Recommendations for family shore excursions in Harvest Caye/Belize?

[JMB1969]

We are on the NCL Getaway in November 2018, and are bringing our 13 year old son with us. We would like to get away from the manufactured "port" and see real Belize, but at the same time, dont want our son to be bored. The NCL offered Mayan ruin/Spice tour combo seems well reviewed, but not sure if the teen would enjoy it? Any thoughts by anyone who has done that tour with teens?

 

Also, are there tour companies/guides (not NCL sponsored) that offer tours to cruisers? Any recommendations would be appreciated!

 

Thanks all!

[Peachypooh]

Have you been to Harvest Caye yet? Yes it is a manufactured port but I bet your 13 year old could find lots of things to do. We rented a pool cabana. Used it as our base for the day. We were able to order food and have it delivered to us. Also the pool is beautiful and worth spending time in. I saw the zipline and it looked fun.

I know this is not what you asked but if you can't find a tour off the island there are still lots of ways to have fun.

[trish1c]

Go for a tube ride through the caves. It's really cool. You hike through a rain forest first.

 

Do book through the cruise if you are not strong swimmers. Some of the independent tours are great & cheaper. We go to explore more caves on a longer float but had minimal safety equipment. The cruise sponsored excursion had helmets & US Coast Guard approved life vests; everybody was connected by D rings & ropes; they had modern tubes with handles. We had black inner tubes & head mounted flash lights. I think the guide had some old fashioned orange canvas life vests but that was it.

[JMB1969]

Go for a tube ride through the caves. It's really cool. You hike through a rain forest first.

 

Do book through the cruise if you are not strong swimmers. Some of the independent tours are great & cheaper. We go to explore more caves on a longer float but had minimal safety equipment. The cruise sponsored excursion had helmets & US Coast Guard approved life vests; everybody was connected by D rings & ropes; they had modern tubes with handles. We had black inner tubes & head mounted flash lights. I think the guide had some old fashioned orange canvas life vests but that was it.

 

Trish, did you have a problem with the tender and the scheduled time back? We are thinking of taking an independent tour, but have read that when purchasing Tender tickets, you get a time specific assigned return time. I am worried if our tour comes back after our assigned time if we will have a hard time getting a tender back to Harvest Caye?

[cb at sea]

If you are on a ship's excursion , there is no need to worry about times...they WILL get you back to the ship!! If an "independent" tour is late, that's not good. However, the private tours would go out of business if they made their customers miss the ship! There are no "tender times" for the return trip to the ship...no worries! As long as you are on the last tender, you're good!

[leaclingman]

I did a few pics at the ‘manufactured’ beach- we ended up having a great time. Even took pics of the zip line and the restaurant menus. We had our 15 year old with us. Every other port we did our own thing and I included links and details on those too. Hope it helps. https://gotravellife.com/2018/01/03/about-us/

 

 

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[roger001]

Here's another massive amount of photos of the place. I think it's a very nice place.

 

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipPUiN7GQox-kvmrjeqSfk1Um16cj1DytxsG7Dc

[JMB1969]

I am sure Harvest Caye is nice. We just like to try and get a feel for the culture and location of the places we visit, which is why we were looking for something to take us more into the country than just the cruise port. Pictures look great, though!