Belieze Altun Ha Mayan Boat tour 2013 thoughts

[hd78xl]

Company: Shore Excursioneer

Has anyone recently taken the Belieze Altun Ha Mayan tour to ruins by boat? We (Mom -32yr, Grandmother - 54yr, Kid #1 -9yr, Kid #2-12yr )would be taking this tour in December from the Carnival Legend.

Here is the link to company -

http://www.belizeexcursions.biz/excursions/altunhamayanruinsriverwallace.html

 

Thanks for the input in advance!:)

[kdkinsel]

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[crusinpsychRN]

Long boat ride, saw a few birds. Ruins weren't much to see. I wouldn't waste my time.

[KatieCharlotte]

We booked the River Wallace and Altun Ha excursion through Carnival because we knew it would be a long trip and didn't want any worries about getting on or off the boat in time. I'm a worrier, so you'll have to decide for yourself, considering the significant price difference.

 

The adults and children in our group enjoyed the two-hour boat trip. We saw manatees, several monkey families, crocodiles, iguanas, lots of beautiful birds, an airplane that flew right over us, and a woman doing her wash in the river. When there was nothing to see, they would speed up and call it a "James Bond moment" and the kids thought that was fun, even the child who was afraid of small boats before this trip. Everyone was entertained for the first hour and forty-five minutes, then we started looking forward to lunch and were thinking "Don't stop for another crocodile!" It was a cloudy day; the boat ride without shade might be less enjoyable in the sun.

 

I'm sure the ruins aren't as impressive as some, but we had nothing to compare them to and were impressed. The kids especially enjoyed being able to climb the ruins. They didn't have much interest in standing and listening to the guide talk, so their dad led them up a pyramid that the guide said we could climb "carefully." Then the whole group went up some back stairs onto the largest structure. A bit of a climb but I managed with a tired preschooler on my hip. Everyone napped on the bus ride back, while the adults listened to the guide talk a little about the country.

 

We thought it was the best day of our trip. For us, the key to enjoying the ruins was leaving the guide and exploring on our own.

[Big Tillie]

We have done the Altun Ha and the Lamanai ruins in Belize. The Lamanai ruins were so much more interesting than the Altun Ha ruins. There is no comparison. I would not waste my time with Altun Ha after seeing what Lamanai has to offer. You even get to climb to the top of one of the pyramids. We did our Lamanai excursion through Island Marketing. I think it was $75 which included a lunch. The boat ride up the river in the speed boat was a blast also. We got to the port with plenty of time to spare.

[crusinfamof4]

Omg, we did this tour in 2011, it was horrible. I could not wait to see the ruins, so I booked this for the fam. We took a long bus ride to the ruins, which our bus had problems 3 times, we had to stop on the side of the road in the middle of no where. We did the ruins, which were very small and so disappointing. We boarded the bus again and they took us to this "resort" the Black Orchid and you could buy a lunch if you wanted. The way they were cooking, my DH and I passed, of course our DSs had to get a meal. They then took ALL of us on one boat, with no shade on a long, long, mostly slow river tour. We saw about 1000 iguana's and thats about all. We could see the ship once we finished and wanted just to go back. It was hot and miserable. I lucked out and found an extra life vest to lay across my legs or they would have been as red as a tomato. The next worst part was the tender back. We were the last ones on that particular tender, I offered to wait for the next one, they made us get on it, well, there were no seats left and we had to stand the whole time back, lucky our youngest was able to find a seat as he gets sick very easily (migraines).

 

Disappointed, yes. My DH and I decided if we go back to Belize, we will stay on the ship. Belize that!