Altun Ha Tour + Belize City

[TropicalLife]

Hi,

 

We'll be on the Carnival Glory in December and Belize is the one port we'll do a tour. We've backpacked South America but it looks like Belize City is not the place to take a local bus and travel independently.

 

Has anyone booked Altun Ha on their own and had a good experience and maybe a good deal? Carnival offers it but I'd like to beat their price by as much as possible (and still have a quality tour).

 

Any tips or ideas for Belize City? Has anyone ventured out of the port on their own?

 

Looking forward to a fun trip next month! Thanks.

[traveljunky99]

We too will be in Belize in a couple of weeks and looking to do a private tour of Altu Ha/City tour (and possibly river wallace). Hope you get some responses!!! Cruise lines charge a lot more compared to some of the local tour guides/companies.

[MDSue]

I personally would not wander outside the gates of the port in Belize City and didn't see much that interested me in the town. On the other hand I really enjoyed my tour of the ruins [combined it with a river tour]. Between the 2, I feel like I really got a nice tour of Belize. Since it was an all day excursion, I stuck with a ship tour for this day. I just wasn't familiar with outside vendors.

[misguidedangel]

I paid $59 for the Altun Ha and Belize City tour. I thought it was fair and the guide on the bus was really a sweet guy. We had a complete tour, with detailed info on Altun Ha, and enjoyed it. You have to find a tour guide who knows the site and history. There were no solo groups, all of the tours were from the ships in port (Glory and Liberty)

[harryjr]

We've booked a private Altun-Ha/Belize City tour in December with experiencebelizetours.com. We're paying about $60/ea. for a group of 4. They appear to be very professional and they have an extensive list of tours.

[Purplehaze21]

We have this tour booked for our upcoming cruise.We booked it thru Carnival for 59.00 PP. For our other excursions, we booked elsewhere. I just felt better booking in Belize with Carnival.

[TropicalLife]

Maybe its the backpacker in me talking, but $60 per person seems a lot for a half day tour in Central America.

 

I hope we can find it for $40 or so, I'll keep looking online.. I'm sure Altun Ha is worth it. :)

[zounds]

We've never been to Belize, but will be there in Dec. Booked this tour on Travelocity. Good luck.

[TropicalLife]

I just checked travelocity. I see Altun Ha for $70 per person. Can you pass a link to the $38 one? Sounds good!

[clazar1935]

I just got back from the Exotic Western tour on the Legend. I took the City & Altun Ha tour. The city itself does'nt have much to look at. The Mayan tour was interesting, except it takes about an hour to get there. The last 14 miles on on a one lane pot holed ridden road. But i like history & it was nice to see. Be sure to take BUG REPELLANT. :eek::eek:

[LA_FadeAway]

Hi,

 

We've backpacked South America but it looks like Belize City is not the place to take a local bus and travel independently.

 

Actually, my husband and I took public buses all over Belize, including spending about 3 hours hanging at out the Belize City bus station and never felt unsafe at all. I doubt you have the time to do much by public bus during a port visit, but just wanted to let you know that Belize City is not nearly as bad as poeple make it sound. Not a particularly interesting place to hang out, but not really dangerous either.

[harryjr]

If you're looking for cheap, try belizecruiseexcursions.com. They have a 4 hour Altun Ha tour for $35. The private tour with "Experience Belize Tours" includes lunch also and the price drops to $50 pp for a group of 6.

[TropicalLife]

That's the one I was looking for, thanks!

 

Maybe this economy will change it, but of all people in the world, Americans are known for insisting on luxury travel. You'll meet more Austrians while backpacking than Americans. Prices of excursions should be somewhat connected to the local economy - nothing wrong with insisting on that.

 

I'll email them and see how they reply..

[SoFLCruiser]

If you're looking for cheap, try belizecruiseexcursions.com. They have a 4 hour Altun Ha tour for $35. The private tour with "Experience Belize Tours" includes lunch also and the price drops to $50 pp for a group of 6.

i just checked their prices this afternoon, since the ziplining has been canceled. $42.50 pp. incl lunch.

[jollycruise]

We were there on Dec. 10th and found a great private tour guide. His name is Emmanuel "Manny" Willams with Beize Cruiseship Taxi Association. He charged us $175.00 for the three of us. He grew up in the area and we learned more than we ever expected from him. He got us to Altun Ha before any other tours were there. This was great because we were the first ones there and got wonderful pictures of the ruins before any people were climbing all over them. He pointed out so many things we never would have saw. He also walked us into the Rainforest and told us all about the animals, insects and plants. Manny was wonderful and we loved our tour. I also had taken goodie bags to hand out to the children and he took us to a preschool his duaghter was attending and we gave them out. It was wonderful!

[harryjr]

Well we're back from Belize and we also had a fantastic Altun Ha tour on Dec. 10, but with experiencebelizetours.com. Allen Dawson was our guide and he gave us friendly, personalized (there were 4 in our group) and knowledgeable service. The tour price ($60/pp) included a very tasty lunch with Belikin beer at Mayan Wells restaurant near the ruins.

[fabuloso]

We did the Altun Ha (I've been spelling it Hu all this time! oops!) last week on December 18th? (Thursday). We used Action Boys of Belize. And everyone in the group LOVED it. Mainly because our guide made it fascinating. We learned about plant life, current and past governments and communities. Really enjoyed it very much.

 

When you see the website, you think they're all about the ziplining and cavetubing, but I don't think I could have gotten a better tour of Altun Ha than I did.

[fabuloso]

I'd like to add a few comments to my previous post. I left out details because I had posted a thread about Altun Ha using Action Boys Belize. Which was removed because I didn't pay attention to the rules of the forum about starting a thread with a review! Oops again! In any case, we found the services so excellent that I want to share with other traveller's to help make your vacation as terrific and interesting as our's was.

We paid $40 per person for our tour--there were 10 family members and we all agreed that it was a great activity. Mr. Ramirez really knows his stuff! I believe that you will get the quality tour you're looking for at a great price. At one point during our tour, I overheard a wife say to her husband, "This guy is waayyy more interesting than our tour guide". So they tagged along with us!

I also appreciated how safety conscious he was. Not just for our group either. You can go up to the top of a temple. There is a staircase provided on the side with a wooden railing. DO NOT USE THIS RAILING. Donald pointed out how flimsy it was and should not have any weight put on it. I almost made it to the top, but my left knee began to bother me, so I chose to go back down. Not one other tour guide (and quite frankly, most of them didn't even go to the top with their groups) warned their people about the railing. My boyfriend told me that once up top, Donald noticed people right at the edge. He went up to them and politely warned them of the dangers and reminded them it is an old site and they should step away from the edge.

One of the things I really appreciated about our tour was it wasn't a "by the guidebook" description of the site. I got the sense that Donald loves the history of his community and country and has a real enthusiasm about sharing it with other people. We really had a great time.

[nodumblond]

I'd like to add a few comments to my previous post. I left out details because I had posted a thread about Altun Ha using Action Boys Belize. Which was removed because I didn't pay attention to the rules of the forum about starting a thread with a review! Oops again! In any case, we found the services so excellent that I want to share with other traveller's to help make your vacation as terrific and interesting as our's was.

 

We paid $40 per person for our tour--there were 10 family members and we all agreed that it was a great activity. Mr. Ramirez really knows his stuff! I believe that you will get the quality tour you're looking for at a great price. At one point during our tour, I overheard a wife say to her husband, "This guy is waayyy more interesting than our tour guide". So they tagged along with us! <snip> We really had a great time.

 

I totally agree. DH and I used them for our stop in Belize last week -- went to Altun Ha before the dozen humongous tour buses from NCL did, which made it a MUCH nicer experience! -- and combined it with a visit to the Community Baboon (howler monkey) Sanctuary. Worth every penny!

[utopiahereicome]

We were in Belize off the Legend this September, and booked a private tour for my husband and I for Altun Ha and Belize city through Nacho and Cynthia of NCQ adventures. They were outstanding guides - informative and entertaining. We spent quite a bit of time at Altun Ha, and as we were leaving, all the buses began pulling in from the cruise ship tours...we were glad that we had the whole place practically to ourselves! Afterwards we did an extensive tour of the city. I believe the cost was $45 per person, which I thought was more than fair.

[dcac2]

My DH, DD & myself would like to do an Altun Ha tour, but we are not fond of the cruise ship excursions. Do we have to book ahead with the companies suggested in previous posts? Or will we be able to organize something with a reputable company when we get off the ship?

[PMMF]

I spoke with nacho today, am thinking of taking this tour--did you feel safe?? I don't want to be somewhere and feel isolated???? We are a family of 6 with a 5yr old and a 15 month old

[GORDONCHICK]

We've gone to Belize twice, and used the same tour guide who is fabulous. His name is Maurice and he has lived in Belize (formerly British Honduras) all of his life. He has a captivating voice that just commands you to listen to him. He has a brand new mini-van and can only take six, seven if you're skinny. He took us to Altun Ha and into the jungle to find the howling monkeys and the huge orange iguanas. His email is adventurebzetours@yahoo.com and he will get back with you within a couple of days. Here he is on top of one of the temples with DS:

 

 

Here's one of the huge orange iguanas Maurice found:

 

 

He's very proud of his country and loves to show it off. If you contact him, tell him Carmen told you about him. His prices are very reasonable, too.

[Perfect Stranger]

How much climbing is involved at these ruins? I don't do well with (for example) 100 steep steps straight up and then having to come down them with no handrail.

[GORDONCHICK]

How much climbing is involved at these ruins? I don't do well with (for example) 100 steep steps straight up and then having to come down them with no handrail.

 

 

First, you don't have to climb to the top. And the big one at Altun Ha has hand rails on the way up and the way down. If you have back, knee or hip problems, you'd probably want to skip it. Other than that, it's not too bad.