Lamanai offered by Carnival onboard?

[cruz462]

I heard sometimes shore excursions are offered on board that are different than what is posted in advance. Does anyone know if Carnival offers Lamani once onboard the ship. I don't feel comfortable booking through another company since it is such a long tour.

[DonMar]

I heard sometimes shore excursions are offered on board that are different than what is posted in advance. Does anyone know if Carnival offers Lamani once onboard the ship. I don't feel comfortable booking through another company since it is such a long tour.

 

We went to Belize on the Legend in Feb 07. Carnival did not offer Lamanai as an excursion . I do not know if this has changed and I did not hear about any additional excursions on board. We did go to Lamanai - a FANTASTIC experience. We were willing to take the risk of missing the boat. We made it back - no problem.

[In2why]

I heard sometimes shore excursions are offered on board that are different than what is posted in advance. Does anyone know if Carnival offers Lamani once onboard the ship. I don't feel comfortable booking through another company since it is such a long tour.

 

This is my first choice to do in port as well but I am not sure I would do it outside of a Carnival tour based on the time it takes. We should all call/email Carnival and ask them to add it. :p Couldn't hurt.

[driftwood]

This is considered--even by booking agents in Belize--as the most romantic and popular shore excursion for those interested in visiting Mayan ruins in Belize. A lot of planning has gone into making it fit into a cruise-ship day, as it is a "full day tour." But there should be no time problem on the ground in Belize.

 

There are things to consider, even for cruiselines, the foremost among which is the amount of real time a given ship will be in a given port of call. Belize City as you probably know is at this time a "tender port," and the number of ships scheduled for the port on a given day will affect the number of tenders a single ship can put in the water. It is possible that last-minute notification aboard is the only way the cruiseline can arrange some shore excursions; sometimes a Captain learns only hours before he arrives in what order he is to enter the port. A "day" can mean anything from 7 AM to midnight, to perhaps 10 AM to 5 PM, and it is usually the Port Captain (of Belize City, in this case) who controls the order of arrival and departure.

 

A seldom-considered fact is that shore excursions booked through the cruiseline enable the Captain to estimate the number and timing of the tenders he will need to launch to accommodate the passengers who are booking the tours, and to accommodate the providers of tours. But every cruiseline wants to provide the largest variety of shore excursions possible in each port--and if they find at the last minute that they will be in Belize for an extra two hours or so, they can "add on" more "full-day" tours.

 

I would trust the cruiseline for full-day tours, and plan a fallback half-day tour in the event that there might be a time problem. Xunantunich would be a bit riskier than Lamanai, as there are time shortcuts that can be taken if necessary with Lamanai, but Xunantunich is a lot farther west of Belize City. Still, in a "normal" port-of-call day, either should be quite "doable."