Trip report
Ramon's and Ambergris Caye
January 9-January 19, 2022
We've been diving in Cozumel every year for 15 years, so we decided to head further south to check out Belize.
Getting There
We flew Maya airlines from Belize City to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. Online booking was easy, and Maya runs an efficient operation.
You can fly from Belize international airport (20 minutes outside of Belize City) or from the municipal airport (in Belize City).
Belize City itself is a real shithole, so there's no reason to stay there unless you want to take a day or two visit the nearby Mayan ruins. We ate lunch at Nerie's, a small family restaurant with great food and great prices.
Ramon's Village
This is a nice 3-star resort that caters to tourists in general. It is a few minute's walk from the airport and downtown San Pedro. Ramon's is a beautiful tropical jungle, quite pleasant and unique. The rooms along the main street are very noisy, but my friends say that the air conditioner drowns our this noise. The pool is small but really cool and unique.
The turboprop aircraft that fly in and out of the nearby airport aren't that noisy (unlike jets), so it's tolerable.
The food at the resort is really quite delicious, but you can find meals at half the price at family-operated restaurants in town. Our favorite was a Salvadorian pupuseria.
Breakfast was included in our package. The bar serves only beer and wine, so if you want a margaritas then you'll have to look elsewhere.
There is ZERO coordination between the on-site dive operation and the kitchen. The kitchen opens at 6 a.m. and the daily dives start at 8:30 a.m., so most of the time this lack of coordination is not an issue.
But if you are going out to Turneffe for the day, you have to be at the boat at 6:30 a.m. You can get to the restaurant right at 6:00 a.m., but the breakfast staff won't get around to taking your order until 6:20 and it takes another 30 minutes to get your food. The breakfast staff is really the worst aspect of staying at Ramon's.
Similarly, if you do the two morning dives, and then want to do the afternoon dive, the Ramon's restaurant is not fast enough to provide you with lunch before the afternoon dive.
The Dive Operation
There is an on-site dive operation at Ramon's that is run quite well by Rick. Your reg and BC stays on the boat, and the dive shop assigns you a locker, lock, and key for the rest of your gear. The lockers and rinse tank are on the dock, 30 feet from the boat.
There are two morning dives, and if there is enough interest there is an afternoon dive and/or a night dive. The dive locations are minutes away from the resort, so the boat returns to Ramon's dock for the surface interval.
The dive sites are all basically the same: in the shallows (30 feet) there are broad reef plains that slowly drop out to fingers of reef separated by deep canyons. Deep dives reach 90 feet, but the reef drops off much deeper than that.
Compared to Cozumel, you'll see a lot more reef sharks and nurse sharks, but the reef itself is not that pretty and there seems to be relatively few fish. On a typical dive we saw 4 reef sharks, 6 nurse sharks, and a turtle. The reef sharks circle for a while and then disappear. The nurse sharks must get fed, because they're very friendly and follow you around for the entire dive.
Some of the canyons and reef fingers get pretty big, reminiscent of Cozumel's big reef formations, but they never reach the size found in Coz.
There are also optional all-day 3-tank dive trips out to Turneffe atoll or the Blue Hole that depart early (6 or 6:30). The reefs out there seem to have more life, but I'm not sure it's worth the pounding 2-hour boat rides through open ocean to get there. The Blue Hole is certainly anti-climactic, because the visibility is so poor, the dive to 135 feet is so short, and it's a big cluster-F with all the cattle boats full of inexperienced divers.
Dives with Ramon's are operated like a tour. You have a dive guide and stay together group. Most of the divers are very unsafe and inexperienced, so expect a 40 minute dive before you get the signal to ascend to the safety stop.
I can't tell you how many times I saw divers with no dive computers descending well below the group for very long periods, ignoring the dive master's commands to ascend, and then going straight up to the surface when they ran low on air.
The typical diver on Ambergris seems to be that tourist diver who hasn't been diving in the last 5 years -- or the clueless diving photographer who kicks the **** out of the reef all day long -- or the new diver with 20 total dives. We cringed every time a new set of divers got paired with our group.
All in all - we put a check mark on our bucket list for Belize, but we won't ever return to Ambergris. It's just not that good.
Ramon's and Ambergris Caye
January 9-January 19, 2022
We've been diving in Cozumel every year for 15 years, so we decided to head further south to check out Belize.
Getting There
We flew Maya airlines from Belize City to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. Online booking was easy, and Maya runs an efficient operation.
You can fly from Belize international airport (20 minutes outside of Belize City) or from the municipal airport (in Belize City).
Belize City itself is a real shithole, so there's no reason to stay there unless you want to take a day or two visit the nearby Mayan ruins. We ate lunch at Nerie's, a small family restaurant with great food and great prices.
Ramon's Village
This is a nice 3-star resort that caters to tourists in general. It is a few minute's walk from the airport and downtown San Pedro. Ramon's is a beautiful tropical jungle, quite pleasant and unique. The rooms along the main street are very noisy, but my friends say that the air conditioner drowns our this noise. The pool is small but really cool and unique.
The turboprop aircraft that fly in and out of the nearby airport aren't that noisy (unlike jets), so it's tolerable.
The food at the resort is really quite delicious, but you can find meals at half the price at family-operated restaurants in town. Our favorite was a Salvadorian pupuseria.
Breakfast was included in our package. The bar serves only beer and wine, so if you want a margaritas then you'll have to look elsewhere.
There is ZERO coordination between the on-site dive operation and the kitchen. The kitchen opens at 6 a.m. and the daily dives start at 8:30 a.m., so most of the time this lack of coordination is not an issue.
But if you are going out to Turneffe for the day, you have to be at the boat at 6:30 a.m. You can get to the restaurant right at 6:00 a.m., but the breakfast staff won't get around to taking your order until 6:20 and it takes another 30 minutes to get your food. The breakfast staff is really the worst aspect of staying at Ramon's.
Similarly, if you do the two morning dives, and then want to do the afternoon dive, the Ramon's restaurant is not fast enough to provide you with lunch before the afternoon dive.
The Dive Operation
There is an on-site dive operation at Ramon's that is run quite well by Rick. Your reg and BC stays on the boat, and the dive shop assigns you a locker, lock, and key for the rest of your gear. The lockers and rinse tank are on the dock, 30 feet from the boat.
There are two morning dives, and if there is enough interest there is an afternoon dive and/or a night dive. The dive locations are minutes away from the resort, so the boat returns to Ramon's dock for the surface interval.
The dive sites are all basically the same: in the shallows (30 feet) there are broad reef plains that slowly drop out to fingers of reef separated by deep canyons. Deep dives reach 90 feet, but the reef drops off much deeper than that.
Compared to Cozumel, you'll see a lot more reef sharks and nurse sharks, but the reef itself is not that pretty and there seems to be relatively few fish. On a typical dive we saw 4 reef sharks, 6 nurse sharks, and a turtle. The reef sharks circle for a while and then disappear. The nurse sharks must get fed, because they're very friendly and follow you around for the entire dive.
Some of the canyons and reef fingers get pretty big, reminiscent of Cozumel's big reef formations, but they never reach the size found in Coz.
There are also optional all-day 3-tank dive trips out to Turneffe atoll or the Blue Hole that depart early (6 or 6:30). The reefs out there seem to have more life, but I'm not sure it's worth the pounding 2-hour boat rides through open ocean to get there. The Blue Hole is certainly anti-climactic, because the visibility is so poor, the dive to 135 feet is so short, and it's a big cluster-F with all the cattle boats full of inexperienced divers.
Dives with Ramon's are operated like a tour. You have a dive guide and stay together group. Most of the divers are very unsafe and inexperienced, so expect a 40 minute dive before you get the signal to ascend to the safety stop.
I can't tell you how many times I saw divers with no dive computers descending well below the group for very long periods, ignoring the dive master's commands to ascend, and then going straight up to the surface when they ran low on air.
The typical diver on Ambergris seems to be that tourist diver who hasn't been diving in the last 5 years -- or the clueless diving photographer who kicks the **** out of the reef all day long -- or the new diver with 20 total dives. We cringed every time a new set of divers got paired with our group.
All in all - we put a check mark on our bucket list for Belize, but we won't ever return to Ambergris. It's just not that good.
