was incredibly kind and helpful to my mom. I now give him plenty of notice when we are heading there and he plans a great day for us. In spite of the poverty, and trash floating in the water where we tender in, I have found that Belize is one of the most beautiful countries we have ever visited, with some wonderful and generous people. I plan our cruises on destinations and spend a lot of time researching each port. Hopefully if you ever return you can book a tour and see something outside of the port. Bannister Island is a great place to start!

and have always found something redeeming about every place we visit.

[beachbum6264]

We took the Carnival Barrier Reef Snorkel and Beach break excursion - that one goes to Bannister Island (and has rum punch). They pick you up right at the ship, you don't have to tender in to Belize City first. Right out to a great snorkel area, snorkel for a while, then off to Bannister Island (rum punch on the way). Not sure how many were on this excursion, but it never seemed crowded. We were the only boat on Bannister Island that day, too.

Pics in my Legend 2011 review linked in my sig.

Here's one shot of Bannister Island

 

[newcruiser123456789]

Has anyone tried to snorkel off Bannister's Island? Is it ok snorkeling or is the water not clear enough to be worthwhile? Debating between the beach break and snorkel tours for our Belize stop in December.

[wadethegringo]

The water from the ship to shore is incredibly muddy (which is strange as every port around Belize is gorgeous, blue/green Caribbean clear) and has lots of garbage floating everywhere. (I was stunned)

 

The water is not nice around the City. There are a few rivers that empty into the sea close to the city. The water depth between the ship and shore is less than 10 feet so a lot is churned up by the boats.

 

I fly to San Pedro a lot and the water changes in color and clarity every 100 yards or so.....once you are away from the city you can see all the way to the sea floor. crystal clear...

[ArizonaTracie]

T&K - Outstanding! He just emailed me to let me know someone else booked so he wasn't going to cancel it. I think I have some other family members who may also book so hopefully we should be good to go!!

 

 

Clearwater..did you cancel the Belize excursion? I got an email from Coral Breeze saying they cancelled the excursion because we were the only ones who booked it. I didn't know if that meant you cancelled or if CB is pulling one over on us?