14 Day Caribbean Cruise
Belize City, Belize
Nov. 17, 2010
7 am – 5 pm
Description & Accessibility
Belize City is a tender port, the cruise ship anchors off shore and a shore based service runs boats back and forth to the ship for the duration of the stay at this port.
The port tourist area had a large variety of shops.
We took the Calypso Train Tour Of Belize City, it was a 1 hour sightseeing tour and booked through the cruise line. I found it was tricky to find the meeting place for this tour, and then you where escorted to where the tour vehicle was through the busy port shopping area.
Accessibility:
The core port shopping area was accessible (most of it) the tour we took was good but poor organization when it came to getting to the tour vehicle and not recognizing the importance of getting close to the vehicle in a scooter or wheelchair, no roll on capabilities on the tour vehicle which means you had to transfer into the vehicle, no stops during the tour. The location where I was told to leave the scooter was not close enough as I would have liked and had to walk further with my wife’s help than I should have needed. Coming back the drop off was at a different location than the pickup however in my case they did bring me back to the same place as we started, someone did move the scooter closer this time to where we got off. They likely do not get a lot of mobility limited people and really did not know the procedure to follow here. There was some shopping areas just outside the core tourist port area but we never venture out there. Inside the tourist port area most all the shops where completely accessible although people traffic can get in your way. Once outside the core tourist port shopping area accessibility can vary.
The restrooms that I saw where not large in nature but technically accessible but then again if you could get down the stairs to the tender platform on the ship and then in and out of the tender port, the restrooms will not likely be an issue.
Please read the section on cruise ships and the accessibility section in there to get more information regarding tenders.
There was other tours listed for this port that I would have loved to have taken if only I was more able bodied.
Note: Please be careful when booking private tours at tender ports in case you cannot get off. I have had ships where I checked ahead of time if I could take my travel scooter on a tender and was told no problem, then once on the ship they outright banned any motorized scooter or powered wheelchair on the tender.
There was also at the time we where there had 3 cruise ships anchored off shore with tender boats running to all, make sure you return on the correct tender boat to your ship, the tender boats however do leave from different locations at the pier and they do check your ship card before boarding the tender.
By: Donald Kerr