Most Affordable Place To Stay In Belize For One Person?

[Streydog]

My first time I went to AC I stayed at Pedro's hotel. It is part hotel, well kind of, and part hostel. I sprung for a hotel room. Want to think it was around $50 a night. Only positive to the place is that there were a bunch of nurses from Europe staying there.

 

[cleung]

That's right in the centre of San Pedro town. I admit, that I like it there but island ambience is in kinda short supply, lol.

What's your budget and when are you going? I've got the perfect place for you but it runs around $135/night. Lower depends on offseason and higher at Xmas and perhaps US Thanksgiving.

I usually prefer to go down south in the off season like late fall and late spring. Summer I can go too but don't really want to gamble against hurricane season. As for budget, I just spent $6 K on Galapagos so I don't mind paying but don't want to pay more than I have to. I'll pay the lowest I can as long as it's not smack in a neighbourhood where there are noisy bars and horns all night long. So if I can find a room for under $100 Canadian or $75 US, that would be ideal. I'm already prepared to spend the $300 US on the Blue Hole trip again knowing that the Blue Hole dive itself may not be the highlight one of the day but the other two would likely be awesome.

 

[salth2owannabe]

Atoll resorts surcharge for Blue Hole too. Turneffe wants $200.

The $200 for the Blue hole trip is the a' la carte pricing if purchased separately. The trip is included in the base price of your package.
It depends on what you want in a trip. I believe Hurican has at least one room set up for a single, but I see it is a little more money for a single rate. We had a single stay while we were there. Shoot them an email and see what they have to say.
The outer Atolls is some of the best diving there is in Belize and Hurican is a 5 min boat ride to many good sites, 10 minutes to the Blue Hole. Do you want a week worth of good diving with surface intervals back in your room/on land, or a long boat ride from Caulker or Amberigris?

 

[ReefHound]

The $200 for the Blue hole trip is the a' la carte pricing if purchased separately. The trip is included in the base price of your package.

Good to know. This other resort Dive Haven clearly says it is extra.
"here is an additional $290 fee for this dive site."
Book Now - Belize Dive Haven

 

[cleung]

The $200 for the Blue hole trip is the a' la carte pricing if purchased separately. The trip is included in the base price of your package.
It depends on what you want in a trip. I believe Hurican has at least one room set up for a single, but I see it is a little more money for a single rate. We had a single stay while we were there. Shoot them an email and see what they have to say.
The outer Atolls is some of the best diving there is in Belize and Hurican is a 5 min boat ride to many good sites, 10 minutes to the Blue Hole. Do you want a week worth of good diving with surface intervals back in your room/on land, or a long boat ride from Caulker or Amberigris?

Yes so if I did stay at Ambergris, I would make every effort to get those trips to the outer atolls. I would like to avoid those long boat rides of course but not if I have to pay double the price or more. Upon scanning some of the rates at the places closer to the outer reefs, they would be approaching liveaboard rates and this is before adding any single supplement too.

 

[Downing]

I know you said you wanted to avoid summer and the hurricane season, which is more like late summer early fall, but there are plenty of places to stay in Placencia under $75/night in the summer. It's the slow season so rates are cut, especially if you're willing to just show up and negotiate. I've been able to score a cabana on the beach for $60 or less in the summer. Maybe stay in a random hotel for one night, then wander around and see what you like. There will be plenty of vacancies. Pop in, ask them how much and let them know you're looking around. If you're willing to pay cash, it's especially hard for them to pass that up. Probably true for AC as well.

I don't know what Huracan charges, but Stoo certainly sings their praises for being a great value compared to a place like Turneffe Island Resort. They're right by the Blue Hole so there's no extra charge for going there. Speaking of the Blue Hole, just be aware of what the dive's really about as plenty of people are disappointed in the experience. I think a lot of that has to do with how far they had to travel to get there. Personally, I think it's a unique and very cool dive.

And like Edward said, check out ReefCI.

 

[Damselfish]

Good to know. This other resort Dive Haven clearly says it is extra.
"here is an additional $290 fee for this dive site."
Book Now - Belize Dive Haven

This makes sense. Turneffe resort is small and I believe the day they go to the Blue hole, it's either do the trip or don't dive that day. (Something which has discouraged me from going there.) Belize Dive Haven appears much larger and presumably has the boats/staff to do the BH and regular dives on the same day, so it can be an option.

It's still a trip from Turneffe to the BH. Not as far as from Ambergris, but not as if you were actually already out at Lighthouse atoll. I wouldn't describe it as "right by."

 

[Damselfish]

I know you said you wanted to avoid summer and the hurricane season, which is more like late summer early fall, but there are plenty of places to stay in Placencia under $75/night in the summer.

But if the OPs goal is to dive BH and Lighthouse, what are the odds of that from the Placencia area? It appears a couple shops run that trip now, but I wonder about them meeting minimums to go (considering it's even further and more expensive from there.) Even if they can score a cheap room, they might be in a location where they can't get to the atolls, and almost certainly not multiple days, but still have longish boat rides to the local dive sites (which IMO aren't that great, but maybe we didn't get to the better ones?)

 

[Damselfish]

The flat rate on Ambergris is really good to know - thanks. So I would think that staying close to a dive shop that has fairly reliable trips out to Blue Hole and outer reefs would be a good option for me.

There's nothing magic about a flat rate, and a single supplement doesn't make things more expensive. All that matters is the bottom line.

When you're renting a room its usually the same price for 1 or 2, whether you're at a Marriott in Miami or a little hotel anywhere, unless they have some specially designated smaller single rooms. You tend to see per person pricing or single supplements (pretty much the same thing) when booking a package that includes other things like meals and diving - which unlike a room are by nature per person. It's just a different way of expressing the same rate and making it sound cheaper, or making it simpler (to all the people booking for 2.) If you were to book a package at dive resort like Ramon's Village on Ambergris, you will see prices for singles and doubles and more, and the single price will not be half the double price.

Once in awhile you will see deals that actually give a single traveler a break, typically when their priority is to fill rooms they know they won't otherwise.

 

[diversteve]

Since you mentioned late spring another option might be Placecncia because you can Dive with Whalesharks then at Gladden Spit which is about an hour ride. It's only around full moons from about April to Jyly when the Cubera spawn, Popular so prebook if you go

Plus it's a starting point for a lot of the jungle tours, Mayan ruins, cave tubing etc

My friends stayed there a dove with Splash Divers all week, They did 2 WS trips (costs extra) and saw 8 plus snorkelers on the boat saw a few more. Splash also can book your lodgings, they bundle it with diving at several price points, Their sister company books the jungle tours,

One of my friends is basically cheap so he found a cheap apt. in town - clean/a/c around $40. There's also nicer beachfront resorts a little north of town. Splash will pick you up at the airport and drop you at your resort then pick you up daily for diving.

They even used to offer a 2 day trip to the Blue Hole, the first night is at one of the Atoll resorts

Most rides to the outer reef from there are about an hour, Splash told us that limits them to 3 dives/day.

I have no personal experience with the Blue Hole but others have posted you have to go deep to get below the rim plus the sharks are often near the bottom which I believe is around 300'

I don't think it;s worth the time or effort. You can dive Blue Holes off Nasau or Andros and they're shallower and 20 minutes away, One on Andros you can drive to. Ive dove two in the Outer Islands, In both cases the dive around the hole was better than the hole itself,