Belize- Turneffe Flats Trip Report

[frisby]

Yeah - the $1000 surcharge per day was mentioned by Thook in his original post - seems hard to imagine the Belize government would want to do such a thing - it would damage their tourism revenue and if they did - ****** it - I would just always say I was staying 10 days longer than I anticipated - what - then their gonna charge me $500.00 for each day I come home early - sounds like mis-information to me - that's my point.

I liked Amigo's a lot - I did dive with White Sands when I was up north and did two days of two tank dives and they were also very good - but the water was rough as hell and I got sea sick on my first dive ever - after getting my PADI OW certification right before this trip and faced with the proposition of staying in a rocking boat for an hour waiting for the other divers or barfing in my regulator - hmmmm which is the better choice ? I'm being ironical here - but being a new diver it was un nerving the captain of the boat insured me in the most compassionate and supportive manner that I would be much better off diving and he was right. Saw the biggest turtle I could have ever imagined on that dive - and was generally ok - but when I came back up to the surface at the end of that dive- it was astonishing at how fast I got sick again with that rough water. I did try a SCO patch and it helped when diving again - but my mouth and throat were so dry - i don't think I would ever do that again.

 

[Thook]

Frisby glad you had a good trip! I am supposing they may do the extended stay exit fee only on the days that those particular officials are at the airport screening people....we were told by "Someone at the airport" that they were glad those officers weren't there looking over their shoulders like they had been the last few days. I was quite floored by the information that was given to us. Chilly....this is what we were told by an official at the airport. Do you have other information?

 

[chillyinCanada]

I'm going to find out because there's something amiss in the info you received. Will keep you posted.

 

[peterbj7]

If you overstay your visa/permitted stay you may be penalised, but usually they just tell you off. I've never heard of such a massive fine. Be careful to check what they actually wrote in your passport - I have heard of people who showed their return tickets and expected to have permission to stay until then, but the immigration people wrote in an earlier date just so they'd have an excuse to fine the person. Immigration staff in many countries are the lowest of the low - that's certainly true of the US and it's true of Belize.

 

[chillyinCanada]

OK, so here's the deal. Every non-Belizean traveler entering Belize, no matter their purpose, automatically receives a 30 day visitor's visa. If you extend your stay beyond the 30 days, without renewing, you are in breach of the laws of Belize. I haven't been able to confirm if there are new fines being imposed or old fines being enforced.

In any event, none of you overstayed the 30 days and as I said before, were in no jeopardy.

 

[peterbj7]

True, except that 30 days is the maximum and I have heard of people - I looked at their passports - granted only a week. On one occasion only three days, even though that person showed that they were booked to fly out a week later. There are some immigration officers who are simply bloody minded!