Davethecat65

Our group of 6 will be staying a bit outside San Ignacio in early March (we have been told our accommodations are within walking distance of the town) and plans to book day tours leaving from town. Please recommend specific operators, their tours, approximate costs and any other information of which we may want to be aware. We're particularly interested in visiting ruins and doing tube rafting, but any suggestions will be welcome.

We will also be staying in Ambergris Caye and would appreciate information about the snorkel and scuba operators out there. 2 of us are divers and others snorkel, so if there are boats which offer both activities on the same trips, that would be helpful to know. Again, recommendations for specific operators would be great.

Thanks, Dave.

JeanH

I have spent very little time in San Ignacio, so have little personal experience. I do know that Pacz gets consistently good reviews.

I'm not a diver, my husband is. He says, to his knowledge, Hol Chan is the only place that snorkelers and divers go together. Most of the other dive sites are outside the reef, not good snorkeling spots. Hol Chan would be a very shallow dive, it's only 25-30 feet. Lots of check out dives done there.

My husband does his diving with Ecologic, although he hasn't been recently. His favorite dive master is now at Ramon's. Many of our friends dive with Chuck & Robbie's.

hopefulist

Greatest tour in that part of the world for me is a guided tour of Tikal or other area Maya sites in Guatemala with Roxy Ortiz: www.tikalroxy.blogspot.com

For the ATM cave trip we enjoyed: http://pacztours.net/actun-tunichil-muknal

Another cool caving option, much less visited: http://www.actunchapatadventure.blogspot.com

If you're walking distance to town, the providers will pick you up there. Happy trails!

volcanogirl

We used Pacz tours as well and thought they were great. We also booked some excursions through our hotels.

sylvia3

Ditto on Pacz, they have a pretty good reputation; you can just show up at their office in town the morning of your tour (booked in advance, of course).
There are many companies that do both snorkel and scuba guests; for example, we had scuba folks doing Hol Chan while we snorkeled. But some places (Tres Cocos, Mexico Rocks patch reef) are snorkel only, I think, due to the shallowness); those can be pretty cheap, $35(http://www.belizedivingadventures.ne.../mexico-rocks/). Some trips are recommmended as scuba only, like the Blue Hole.

JeanH

Trips to the Blue Hole sometimes take snorkelers and divers both. I've never gone, since, even for snorkeling it's over US$200.00.