Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye Trip Report

[tvictory]

I went to Caye Caulker 30 years ago, in 1978. We stayed at what I think was then the only "hotel" on the island, operated by a man named Tony Vega, who would also take you diving or snorkeling on the reef. As I recall, there weren't any real "restaurants", but there were several ladies in the town that served dinners boarding-house style in their homes if you made a reservation. At night there was nothing to do except read a book or go to a little cantina where you could get a bottle of rum for about a dollar, but you had to order the coca cola a la carte. It was very dark at night and you could see the glow of San Pedro from over the horizon to the north.

 

[BelikinMan]

I am still in love with Caye Caulker. The blue hole trip is amazing because of the day long experience. The Half Moon Caye dive is, by far, the best single dive I have ever done.

Sipping Belikins at the split at night while you fish...pure enjoyment..

 

[squarepants]

Do you have to fly into Belize City, and then take a puddle jumper to Caye Caulker, and/or Ambergris Caye?

 

[peterbj7]

Not sure what you're asking. You can fly to Caye Caulker or to San Pedro from Belize City, or you can do the trips by water taxi. You can also fly directly to San Pedro from Corozal, just inside the border with Mexico. The latter is useful if you fly to Cancun and bus down (tickets are usually way cheaper than flying into Belize).

Is that what you were asking?

 

[squarepants]

I'm sorry.
I am planning a trip in October from Washington State to Belize for a week and then we'll go to Cozumel for a week. We've never been to Belize, but I really like what I'm reading of Caulker Caye. I'm trying to figure out how to get to Caulker Caye from whichever hub in the US we route through.
I thought that I'd have to fly into Belize City to get to Caulker Caye or even to get San Pedro. Maybe Corozal is the best place to fly into from the US hub - ?

We'll probably use frequent flyer miles, hopefully, so we won't take the bus. If it turns out that we don't have enough miles for the trip then we'll probably take the bus.

 

[peterbj7]

You aren't allowing for local transport options, and I think when you understand them you'll simplify your trip.

You can't fly internationally into Corozal - it's a small local strip. Your options are BZE (Belize City International) or CUN (Cancun). Nor can you fly between anywhere in Belize and CUN or Cozumel.

If you want to fly back from Cozumel it'll probably make sense fare-wise to fly into there as well. In which case on the outward journey you'll need to get the ferry over to Playa del Carmen, get to the more northerly of the two bus stations, and catch an ADO express bus to Chetumal (on the Mexico side of the Belizean border). You'll probably need to get the ticket ahead of time somehow.

From Chetumal get an also pre-arranged taxi transfer to Corozal airstrip, and fly from there to San Pedro. Then you'll need either to fly (same day if you land in SP by around 4pm) to Caye Caulker or catch a ferry (you'll need to land in SP by about 3pm) - no flight from Corozal to Caye Caulker.

Return will be the reverse. Each way will take you over a day, I think, so you'll have accommodation issues. You have no option but to bus between Playa and Belize - there are no air services (though that could change, as there used to be)

You may find a good forum to raise and review your options is the local message board, Ambergris Caye & Belize Message Board - Powered by UBB.threads™. You'll find me there as "pedro2".

 

[Em_Dee]

San Pedro has changed since my last visit in 2005 and there are more cars, more golf carts and more new construction. The streets are now mostly paved throughout downtown and the bridge has replaced the hand drawn ferry at the “cut”. This inevitable “progress” has certainly caused concern among residents and regular visitors and the island has probably lost some of its charm

We were there in 2003 and return this past November, what a difference! We were expecting the roads to still be paved in bottle caps and were surprised. It has more shops now, you can pretty much get anything you need. Although we like the progress SP has attained, we felt that it is sufficient. There is still plenty of charm left and we hope they don't change too much more.

Thanks for the great report!

 

[rossandmaureen]

Squarepants...A combined Caye Caulker/Cozumel trip is certainly possible and Peter has laid out your transportation options quite well. Another possibility would be a rental car from Playa Del Carmen into Belize City but that would end up being far more expensive than the bus option and the rental car would be sitting in Belize City (not necessarily safely either) while you dove in Caye Caulker. As he said you would be eating up a day, each way, in extra travel time over and above the travel time from Sea-Tac south. While it would be an adventure, I would simply resign myself to treating these destinations as two separate holidays and pick one (flip a coin as they are both excellent choices).

If you go with Belize I think an excellent way to approach this holiday would be to split your time between Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye to get the flavor of each island and town as they are quite different. Fly into Belize City, change planes and fly into either of the two Cayes and then, when ready to do the other Caye, take a water taxi. The water taxi is the least expensive option between Cayes but, unless you have a group larger than two people, is not a big savings from Belize International since you need to take a $25.00 taxi to the water taxi terminal. It also adds quite a bit more travel time which can be better spent under water or under an palapa with a cold Belikin. When done your second Caye then fly back to Belize International. Peter is an excellent choice as a dive op for Ambergris Caye. As small as Belize is in terms of population, it is still too large to do much more than this on one holiday....unless you are going for an extended period of time. There is also outstanding diving on the southern and central atolls but I personally feel that these are best done from a live aboard.

For Mexico consider splitting a holiday between Cozumel and the Playa areas. This would be an opportunity to do world class drift dives in Coz and then some great reef and cenote diving in the Playa area. There a great dive operators in Cozumel and while the one I use is Living Underwater there are several others who get great reviews on this board. For the Playa area I dive with Diablo Divers/Aquanauts but, again, there are others who receive high praise on ScubaBoard.

If you do decide to do a combined Belize/Cozumel trip then take Peter's advice and go to the ambergriscaye.com message board that he has given you the link for and search the threads. I have seen some very detailed "how to" instructions on the best ways to get from the Mayan Riviera into Belize. It will be an adventure but it is possible. Either way you will be treated to some great diving and nice places to visit. You can do so on a budget if you start looking at accommodation options this far out as there are some good, clean and inexpensive places to stay in each location.

 

[Adriaan557]

Thanks for the report Ross! We're planning to go to Caye Caulker next year and this info will really come in handy!

 

[rossandmaureen]

Just an update on Ambergris Caye dive operators. Sadly Peter/Pro-Tech has closed down (although he is still instructing and quite involved with technical diving) so I would suggest that people looking for dive op recommendations check recent reviews on this board. There are several that, although I haven't dove with them, do get high marks here.