Waohoooo! going to go to Belize for Christmas time. We want to rent a condo or apartment that will fit 5-6 of us. Any recommendations? Thinking Plancetia or somewhere right on the beach and we can rent a car and go to the Mayan ruins and other locations. We are somewhat green and dont want to support Turtle Inn and forgein businesses like that and would prefer to give our money to locals.

Any thoughts?!! thanks in advance

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Colleen,

I'm going to Belize on my cruise in 4 weeks. I'll send you any information I can get.

ohhhh fun! please report back to me when you get home!!! have a great time!!

We just got back from Belize a couple of weeks ago. We were on Ambergis Caye....so i am not much help with the mainland.

We were in Belize in February 04. We stayed on Caye Caulker for a week at the Iguana Reef Hotel and loved it. There are several house choices there.

We then went to San Ignacio and stayed in Santa Elena at the Aguada Hotel (owned by an American and his Belize wife). They were very helpful in picking us up at the water taxi in Belize City and arranging our trips to Xunantunich and Caracol ruins (not to be missed). They then arranged for our transfer to Placencia.

We loved Placencia and stayed at the Rum Point Inn. There are some nice accommodations on the beach in Placencia proper (near the famous sidewalk). Check out www.Placencia.com for Placencia accommodations.

A good site to research a trip to Belize is www.BelizeForum.com

We thoroughly enjoyed Belize. We went there without blinders on. I've spoken to many people who have visited Belize aboard cruise ships. None of them enjoyed the place, mostly because they ended up spending time in Belize City only.

We were in Belize for 2 weeks and are looking forward to a real Slow Trav trip there in future.

Enjoy. Be sure to visit the Belize City Zoo. The animals there are all rescue animals (or so we were told). We didn't rent a vehicle (there were 6 of us). The transfers we arranged were much less expensive than a rental vehicle and none of us had to drive.

Gail

Riana,
We're back from Belize...we did enjoy our trip...but I cannot report back about any rentals as our time was limited there.

We were birding in Belize in Jan, staying first in Ambergris Caye (20 min flight on Tropic Air) at Victoria Inn. V.V. nice. There are a lot of condos in a bit closer to town. I thought the water was odd. The sand is really crushed coral and the water very shallow for some distance out. You tend to sink in the bottom, if that makes sense. So we took a boat out to the reef. A lot of people do like the town,which I thought was laid back and funky. You get around only in golf carts. Day trips, quite long, were available to Lamani; the report was that one off island trip was fine, but two in a week was a killer. We looked at some condos and thought they were closed in, but some newer ones south of San Pedro are being built. So I would check carefully on net. Then we went birding in Chan Chich. My understanding of Placencia, and you might want to check, is that you would need antimalarials - not the case at Ambergris or further north.