Belize Travel Forum

We'll be visiting Guatemala first and will be seeing the ruins in Tikal which will only leave us about 6 days in Belize. Is it worth seeing the ruins of Lamanai after seeing Tikal especially if we do want to have a few days snorkeling and beaching?

I haven't been to Tikal, so I can't compare the two, I enjoyed our trip to Lamanai and it wasn't just for the ruins. We took a 26 mile boat ride up the New River to get there. Amazing scenery, and bird-and-wild-life along the way! Also majestic trees, air plants, and orchids. A very enjoyable experience!

Then we had a tour of the ruins. Of course, every ruins site is different - I say go to Lamanai, then you'll be able to compare for yourself. At the very least, you'll enjoy an interesting and beautiful boat ride.

Hope this is helpful!

If we are staying in Amergis Caye, is it possible to do a daytrip to Lamanai including the boat ride down the river?

You'd have to get to Chetumal or Belize City from the caye (water taxi or fly), then:

to drive to the town of Orange Walk to catch the boat would be about 2 hours from Chetumal or about 3 1/2 hours from Belize City.

So, yes, it's doable (at least, according to my map), but it might be a very long day!

Hope this helps!

We arranged for a daytrip to Lamanai from Ambergris Caye and I don't remember it being all that arduous. We did not fly, they came and picked us up in a boat. We arranged it while we were down there, can't remember if it was through our tour company or through the hotel. Here's a couple of examples of a tour to Lamanai, one looks like it takes 5-5.5 hours (not recommendations by the way, I can't remember what company we used)

http://www.ambergriscaye.com/pages/mayan/tour.html

http://www.actionboysbelize.com/lamanai_tour_guide.html

Highly recommend going to Lamanai even after being at Tikal. I just got back from seeing both. You could easily be just about the only people at Lamanai. One real plus is that you can actually climb on the original steps to the top of a very high temple. In Tikal, you climb wooden staircases. I too did the 26 mile boat trip to get to Lamanai and enjoyed seeing all the birds along the way.