Easy access beach...help!

[anltx]

Thank you in advance for any help or information you can give. We will be traveling on the Caribbean Princess in March and one of the stops is Belize City. We will be traveling with a 13 month old. Our ship excursions are limited in choice when it comes to traveling with a baby. EIther the minimum age is 8 (understandably when it comes to snorkeling) or the excursions are 6 hours long (too long to have baby away from ship) For those that have been to Belize before, is there any way to access a beach from the port? Maybe a beach by taxi within 20 minutes from port? I know there is always the option to just stay onboard at port and enjoy the ships pools being less-crowded, but we would really like to enjoy Belize in some way...hopefully by beach. Any thoughts or recommendations? Thank you!!

[crewsweeper]

Yes there is a man made beach about 15-20 minutes from the tender pier.

Cucumber Beach,.

 

Here's a link. http://www.oldbelize.com/beach/

 

Note that this beach is NOT a "resort style" beach, nor similar to various strands of beaches you may be familiar with at other ports of call.

[overthehillcruiser]

I wonder if Princess offers Bannister Island ? And do they have an age limit for it ? It is not a very long boat ride and would be a nice choice in my opinion.

 

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[anltx]

Overthehillcruiser - I looked and Princess doesn't have an excursion there...but that picture looks beautiful, if that is indeed Bannister Beach. I wonder if there are any little private taxi boats off the pier that can transfer people to and from the port to Bannister Beach.....I need to research that! Thank you!

[crewsweeper]

Overthehillcruiser - I looked and Princess doesn't have an excursion there...but that picture looks beautiful, if that is indeed Bannister Beach. I wonder if there are any little private taxi boats off the pier that can transfer people to and from the port to Bannister Beach.....I need to research that! Thank you!

Neither water taxi company makes stops there. Nothing on the island except when organized excursions are scheduled. Bannister Island can be accessed through some independent excursion companies like Coral Breeze. But be advised that every cruise ship in port that day will likely have an excursion there. It's not that large of a place and can get crowded. Sand is mixed with coral so not ideal for being barefooted. And if you go the independent route is a 15 -20 minute tender ride to the pier in addition to waiting time for the excursion to begin and a 15-20 minute ride back from the pier once the excursion drops you off. You'll need to watch the time too so that you don't miss your ship's last tender. Which is not an issue via a ship excursion.

[overthehillcruiser]

That is the beach there, but as crewsweeper said , there is some shell in the water. We went there through Royal Caribbean. We tendered to BC and got on another boat, and they took us back directly to the ship..Coral Breeze is not on our favorite list anymore as we did their tour to Caulkner last April, and they put us in a small boat for a 1 1/2 hour salt water spray ride each way. Bannister is much closer.Will attach a couple more photos of Bannister.

Overthehillcruiser - I looked and Princess doesn't have an excursion there...but that picture looks beautiful, if that is indeed Bannister Beach. I wonder if there are any little private taxi boats off the pier that can transfer people to and from the port to Bannister Beach.....I need to research that! Thank you!

 

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Edited January 3, 2014 by overthehillcruiser