Belize - where to stay and who to dive with

[sruddock]

Hello divers!

We are heading to Belize for a wedding and plan on going early to get in a few days of diving. I am considering Mayan Princess because they have a dive site on shop. Priorities are:
1. Good dive boats / DM's (we are lazy divers so like to done equipment on the boat and setop off the back!)
2. Lockers to store gear so we dont have to haul it anywhere (again..lazy LOL)
3. Comfy beds... (dont care if there is a kitchen or not)
4. Close to town as we will eat out every night

Also - Ya or Nay to the blue hole. We kinda feel like we should do it but i have heard it's nothing great so should we bother when we are only going to get in 3 days of diving?

Thx in advance!

 

[jjach]

My wife and I were down there in late April. We stayed at Paradise Villas, which was very nice. The rooms were a condo type with a kitchen and a separate bedroom. The bed was fine for us. The Villas are a 5 minute walk into town, which we really liked. We walked into town for all of our meals, no eating in. The refrigerator was great to have for water, pop, and of course beer. There is a small pool there which was nice to relax by after a morning of diving. While there we dove with Ecologic Divers. You will find alot of good things said about them on this forum. They do keep all of your gear, and have it all set for you. We came back to the dock for our surface interval, where they had fruit and water waiting for us. They are about a 2 or 3 minute walk down the beach from Paradise Villas. While there we did not do the Blue Hole, we decided to go to Turneffe instead. We thought those dives were the best of the trip. We are looking forward to going back someday. The people on AC are great.

 

[peterbj7]

The dive center by Mayan Princess is Amigos del Mar, the "Gold standard" in San pedro. Both dive centers will serve you well, as indeed will several others.

The Blue Hole is generally regarded as a "must do" that many people end up being a little disappointed by. If you have serious doubts, do it as otherwise you'll be wondering what it would have been like! The second and third dives on that day are world-class and outstanding open ocean wall dives that everyone enjoys anyway.

 

[Tressamb]

Assuming you are going to Abergris Caye, we dove with Amigos Del Mar. They were great. Our friends have done the blue hole, and have told us that it's basically one of those 'check the box' dives... nothing to see but a big deep hole and unless you get down there first to see what maybe sharks, you don't see anything really. Keep in mind, that it takes a whole day to get out there and dive it, and they typically pair that with one other dive...but you are spending the whole day on a boat. That's second hand advice however. :O