Accommodation Challenges

One of the reasons why we started travelling was to experience new adventures. Well, mission accomplished.

Part of our plan when we came to Belize was to take full advantage of our time share which we have at Reef Village in Belize. Overall things have gone very well for the first few months. We had a separate rental for the first month at Bella Vista, then we moved into Reef Village to utilize our time share. The manager did a good job of getting us into a lovely condo for the first 2 months with a beautiful view of the lagoon and fantastic neighbours in the unit under us.

 

Then the management had a bit of a challenge with a reservation and asked if we could assist him. Which of course we were happy to do. So on 2 hours notice we packed up and moved to a nice villa on the lagoon within the same complex.

 

Then 13 days later things got interesting. We were asked to assist with a serious overbooking problem and with less excitement agreed to help out as we still have several weeks we are supposed to be at Reef Village and didn’t want to burn any bridges. The management wanted to put us up in the town of San Pedro at an establishment called the Spindrift Hotel. Where to start. If we were 30 years younger this probably would not have been that big of a deal. However we aren’t. The Spindrift Hotel is at the heart of San Pedro and its night scene. Less than a block from the night clubs that do not open until after midnight and right upstairs from where they hold the Chicken Drop every Thursday evening. As we dejectedly made our way into the hotel our sense of disappointment was palatable. It is not a horrible place, however it is not where we would normally pick to stay. It is a bit run down, but in an effort to see the positive, the room was clean, the bed was comfortable and the air conditioner worked and was quiet. These are all good points because once the clubs started getting going at about 11:00pm we were able to lay awake and appreciate them for most of the night.

 

After one night at the Spindrift there was no way we were going to spend another night there. Karen got busy on the internet and managed to find a place down south of San Pedro that had a casita available for the rest of the week. You need to appreciate that this is prime high season for Ambergris Caye and most places are running at capacity. So finding a room for a week on short notice is a significant challenge. We had managed to acquire a golf cart and compensation for alternative accommodation from Reef Village so the only inconvenience was the commute back to Reef Village. The reason for the commute to Reef Village is that some of our friends had made the decision to spend some of their family holiday time to come down and visit us. So suddenly being displaced 5km south of them was a bit of a problem. Once again on the bright side though, our new accommodation had a pool (long story about why Reef Village’s pool is out of order, more on that at a later date) which was something that our friends children were able to enjoy. Royal Caribbean Resort is a quaint little set up consisting of small casitas set up in what appears to be an army camp layout. However it is a lovely place. It is quiet and the grounds are well maintained. The casitas are simple however they do not have any real cooking facilities other than a microwave.

 

After a week at Royal Caribbean Resorts Karen and I are very much looking forward to a one week get away to Roatan, Honduras for a week of diving. It has been a mildly stressful week. Don’t get me wrong, Nothing like the stress of having to drive through a blizzard and icy roads to get to a job or anything like that. But none the less we are optimistic that when we return from Honduras our accommodation woes will be sorted out and we can enjoy our last couple of weeks in Belize stress free.