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Belize is full of wildlife and a bird watcher's paradise.
Best Times to Visit Belize
Anytime is a good time to visit, but here are the “best times” for different activities and budgets: Best time to avoid tourists: September to October
Best time to avoid rain, February through April.
Best time for underwater visibility, March-June.
Best time for lowest hotel prices, after Easter to U.S. Thanksgiving.
Best time to visit Toledo District and the far south, February to May.
Best time to visit Cayo, July to February (when it’s not so hot and dry).
Best time to visit Placencia, January to May Best time to visit cayes, December to August. Best time to avoid hurricanes and tropical storms: December-June
A Guide to Belize Resorts and Hotels
Belize has more than 500 hotels, resorts, lodges and guest houses, with about 6,000 total rooms. Most Belize resorts and hotels are family operated, Only two hotels have more than 100 rooms: the 180-room Princess Hotel and Casino and the 102-room Radisson Fort George. Both are in Belize City. New condo-hotels with 50 or more units each are gaining in popularity.
Travelers to Belize today can expect to find a variety of accommodations to fit almost any budget or preference. Among the uniquely Belizean accommodations are the jungle lodges. These are mostly in remote areas, but despite the remote locations you don’t have to forego life’s little luxuries, such as cold beer, hot showers and comfortable mattresses. The best of these places, include Chaa Creek, Maya Mountain Lodge and Cahal Pech in the Cayo District, Jaguar Paw near Belmopan, Hidden Valley Inn and Blancaneaux in the Mountain Pine Ridge, the Lodge at Big Falls in Toledo, and Chan Chich and Lamanai Outpost in rural Orange Walk, are as good as any bush lodge in the world.
Usually, the birding and wildlife spotting around the lodges are excellent, and they offer all the amenities you enjoy after the day’s adventures are done. Most, though not all, have bay thatch cabañas built with a nod to Maya-style construction, but done up in much more luxury and style than traditional Maya cottages. While the top places are first-class in every way, with rates to match - often US$200 to $300 or more a night in season - you don’t have to pay much to get an authentic jungle lodge experience.
Places like Cahal Pech, San Ignacio Hotel, Crystal Paradise and Parrot’s Nest, all in Cayo, or Hickatee Cottages near Punta Gorda, are bargains for US$75 or less double. Another delightful type of lodging in Belize is the casual and small seaside resort. The best of these, places like Mariposa or Maya Beach Hotel in Placencia, or, on the budget level, Tradewinds in Placencia village, are sandy barefoot spots, with a friendly Belizean feel you won’t find in other parts of the Caribbean. A couple can spend a night at the beach for US$50 to $150 dollars.
All around Belize you can find small guest houses with clean, safe rooms at budget prices. The Trek Stop, Aguada Hotel, Casa Blanca Guesthouse and Martha’s Guesthouse in Cayo or Tipple Tree Beya Inn in Hopkins, are examples. At these places you can get a nice little room for US$40 or less.
At the other end of the scale, for those who demand luxury, a whole wave of upmarket hotels hit Belize starting in the 1990s. No longer is it necessary to stay in hotel with linoleum floors and mismatched furniture. On Ambergris Caye and other cayes, places like Mata Chica, Victoria House, Cayo Espanto and Caye Chapel Island Resort have rooms that could earn a spot in Architectural Digest, with rates from US$200 to $1,500 a night.
On the mainland, Chaa Creek's villas are luxurious, as are the seafront villas at Almond Beach in Placencia. Jaguar Paw’s and Maruba’s jungle cabins are air-conditioned. In a few areas, mainly San Pedro, you can enjoy the extra space of a condo-style unit at a regular hotel-style price. Ramon's Village is the leading resort on Ambergris Caye. Other interesting resorts include the Villas at Banyan Bay, Grand Colony The Palms, Belizean Reef, Xanadu and Banana Beach,.
In between are all shapes and sizes of personality inns, mostly run by their owners. Whether the owners are Belizean, American, British or Canadian, they’re almost always friendly and helpful, willing to sit down with you and help you plan your day. Occupancy Rates Hotels in Belize generally do not enjoy high annual occupancy rates.
Book Belize Hotels Ahead?
The answer, except around busy holidays such as Christmas and Easter, used to be that you could just wing it. Average annual occupancy at Belize hotels was low, and rooms in all price levels were plentiful most of the time. However, beginning in the late 1990s, tourism grew to record levels. Quite a few hotels, especially those offering the best value or top service and location, are now heavily booked in-season. Despite relatively low average occupancies (see above), if visiting Belize in-season, roughly Thanksgiving through Easter, it’s a good idea to book ahead for at least the first night or two. This doesn't’t mean that if you arrive without reservations or you may have to sleep on the beach with the sand flies - you’ll be able to find a room somewhere - but your first choices may well be booked and you may have to spend valuable vacation time hunting for a room. Tours and dive trips can easily be booked after you arrive.
Find Belize Hotel Bargains
Belize is wired. Almost all hotels in Belize have Web sites and e-mail. All hotels that are advertising partners with Belize.com have email and web sites to help you choose your accommodations. Several hotels in Belize are small and family owned, and would prefer you book direct, preferably via the Internet. That saves them 10 to 25% in agent commissions, plus the cost and trouble of axing, mailing brochures and telephoning back and forth. In many cases, booking direct also will save you money.
Some, but not all, hotels offer 10 to 15% discounts for direct bookings via the Internet. Many don’t advertise this, but it won’t hurt to ask. The cheapest way to communicate with hotels in Belize is via e-mail. If you find this information useful, please consider mentioning you saw the hotel you are interested in on Belize.com
Next: Belize Hotels Listed and Reviewed.
Source: Belize.com and Lan Sluder Belize First
Eating Well in Belize
You can eat gloriously well in Belize, at modest prices. Rice and beans is the quintessential Belizean dish, but this are not the rice and beans your momma used to fix - unless she’s from Belize or perhaps New Orleans.
Beans and rice in Belize means spicy and smoky, with plenty of recado (also known as achiote) and other seasonings, perhaps flavoured with salt pork and some onions and peppers and cooked in coconut milk. Usually these are served with a chunk of stew chicken, fish or pork. The whole thing might cost just US$5 in a pleasant restaurant. If you’re not happy in Belize, you’re probably not getting enough rice and beans.
Along the coast and on the cayes, seafood is as fresh as the salt air. In-season (mid-June to mid-February) spiny lobster, grilled, broiled, steamed, even fried - is fairly inexpensive and good. But a big filet of snapper or grouper, prepared over a grill with lime juice, is just as tasty and even cheaper. Conch, in season October to June, is delicious grilled or stewed in lime juice as ceviche, but we like it best in fritters, chopped and fried in a light batter.
Every ethnic group in multicultural Belize has its own taste treats. Among them: Serre and hoodut, one of the best-known Garifuna dishes, which is fish cooked in coconut milk with plantains. Boil up is a Creole favourite, fish boiled with plantains, yams and potatoes, and served with a tomato sauce and boiled bread. The Maya dish most popular with tourists is pibil, pork and other meats seasoned, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked slowly in an underground oven.
Of course, with Mexico next door, Belize has a wide variety of Mexican dishes, including tamales, burritos, garnaches (corn tortillas fried and topped with beans, salsa and cheese) and panades (deep-fried tortillas filled with fish).