Belize Shore Excursions

[ashleysmm]

Our family of 7 just returned from a 10 day Galaxy cruise. Prior to departing we contacted David Cunningham of Cunningham Tours in Belize. We arranged to tour the mayan ruins of Altun Ha with David. He met us at the pier with a 15 passenger air conditioned van. We toured the city of Belize stopping to stock up on water and snacks at a local store. We arrived at Altun Ha approx 1/2 hr before the ship's shore excursions buses. It was nice to be the first people at the site and we took some fabulous photos. David is extremely knowledgeable and knew most of the people working on the excavation and rebuilding of the site. A couple of the ship's tour excursion guides were asking David for info to relay to their tour group about the site. Returning from Altun Ha David stopped at a small hut along the road where we purchased hand carved statues, bowls, and boxes. The gentlemen selling them lived behind the shop and all the work for sale was done by him. We later saw similar items at a much higher price and not as nice. At our request David also took us to a local liquor store where we purchased some local wine and rum. At another stop we purchased cuban cigars, local grown ground coffee and the usual island souvenirs. We interacted with local Belizans and spoke with an artist and viewed his work. David is a third generation Belizan, very outgoing and a wealth of information. We look forward to returning to Belize sometime in the near future and doing another tour with David. He will custom arrange any tour you might want in addition to those that he currently offers. His prices are very reasonable. We paid $50 per adult for what ended up being a six hour tour. David can be reached via email at Cunninghamstours@yahoo.com. If you have any questions my email is cbear153@aol.com. I highly recommend David if you would like to see and experience Belize.

 

[snorkelman]

So, you got a tour of Altun Ha for $50 per person? I suppose that might be a little cheaper than what the cruise ships offer, but it doesn't sound like a killer deal. Belize is a pretty poor country and things should be cheaper. However, the cruise industry is just starting to make inroads, so when that picks up, hopefully so will competition and the prices of tours will drop.

When we were in Belize last year on the Pride, we had heard so many bad things about the land-based excursions (especially the city tour) that we were not excited. We talked with some people that took the tour that went by boat and bus around Belize City and they saw some monkeys and stuff. They commented that locals used car batteries to power their televisions so that they could watch some popular soap opera. It did not sound too exciting of a tour but they did comment that they thought that the city was quite clean. This surprised me after reading cruiser reviews about how dirty the city was.
Our table mates told us that Belize City was terrible for shopping, and I noticed that the Carnival Caper only had one single place listed for shopping in Belize City and it was a restaurant.!!

In fairness, the tour that you went on took a long time and sounded decent. Also, we arranged the ship’s excursion for the Shark Ray Alley ($60.00 per person for 7 hours).


My only real comment is that had you taken a similar tour on another island, it probably would have been much cheaper. Then again, $50 per person is still cheaper than most excursions offere by ships.