Question about Belize

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:41:50 -0400, Charles
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

All I can say about THAT is that you (or the person that happened to)
must not have made it clear to them what you would do to them if they
didn't get you back. I have hired a private car and driver, and told
him what I wanted to see and when I wanted to be back. I can tell you
that they did what I said I wanted them to do.

That is nice. I can see this is going over your head. But then you say:

We've also been on a ship's tour where the driver got lost a number of
times, and made us VERY late getting back to the ship. He even got
lost ON the dock. Fortunately it was a day that we were in port
overnight.

Very fortunate but it could happen on a private tour and make someone
miss the ship. How come you let him get lost? Didn't you tell him you
did not want to get lost?

I didn't have to because it was a ship's tour.

If I was at all concerned about the time, I would take a ship's tour.
I only do it on my own if I have good control of the itinerary and
plenty of time.

I think that Charles failed to understand that the -2 in y=x-2
represents a two hour safety zone for just such eventualities as he
mentioned. If you would be more comforable with x-3 then do your
calculations that way. No schedule plan can eliminate possible
problems, it can only allow for them.

In article , Kenn
Smith wrote:

I think that Charles failed to understand that the -2 in y=x-2
represents a two hour safety zone for just such eventualities as he
mentioned. If you would be more comforable with x-3 then do your
calculations that way. No schedule plan can eliminate possible
problems, it can only allow for them.

I understand the safety zone. What you fail to comprehend that if you
have a two hour safety zone at Belize then you may not have time for a
long tour like the OP was trying to figure out. Lamanai for example is
a six hour tour. Okay the Valor is there from 8 to 5. However Belize is
a tender port. The first tenders will be for those on ship excursions.
So there goes any two hour safety margin.

--
Charles

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:41:33 -0400, Charles
wrote:

In article , Kenn
Smith wrote:

I think that Charles failed to understand that the -2 in y=x-2
represents a two hour safety zone for just such eventualities as he
mentioned. If you would be more comforable with x-3 then do your
calculations that way. No schedule plan can eliminate possible
problems, it can only allow for them.

I understand the safety zone. What you fail to comprehend that if you
have a two hour safety zone at Belize then you may not have time for a
long tour like the OP was trying to figure out. Lamanai for example is
a six hour tour. Okay the Valor is there from 8 to 5. However Belize is
a tender port. The first tenders will be for those on ship excursions.
So there goes any two hour safety margin.

So that's a time to schedule using the 3 hour window

(Bill) wrote;

On 3/16/2010 9:58 PM, Charles wrote:

I have been doing some research on Belize
since my December cruise on Valor goes
there. Belize is a tender port. I had the
thought of booking a tour to Laminai since I
am interested in visiting Mayan ruins. Have
done a bunch. I have read that the Belize
tour operators are not good at keeping to
schedule, they are lax, the length of time
they state may not be accurate and that
some have missed the ship going on
independent tours. You don't want confusion
on the time zone the ship is on with a long
tour.

That sounds like the time to use the ship's
tour. As much as I hate doing that because of
the cost, in situations where there is a
reasonable possibility that you will miss the
ship's sailing, it's better to make it the ship's
responsibility to wait for you. Either that or
make sure you have travel insurance that will
cover getting you to the next port.

There really are a lot of ways that a tour operator in an undeveloped
country like Belize can fall behind schedule. When we were in Belize, we
took a ship's tour due to this.

Our tour was to the Mayan ruins at Lamani. It also included watching for
local animals on a river while being transported to the ruins. (Both
parts of the tour were very interesting though we wished we could have
spent more time at the ruins.) There was a bus to the speed boat for the
river, and of course you came back the same way, boat to the bus, and
finally back to your tender.

Well, on the way back, the tour employee piloting the boat claimed that
we were out of gas! We were in sight of our bus, but we were not moving.
To this day, I wonder if it was a ploy on his part to try to extract
extra tips as he added gasoline and did whatever was necessary to get
the boat restarted. IIRC, we did get back on time.

On the same cruise, we were late getting back on the previous port,
Cozumel. We also explored Mayan ruins from there. The excursion also
included a beach after the ruins. We were way behind schedule. A few
members of the cruise director's staff were on that tour. They assured
passengers that the ship was not leaving without them. The ship's
excursion to the ruins without the beach at the end, howevr, stated that
after the tour it was the resposibility of the passenger to get back to
the ship.

BTW, the ship was the Enchantment of the Seas, later renamed the
Entrapment of the Seas by one of the assistant cruise directors when we
were delayed 2 days from returning to Fort Lauderdale due to a
hurricane.

In article ,
wrote:

So that's a time to schedule using the 3 hour window

Either you don't get it and you won't ever get it or you want to
bull****.

In any case to the OP who asked the question I have done some research
on independent tour operators both for Mayan ruins and cave tubing. Be
very careful about the tour operator or you might have a white knuckle
experience. Multiple reports of buses breaking down, tour delays and
people just making the last tender and also reports of missing the last
tender at Belize.

--
Charles

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:16:22 -0400, (Jeff
Gersten) wrote:

(Bill) wrote;

On 3/16/2010 9:58 PM, Charles wrote:

I have been doing some research on Belize
since my December cruise on Valor goes
there. Belize is a tender port. I had the
thought of booking a tour to Laminai since I
am interested in visiting Mayan ruins. Have
done a bunch. I have read that the Belize
tour operators are not good at keeping to
schedule, they are lax, the length of time
they state may not be accurate and that
some have missed the ship going on
independent tours. You don't want confusion
on the time zone the ship is on with a long
tour.

I don't recall the OP asking about this particular excursion. Your
research has made you a timid doomsayer. Not all excursions in
Belize are to Laminai. It may be that the OP should just take a
ship's tour but the continual harping on the unreliability of Belize
tour operators is really uncalled for.

I have not gone to Belize on a cruise ship. I did spend two weeks
there. It seems to me to be a country particularly NOT fitted for
cruise ship visits. I have read the recommendations and accounts of
the cruise ship tours and some of them have quite good reviews and
there are recommendations for non-ship excursions for several of them
that I would have no qualms about the reliability of the local
excursion operators for some excursions. I do agree that I would not
use a local excursion for Laminai.

That sounds like the time to use the ship's
tour. As much as I hate doing that because of
the cost, in situations where there is a
reasonable possibility that you will miss the
ship's sailing, it's better to make it the ship's
responsibility to wait for you. Either that or
make sure you have travel insurance that will
cover getting you to the next port.

There really are a lot of ways that a tour operator in an undeveloped
country like Belize can fall behind schedule. When we were in Belize, we
took a ship's tour due to this.

That's one of the considerations.

Our tour was to the Mayan ruins at Lamani. It also included watching for
local animals on a river while being transported to the ruins. (Both
parts of the tour were very interesting though we wished we could have
spent more time at the ruins.)

When I was in Belize, one of the options was this trip (from Ambergris
Cay). It was a trip to the ruins and time at some kind of resort with
(IIRC) a swim up bar. Since we don't drink, this part was not of
interest to us so we didn't take that tour because there was too
little of what I wanted to do and too much of what I didn't want to do
on it. We went to see other ruins instead.

There was a bus to the speed boat for the
river, and of course you came back the same way, boat to the bus, and
finally back to your tender.

We were in Costa Rica and we had lots of little glitches. On one
section, we flew to the west coast in a little 11 pax plane, got on a
school bus and drove to the river and got on a boat to go out to the
place we were staying. About halfway, we turned back because one of
the outboards on the boat wasn't running quite right and they weren't
sure they could get us through the standing waves at the mouth of the
river. So they put all the people in one boat with the good motors
and all the luggage on the other boat, and we made it through

Well, on the way back, the tour employee piloting the boat claimed that
we were out of gas! We were in sight of our bus, but we were not moving.
To this day, I wonder if it was a ploy on his part to try to extract
extra tips as he added gasoline and did whatever was necessary to get
the boat restarted. IIRC, we did get back on time.

One of the tours I took when I was in Belize was a tour from Caye
Caulker to see the manatees in a preserve and then out to one of the
little atoll islands for lunch and snorkeling. One of the other
operators that did that trip decided that he didn't have enough pax to
go that day, so the people that booked his tour went with us instead.
My notes for this day say;

"We were in an open boat with eleven other people This was more than
usual because one of the other tours that was supposed to go - didn't.
The people included a tour group of nine - Colleen from British
Columbia, Alexandra from Germany and the other seven from the UK
(Clyde, Mary and her husband, Phil, Heidi and two others) plus a
little girl and her mother from Austin TX who were supposed to go on
the other tour. Madon and Rocque ran the boat.
"
"It was hot in the boat and somewhat crowded. There was no canopy on
the boat. We went first to the manatee area and did see one or two of
them.
"
"Then we were supposed to go to Goff Caye, but Rocque thought there
were too many people there, so we went to Seargent Caye instead. Roche
dove down and showed Bob what fire coral was, and then we snorkel
circled the island I was astonished at how much branching coral there
was. I got a photo of a big barracuda.
"
" When it was time to go home, Roque had to borrow fuel from another
boat to be sure he would get us back to Caye Caulker.

So my experience of tour operators in Belize is that they do what they
can to make the tour work. If sometime they fail, it's not due to
them being "unreliable".

Later we rented a car. The roads in those days were mostly unpaved -
washboard roads or else they were incompletely paved with potholes and
ragged edges. We talked to one couple who said they'd had 4 flat
tires. We also had one right at the end of the trip, and the lady who
ran the ranch where we were staying gave us directions to where we
could get it fixed (after Bob put the spare on).

On the same cruise, we were late getting back on the previous port,
Cozumel. We also explored Mayan ruins from there. The excursion also
included a beach after the ruins. We were way behind schedule. A few
members of the cruise director's staff were on that tour. They assured
passengers that the ship was not leaving without them. The ship's
excursion to the ruins without the beach at the end, howevr, stated that
after the tour it was the resposibility of the passenger to get back to
the ship.

Sometimes the shorter tours drop you off in town for 'shopping'. Those
tours usually say that it is the responsibility of the pax to get back
to the ship. This is often true of Grand Cayman because it is a
tender port. If you take an afternoon tour, it is your responsibility
to get to the dock on the tender. If you take a morning tour it is
your responsibility to get back to the ship.

BTW, the ship was the Enchantment of the Seas, later renamed the
Entrapment of the Seas by one of the assistant cruise directors when we
were delayed 2 days from returning to Fort Lauderdale due to a
hurricane.

We were on NCL Crown on a repositioning cruise at the time of
hurricane Wilma. We left from Philadelphia at about the time Wilma
was crossing Florida and coming up the Atlantic. The captain
explained to us that he had the option of trying to go around it to
the east to Bermuda or staying closer to the coast -hugging the NC
capes. He had to guess whether the storm would go out to the middle
of the Atlantic or would come up the coast. He guessed right - he
stayed close to NC and the storm went out to Bermuda. We did miss the
Bahamas, but the good thing was that we got to San Juan early so I was
able to go both to El Yunque AND see some of Old San Juan and Fort
Cristobal before it closed.

In article ,
wrote:

I don't recall the OP asking about this particular excursion. Your
research has made you a timid doomsayer. Not all excursions in
Belize are to Laminai. It may be that the OP should just take a
ship's tour but the continual harping on the unreliability of Belize
tour operators is really uncalled for.

I love to do independent tours and try hard to avoid ships excursions
if at all possible but my research on any excursion to Belize, not just
Laminai, indicates one has to be very careful there. You are blase with
your windows but the last tender is an hour before the ship departs. So
there is not as much time to do an excursion as it appears when you
look at the times in port.

I have not gone to Belize on a cruise ship. I did spend two weeks
there. It seems to me to be a country particularly NOT fitted for
cruise ship visits. I have read the recommendations and accounts of
the cruise ship tours and some of them have quite good reviews and
there are recommendations for non-ship excursions for several of them
that I would have no qualms about the reliability of the local
excursion operators for some excursions. I do agree that I would not
use a local excursion for Laminai.

I seems you do get there are issues about doing a long tour at Belize.
While you have no qualms about local operators I have found a bunch of
reports from those who got stressed out by the local operators getting
them back at the last minute. One person missed the last passenger
tender but did not miss the ship only because there was still one last
tender, a crew tender.

--
Charles