Excursion help please!!!

[KnoxRunner]

I am looking for some help/piece of mind :confused:. My family and I are on the Getaway for the June 26th out of Miami. We would like to do an excursion in Belize because everything that I have read says that there isn’t much to do around the port.

 

The excursions that are offered by NCL either are too expensive for our taste or aren’t that exciting. We found a cave tubing excursion that we like but it is not through NCL.

 

Should I be worried about getting back to the boat on time before it leaves? This would be our first time with booking an excursion not with the cruise line.

Please let me know your experiences with excursions outside the cruise lines, especially with NCL and/or Belize.

T

hanks in advance!! :)

[BirdTravels]

Tour operators know the ship's schedule and allow time to/from the ship. You have a late departure. You should be fine.

 

Do your homework with the tour operator. We went tubing in Ocho Rios and had several tube blowouts going down rapids. The tour operator was very good about having extra tubes with the group so that customer's didn't have to spend a lot of time swimming down the river or waiting for a replacemet.

Edited June 22, 2016 by BirdTravels

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Visit the ports of call section of Cruise Critic and look for vendors others have used and give good reviews. As Bird says, vendors are generally aware of when you need to get back. I've never even come close to missing the ship and haven't booked through the cruise line in years. Another place to look for reviews is Trip Advisor.

 

Have a great time!

[SuiteTraveler]

Belize is usually a tender port. Then you drive 30 - 60 minutes each way to the excursion site. The only non-tender excursion is usually a visit to Starfish Island - the boat picks you up at the ship and then goes for about 30 minutes to take you to the island. At any rate, you can use a non-cruise ship tour guide and you really should not have any problem in regards to timing. My main advice is to choose something that includes lunch since these tours usually go through lunchtime and often if you don't choose the tour that includes lunch, others on your tour have and you will have to wait while they eat or buy lunch.

[cb at sea]

Also, to ease your mind, wear a watch, and make sure it's set to the same time as the ship's clocks! Do NOT use "local" time...it might be different than Ship's Time! That way, you can keep track and won't have to worry!

[Scottr76]

Knox, we are going on the same cruise on the 26th and want to go cave tubing. I'm going to book online with one of the companies soon, but don't know how to reserve a tender time. Does anyone know how that works with ncl?

[KnoxRunner]

Everyone, thanks for the help and I definitely feel better about booking through an outside company, with a lot of research of course!

 

One other question, the Norwegian itinerary says that we are in Belize at 8:00am but what time is it reasonable to say we will be off the boat?

 

Thanks again for the help!!

[KnoxRunner]

Scott,

 

I don't know the tender time either but posted another thread asking what time we would be off the boat.

 

The only response said it would be within minutes of docking so I am thinking that with our dock time of 8:00am we should definitely be off the boat by 9:00am.

 

Let me know if you find any more information about this.

 

Thanks and I hope you are as excited as we are for the cruise!!

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Scott,

 

I don't know the tender time either but posted another thread asking what time we would be off the boat.

 

The only response said it would be within minutes of docking so I am thinking that with our dock time of 8:00am we should definitely be off the boat by 9:00am.

 

Let me know if you find any more information about this.

 

Thanks and I hope you are as excited as we are for the cruise!!

 

 

When doing an excursion first thing after arriving at a port of call, I usually schedule it for 30 to 60 minutes after we're due to arrive. If you book with a vendor recommended in the ports of call section, they will be aware of when your ship will arrive and what's a good time to book. If you book a time that's too early, they should let you know that. When arranging tours, if I"m unsure of when to book with a vendor, sometimes I'll ask them what will work--never had one who didn't have a pretty accurate idea of what's doable.

[trish1c]

Several years ago we did a cave tubing excursion that we booked independently. It was much cheaper then the cruise line's excursion & much longer. We already floated through 2 caves before we came upon the cruise tour people even getting in the water.

 

The big difference: safety. We had black tire tubes like from truck & small lights on our heads but that was it. We were told to hold on to each other. One of the two guides had some old orange life vests but that was it.

 

The cruise line tour had helmets, floats with handles, they were all lashed together with ropes, everybody was wearing flotation vests.

 

We preferred our tour but we are adults & strong swimmers. If you are not, you may want to pay the money for the cruise line excursion.

[atomax]

I went back through my emails to make sure that we did cave tubing on Belize before I chimed in here (we did and it was a lot of fun (but crowded!), and we used http://www.cave-tubing.com/).

 

Make sure you join your roll call and see what other tour guides other people are using. Most likely, they will have already checked out the reputable tours on Trip Advisor and you may be able to just piggyback on their research ;-)

 

We have only ever done private excursions because the ship excursions are usually so expensive. When you reserve your trip, let the company know what ship you are on; more than likely, they know which ships stay on ship time vs. change to local time. Since these companies depend on positive reviews from tourists, it is in their best interest to make sure that no one misses sailaway, so they will do whatever they can to get you back to the ship in time.

 

As for tenders, each ship has a slightly different process. They usually explain it at the excursion presentation and at the excursion desk. They also post the guidelines in the Daily the night before the tender port.

[xeroxme]

We took a local tour company to I believe it's called coconut beach. It has a giant water slide on it. There is no mistaking which one has the big waterslide. The tour operator gave us a price for tour and when we got the beach we had to pay to get into beach seperate lt. They will definitely lie to their advantage in Belize. I do suggest do not go,down the giant waterslide. DO NOT. I went down the slide 3 times. It's unsafe the bottom of pool is rough concrete. Thanks to that slide my feet hitting bottom of pool tore the skin from both heels. It was a disaster to have bloody and bruised feet on a cruise. Thankfully I didn't break my foot because I thought I did.

[buddy1755]

If you tender, pay attention to where and when you get your tender tickets, it was the day before for us while visiting Mikonos, there was people that were late in line and spent precious hours on the ship while waiting to tender.

[IsanTom]

Hang out at one of the bar % restaurants! No need for excursion!