Hawaii or Belize

[jacrmill]

yeah, we are really leaning more towards Hawaii now. I mean gang fights sound fun and everything, but thats a little too much fun for a relaxing trip. We are going to look into Grand Cayman and Curacao also.

Thanks for all the help, I love this board...

 

[Damselfish]

Belize may not be where you want to go this trip, but as a tourist there I really wouldn't worry about safety anyplace you would normally ago. As far as Belize City itself, it's not a new thing to recommend wandering against wandering around the city at night - same thing is true of many places. And very few people would recommended it as your actual vacation destination.

 

[DeputyDan]

I have been to Belize and Hawaii.

I enjoyed the diving more in Hawaii - We stayed and dove Kona.

I enjoyed topside more on Belize trip - Tikal, ATM Cave, etc.

You won't be disappointed with either!

 

[fjpatrum]

They are such different places, both topside and diving, it depends what your priorities are and what you want to see.

If the whole fancy big resort experience with mainstream restaurants and nightlife is what you really want for this trip, Hawaii is more likely to suit you. The convenience to dive ops and other things is going to vary depending on the island and where you stay, but it's not going to be nearly as convenient as a dive oriented place in Belize or a liveaboard either place. For example a lot of dive ops on the Big Island leave from Kailua-Kona, which is a longish (and often congested) commute from most of the really cool looking resorts you'll probably be interested in, so you need to watch out for that. (If you have the time I think a week on the Kona Aggressor and a week on land dedicated to other stuff is the best way to go. And FWIW, the food on the Kona Aggressor a few years ago was actually better than most if not all of the restaurants we ate at, including the expensive ones, go figure.)

Much more likely to see a whale shark in Belize, but mostly in specific days of certain months in a certain location, you really have to arrange your trip around it. Whales, varies with time of year but you have decent odds in Hawaii. Winter is when the humpbacks are there and June is way past peak season though, but you could get lucky. We were in the water with a pilot whale in August.

I'm going to say I just did a trip to the Big Island, and many (not all but many) of the really nice resorts are only about a 20 minute drive from the docks at Kailua-Kona. The other 4 and 5 star "resorts" are only another 45 minutes or an hour further. We stayed at the Hilton Waikaloa for two days and it was literally 15 minutes door to dock. Waikaloa village has maybe 6 or 7 "resort" hotels that are ridiculous. The Hilton, for example, is a 60 acre property with a train and Venice-style aquifers and boat to travel between buildings, and their own lagoon. The drive along HI-19 can be congested though, so maybe add another 5 minutes for the short drive and 15 minutes for the long one.

If you choose Hawaii, do yourselves a favor and do the Manta dive at night, and I ws interested in but didn't have enough dives to do a black water dive. the water is colder though, and the shops had 5mm suits as rentals with the packages. I wore a 3mm and was fine during the day but needed more on the night dive. I will bring a hood next time I go. The whale shark siting opportunity isn't high but the ops I spoke with said they seem to be getting more common over the last couple of years. Maybe hearsay, maybe just "drumming up business" wherever they can, so take that for what it's worth. I've always really enjoyed the hard coral reefs for snorkeling (and now diving) so I enjoyed Hawaii's reefs, and their endemic fish are awesome.

I'll agree with Damselfish about the food... I was sorely disappointed with the offerings in Kona and Hilo, for that matter. we only ate in Waikaloa for 2 meals (stayed in a condo for most of the trip) which were decent but nothing to write home about. Overall, good but not as good as I had hoped.

I have only snorkeled off Waikiki in the past and haven't been to Belize so I can't really speak to the opportunities there. Diving Kona is good though, both boat and shore diving.