Alvin ha/old belize river tour

[toonces95]

From what I have read this is a fairly long excursion. Does anyone know if there will be time to look around the port before or after?

[crewsweeper]

Altun Ha is about 20 miles from Belize City. But the roads to ge tthere take some travel time. I beleive this tour gets split with 1/2 the people going by river Wallace first to the hotel site for lunch (chicken, rice, beans) and the other 1/2 going by bus to the ruins then to the hotel for lunch then back via the river. Tour time at the ruins runs around an hour or so. Should be about a 4 1/2 hour tour, but sometimes there are delays. I do think this tour starts a little later though so that could figure into your time constraints. The Tourist Village where the tenders dock isn't very large and many of the shops have the same old, same old of any cruise port. If you do have time, and want to shop for native crafts, there is a craft market across the street from the T.V. which ahs similar craft items as the T.V. but at lower costs and they will barter with you.

Or you can head for the Wet Lizard and enjoy conch fritters and cold Belkins while waiting for your tender.

[Cozzette2]

We just did that excursion and I picked it because it said 5.5 hours but it turned out to be closer to 7. It was interesting but it was a long day.

[ash97206]

We just did that excursion and I picked it because it said 5.5 hours but it turned out to be closer to 7. It was interesting but it was a long day.

 

That was our experience through Vitalino's excursion service. Very little time to shop, but we did have perhaps 30 minutes to run from shop to shop. People need to be on the very first tender off the boat to make the schedule since it is so tight. We nearly missed our van, but they had one of their guys wait to see if we showed, then had the van come back to grab us. However, it was worth the hurried schedule, as it was absolutely beautiful!

[ferfoodle]

We just did that excursion and I picked it because it said 5.5 hours but it turned out to be closer to 7. It was interesting but it was a long day.

 

We too just did this excursion through Carnival - thank goodness through the cruise line. Although stated as 5.5 hours, ours went over 8 hours and the ship was held up for us. Supposed to be last tender at 4:15 but we did not make it back to the port until 5pm. Hind sight - I would have chosen a different tour.

 

OP - there was zero time to shop before we left either.