Decisions, decisions... We are on the 3/22/09 sailing of the Valor and will be stopping in Belize. Been there before, trying to decide between the Altun Ha & Belize City Tour or the Altun Ha Mayany Site & River Wallace tour, both offered by Carnival. Anyone have information on one or both??

 Thanks Cruz, appreciate your input!!! My wife wants to know about the river part - big boat, small boat? And how was the actual ruins site?

It's a decently medium size boat -- maybe 20 people or so.  The ruins are pretty -- you can climb to the top if you want. 

Thanks so much cruzingirl. I'm on the Legend March 8 and this is one of the excursions my husband and I are doing, Thanks for the info I feel relief

                    Ana

Cruzingirl;

 Thanks!!!! I think as long as it's not an inner tube or rubber raft I can sell Madame Le Cruiser on this one. Appreciate all your help.

Are you able to book your Belize Altun Ha shore excursions on line? I am traveling on Valor in Feb and they do not have the Altun ha trip available for booking on line. Any one have info on this?

 Lady Di;

 I can (and will) book almost all our excursions online, through Carnival. I've got another window open to the Carnival excursions page and can, if I choose, book my Belize Altun Ha excurions right now, right there. If you're looking to book outside of Carnival, I can't help you there, as we always use Carnival, that way we know we're covered on the ship not leaving without us due to late tour returns, if the tour is cancelled for whatever reason we get a refund, etc. I would assume that should you have problems booking online you can call Carnival and get help/bookings over the phone. I DO know that some of the things we might want to do are only booked on the ship, but the excursion pages would tell you that. 

A tip - when you're on the Valor (or any Carnival ship), go to the Excursions Desk and grab a copy of the laterst Excursions book. Always good to have around the house when planning your next cruise. 

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the Valor's shore excursions available for booking on line does not include any Mayan ruin tours. I keep checking. My PVP said they should have tours some available on once I am on Board. I hope so!

I am particularly interested in the Altun Ha & River Wallace tour and saw that you saw birds and monkeys, etc. But I am terribly frightened of snakes and wondered I would be seeing any of them on this tour?  I can handle iguanas & crocodiles.....but snakes are out of the question.  May have to take the Altun Ha & Belize City Tour then.

I saw crocodile, iguanas, monkeys, manatee, parrots, and some very big bugs, but no snakes!

Has anyone done the Altun Ha & Belize City Tour ??

I guess seeing snakes is a possibility, but I've been there three times, all three including some time wandering around the jungle, and never saw snake number one.  Even the howler monkey that everyone could hear I never saw.  Iguanas are all over the place -- "Mexican squirrels", as they're sometimes called.

I'll clue you in on a little secret though: the "Belize City Tour" consists of being driven through town on your way to [where ever], and having the local park, the President's house, a soccer field, the old British Embassy [colonial style house], and the new US Embassy [the hardened concrete bunker behind razor wire and chain link fences] pointed out to you.  Ain't nuthin.  And they'll try to impress you with $5/gallon gasoline.  The President's brother won the telecommunications contract work for all of Belize [coinky-dink?] and as a result, the phones don't work.

There.  You just had the tour.

Rwilymz - thanks again for all the great information, we're down to 30 days and counting (and it's snowing here, how fitting!). I had to laugh out loud when I read your "tour" of Belize City - we had that in our cave tubing tour last year in Belize and you nailed it!! Looking forward to the River Wallace/Altun Ha ruins too, thanks to your recommendations.

 we're on the 3/29/09 Valor cruise... and have been going thru my printed pages of the Carnival booked shore excursions...

I did notice that some of the excursions listed in the overall listing are then not really avail when you get to the subset of listing by location - which then has the booking button at the bottom.

So - how can you tell if an excursion is only available via onboard booking ?

I call it the "excursion catalog" for the overall listing, vs the "actual booking list" of things you can see and click on via each port.

 BTW - this tour is listed as 6hrs,
but the info says.....  1 1/4 hrs by boat and then 45mins return via bus
so - where's the other 4 hours - all just at the ruin to walk around ?