We (wife, 13-year old boy/girl twins, and myself) were in San Pedro May 25-30 and it was amazing, thanks in no small part to prior reviews posted here in SB.
On Saturday, we flew on United from Des Moines - Houston - Belize City, and then took Maya Air over to San Pedro. One kid got to ride shotgun on the way over, the other on the way back. We stayed at the Palms and didn't rent a golf cart. We had a 2BR exec suite which has a 2nd bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Most everywhere we wanted to go was within walking distance; I think the farthest we walked was to Palapa and that was between .5 - .75 miles each way. But most restaurants were much closer.
Sargasso is still pretty bad, although with Ramon's dock right next door we were still able to do plenty of snorkeling.
I can't say enough good things about Ecologic Divers! We had arranged for my daughter Tenley to do her Jr. OW checkout dives on this trip. Sunday morning, we were picked up at the Palms dock and shuttled over to the dive shop where we met her instructor, Miriany. My daughter was pretty nervous about the whole thing, and Miriany quickly put her at ease. Even better, for day 1 it was just Tenley, Miriany, our boat captain Jonathan and I, so she didn't have to deal with any other divers. I was just there to ride along and snorkeled above them for dives 1 and 2, at Tuffy. There were 3 spotted eagle rays that came by to check things out, she loved that. We came back to the shop for our surface interval since it was only a 5 min ride to the reef. They provided fruit, chips + salsa, cookies, and water to snack on while the crew changed over tanks and gear.
On day 2, the whole family dove. In addition to the 4 of us, there was one other couple on the boat along with Jonathan, Capt. (and our DM) Charlie and Miriany. Nice small group. Tenley and Talan (son) went with Miriany to do skills for dive 3, and then they joined up with Sarah and me afterward since the rest of the group would be beyond the Jr depth limits for a portion of the first dive at Esmeralda. Got to see plenty of nurse sharks on that dive; the kids handled it well. Apparently, someone else saw a bull shark, I'm sort of glad I didn't... Dive 4 was at Cypress Garden and we were all shallower, so the whole family was able to dive together.
On Monday, Talan and I planned to dive San Pedro Canyon. Some sinus issues caused a bad toothache by the time he got down to around 15 feet. We ascended and he tried to get down again, descending extra slow and equalizing a lot - but he couldn't shake it. We aborted the dive for him, got him back on the boat and then it was just myself, Charlie, another DM and a guy from Germany for that dive. I made it a 1 tank trip since Talan couldn't dive, didn't want to make him just sit sadly on the boat thinking about what he was missing out on. When we go back to Belize, we will definitely dive with them again. The entire staff was knowledgable, professional, courteous and patient. And Capt. Charlie is hysterical! Couldn't ask for anything more!
Other activities: We did a sunset cruise through Ramon's on Tuesday night which was awesome. Sailed down to Hol Chan and back, snacked on fruit, hummus, and shrimp salsa while the sun went down. Wednesday the kids went parasailing with Belize Parasail Plus. They loved it. Talan wore a GoPro which provided some excellent footage. Somehow he managed to spot the boat we were on with Ecologic - the Scubalicious - and thought if he yelled loud enough he could get Capt. Charlie's attention
Here's the video link.
Dining - while the original intent was to buy groceries and cook a few meals at home, that didn't really happen. We did pick up some breakfast stuff and snacks at Island City Market, which was less than 1/4 mi away, but that was really about it.
Restaurants/shops we visited:
Wild Mango (once for lunch, once for dinner)
Estels
Belize Chocolate Co.
Carlo & Ernie's (my daughter loved their wings of all things)
Boomers Cafe
Lola's Pub
Palapa
Paradice Cream
El Fogon
Neri's Tacos
Mesa Cafe - the Coconut French Toast was quite possibly the best thing I've ever had for breakfast, ever.
We didn't have a bad meal anywhere. The only issue we ran in to was a bunch of places are closed on Sundays, and Monday was a Belizian holiday (Commonwealth Day) so there were a bunch of places closed then as well.
Overall, a fantastic experience and can't wait to return! We had the GoPro on our dives too; once I get the pics and videos uploaded I will add links to the thread.
On Saturday, we flew on United from Des Moines - Houston - Belize City, and then took Maya Air over to San Pedro. One kid got to ride shotgun on the way over, the other on the way back. We stayed at the Palms and didn't rent a golf cart. We had a 2BR exec suite which has a 2nd bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Most everywhere we wanted to go was within walking distance; I think the farthest we walked was to Palapa and that was between .5 - .75 miles each way. But most restaurants were much closer.
Sargasso is still pretty bad, although with Ramon's dock right next door we were still able to do plenty of snorkeling.
I can't say enough good things about Ecologic Divers! We had arranged for my daughter Tenley to do her Jr. OW checkout dives on this trip. Sunday morning, we were picked up at the Palms dock and shuttled over to the dive shop where we met her instructor, Miriany. My daughter was pretty nervous about the whole thing, and Miriany quickly put her at ease. Even better, for day 1 it was just Tenley, Miriany, our boat captain Jonathan and I, so she didn't have to deal with any other divers. I was just there to ride along and snorkeled above them for dives 1 and 2, at Tuffy. There were 3 spotted eagle rays that came by to check things out, she loved that. We came back to the shop for our surface interval since it was only a 5 min ride to the reef. They provided fruit, chips + salsa, cookies, and water to snack on while the crew changed over tanks and gear.
On day 2, the whole family dove. In addition to the 4 of us, there was one other couple on the boat along with Jonathan, Capt. (and our DM) Charlie and Miriany. Nice small group. Tenley and Talan (son) went with Miriany to do skills for dive 3, and then they joined up with Sarah and me afterward since the rest of the group would be beyond the Jr depth limits for a portion of the first dive at Esmeralda. Got to see plenty of nurse sharks on that dive; the kids handled it well. Apparently, someone else saw a bull shark, I'm sort of glad I didn't... Dive 4 was at Cypress Garden and we were all shallower, so the whole family was able to dive together.
On Monday, Talan and I planned to dive San Pedro Canyon. Some sinus issues caused a bad toothache by the time he got down to around 15 feet. We ascended and he tried to get down again, descending extra slow and equalizing a lot - but he couldn't shake it. We aborted the dive for him, got him back on the boat and then it was just myself, Charlie, another DM and a guy from Germany for that dive. I made it a 1 tank trip since Talan couldn't dive, didn't want to make him just sit sadly on the boat thinking about what he was missing out on. When we go back to Belize, we will definitely dive with them again. The entire staff was knowledgable, professional, courteous and patient. And Capt. Charlie is hysterical! Couldn't ask for anything more!
Other activities: We did a sunset cruise through Ramon's on Tuesday night which was awesome. Sailed down to Hol Chan and back, snacked on fruit, hummus, and shrimp salsa while the sun went down. Wednesday the kids went parasailing with Belize Parasail Plus. They loved it. Talan wore a GoPro which provided some excellent footage. Somehow he managed to spot the boat we were on with Ecologic - the Scubalicious - and thought if he yelled loud enough he could get Capt. Charlie's attention
Here's the video link.Dining - while the original intent was to buy groceries and cook a few meals at home, that didn't really happen. We did pick up some breakfast stuff and snacks at Island City Market, which was less than 1/4 mi away, but that was really about it.
Restaurants/shops we visited:
Wild Mango (once for lunch, once for dinner)
Estels
Belize Chocolate Co.
Carlo & Ernie's (my daughter loved their wings of all things)
Boomers Cafe
Lola's Pub
Palapa
Paradice Cream
El Fogon
Neri's Tacos
Mesa Cafe - the Coconut French Toast was quite possibly the best thing I've ever had for breakfast, ever.
We didn't have a bad meal anywhere. The only issue we ran in to was a bunch of places are closed on Sundays, and Monday was a Belizian holiday (Commonwealth Day) so there were a bunch of places closed then as well.
Overall, a fantastic experience and can't wait to return! We had the GoPro on our dives too; once I get the pics and videos uploaded I will add links to the thread.
