Turneffe Flats Resort Review (long)

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I finally got around to finishing up my review of Turneffe Flats. I hope you find the information informative and interesting:

Brief overview of History of Turneffe Flats Resort:
Two South Dakotans visited a fishing village named Cay Caulker in the late 1970’s. After several return trips, they decided to start their own fishing camp. They transferred the governmental lease of a fishing camp leased by Angel “Juni” Martin in return for shares of stock. During the next two years, two small guest cabins were built, and bathroom facilities were moved indoors. They also added a small generator for limited power supplies, and a cold-water shower. They had their first official guests in 1985. A third guest cabin was added in 1988, and the two original cabins were remodeled. Diesel power was added. Two larger air-conditioned cabins eventually replaced the original cabins.

The Flats was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, destroying the dock and much of the beach. Shortly after the rebuild, they were again struck by bad fortune in the form of Hurricane Keith (2000). Keith had effectively removed about 120 palm trees, and caused damage to most of the existing buildings. In 2002 and 2003 the dock was rebuilt after being damaged by Hurricane Iris. In these same years, a gray water recycling system was built. Turneffe became a founding member of “1% For the Planet” in 2003, which is an organization dedicated to conservation efforts. The Flats was primarily a fishing resort, but in an effort to broaden appeal, scuba diving was added in 2006.

We stayed at Turneffe Flats for a week at the end of September 2010. I have been diving for 4 years, and am certified as an MSD, advanced EANx and Decompression with approximately 200 dives. My wife has been diving for 10 years, and is AOW certified with 97 dives under her belt. We’ve traveled to Jamaica, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Aruba, Roatan, and local mine/quarry diving. Both of us work within medical field, and make around 5 diving trips per year. We prefer to stay at small all-inclusive resorts.

Getting there:

We caught an early morning flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta with Delta, and from Atlanta directly to Belize City. Representatives from Turneffe Flats met us at the airport and took us to the Princess Hotel, where the Calypso restaurant resides. We had drinks and ate a late lunch at the waterfront restaurant while waiting the 3+ hours for the boat to depart to the resort. This delay is typical, due to late-arriving guests, and to give time for the resort staff to gather supplies for the week.

It is a 90 minute boat ride from Belize City to the resort. Your flight must arrive in Belize City no later than 1530 hrs to be able to catch the boat. If you are late, and the boat has left, you will need to arrange accommodations in Belize City, as well as (at your own expense) a guide boat to take you to the resort. I am unsure of what this expenditure would be. The point is to make sure you plan flights accordingly. Should you have an unfortunate turn of events, Turneffe can and will help with these arrangements.

Arrival:

Our arrival was typical of many all-inclusive resorts. Baggage is taken by the tremendously friendly staff directly to your room, and the guests meet in the main lodge for welcome drinks. A brief overview of the resort given at this time, and plans for dinner are discussed. More or less, it’s an opportunity to relax and meet other vacationers and staff.

Main Lodge:
The air-conditioned main lodge reflects Turneffe Flat’s rich fishing history with photos scattered about on the walls and table tops. All social events including meals happen here. It has a large dining area with a bar, stereo with iPod dock, books (including fish I.D.), games, a lounging area, and a gift shop. You will also find a screened-in porch atop a large open-air veranda overlooking the ocean. When not attended by staff, the bar works on the honor system. They stock everything from soda/pop, local Belizean beers, bottled water, wine, Cohiba cigars, and top-shelf liquors. Mixed drinks are about $7 US; pop is $1.50 US, a bottle wine of is $35US.

The small gift shop utilizes the honor system as well, and has items such as; shirts, hats, minor toiletries/medicines, fishing lures, BLACK CORAL JEWELRY (which really ticked the divers off) and other locally made crafts, maps, a few select diving supplies, etc. On a side note, everyone rolled their eyes when we were told that the Black Coral was harvested from dead pieces, which had floated to the surface. Free internet service via one computer and WiFi is available at the main lodge, but bandwidth is very limited. On a few days the resort had used up its daily allocation and the service shut down early. It is unable to handle services such as Skype, IM, YouTube, video downloads, etc.


Rooms:
The Flats has 8 spacious, surgically clean guest rooms (duplex-style) located on a small beachfront (great view of the ocean), plus two large three-bedroom villas, which have a common area and bathrooms for each bedroom. There are no cooking facilities available in any of the guest quarters. Smoking is not allowed in any building on the property. All of the rooms have recently been remodeled and updated with beautiful tile, Moen faucets and Kohler double vanities/toilets.

None of the rooms are numbered, which resulted in several instances of almost entering a neighbors habitat by mistake. The duplex style rooms have thin walls, and you will sometimes be able to hear conversations of your neighbors, especially when in the bathroom. There are no room safes, but you may utilize the main lodge safe for securing items. In addition, there are no locks on the doors. I was assured that they have had no issues with theft. Outlets are standard 110v. A coffee machine is in each room, but there are no hairdryers, TV, or stereo. I found that, even if within the closest cabana to the lodge, WiFi does not extend to the rooms.

We stayed in beach-side cabanas #1 and #8, but more on that later. Landscaping around the cabanas and beach area is somewhat sparse. The AC in both rooms worked exceptionally well, but with the sliding doors open, the ocean breeze was delightful. In an effort to conserve electricity, power to the AC is only available between 1430 and 0800 hrs.

Each room has two queen beds with mattresses the consistency of granite. The bed linens and towels seem new. The Flats utilize desalinated water, filtered rain water, and AC condensation collection for drinking, showering, and toilet use. Gray water is also used for plant irrigation. Water pressure was never an issue, but due to the on-demand water heaters, everyone had problems with water temperature fluctuations while showering. Bugs in the rooms were not a problem, but a “Vape” burning device may be used should your room be invaded. I should mention that the mosquitoes arrive in force at night. The ever constant wind helped to keep them at bay, but these must be ninja mosquitoes. They are of a smaller variety than the tyrannosaurus Rex-sized bugs we have in Minnesota, which means that many bites go unnoticed until the following day. Each duplex has a delightful, open-air common veranda with an ocean view. It was a great place to relax before dinner.

 

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Food:
Each of the three daily meals is served in the main lodge at a communal table (unless doing a surface interval on the boat over the lunch hour). Some people might object to the idea of eating with a bunch of “strangers”. However, we found it rather enjoyable sharing diving stories and getting to know others. At week’s end, I can truly say that we now have new friends, whom we will more than likely vacation with in the future.


Unfortunately, our hope of eating Belizean cuisine was swiftly dashed after our first meal. Breakfast consisted of typical American fare including eggs, omelets, toast (bead was homemade), bacon or sausage, and fruit. Huevos rancheros, French toast stuffed with cream cheese, and vegetable quiche were other features.


Fortunately (if you are a “glass half-full” kind of person), we had sack lunches on the boat each day for lunch. The fortunate part would be that we were eating on the boat, and didn’t need to come back to The Flats for surface intervals.


The unfortunate part is, given the cost to stay at this resort, the sack lunches were not executed very well. I expected more than what we received. It is up to the discretion of the DM to as whether or not you eat on the boat, or travel back to the lodge for lunch.


Daily sack lunch offerings were a choice of ham & cheese; tuna, chicken or egg salad sandwich (or wrap), or a chef salad. I had the chicken salad wrap every day, and every single one contained bones. Aside from that, it was tasty. If you have a substantial appetite, I would suggest asking for two sandwiches, or three if ordering the wraps. Others indicated that their food choices were good.


Cassava chips, a starchy root (aka tapioca or yucca, similar to the potato), were available. However, I would caution those divers prone to gastric reflux, as these little delights are all but guaranteed to give you trouble. Additionally, fresh fruit was available every day, along with the previous nights’ dessert.
Limeade and water were provided free of charge, but if asked for in advance, soda and/or beer (for after the last dive) were brought along.

The best part of dinner was the nightly hors d’oeuvres served at the social hour (dinner was at 7 pm, appetizers started at 6:15) before dinner. We had buffalo wings one night, mushroom crostini, nachos, empanadas, pita and artichoke dip, to name a few.

Evening meals were served in three courses with a salad or soup to start, entrée, and desert to finish. On the flavor front, the pretentiously named entrée’s did not live up to their name. I’m not saying that the food was bad, but just average. There were few food combinations which left us wanting seconds. In light of this, I can attest to the fact that no one left the table hungry. If informed at the time of making your resort reservation, Turneffe can accommodate special dietary needs.


At the conclusion of dinner most people checked email, chatted around the bar, or headed back to their room to retire for the evening. Overall, we rated the food a 6 out of 10. Again, we were truly dismayed over the lack of Belizean je ne sais quois.

 

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Scuba:
Turneffe Flats is a PADI Dive center, which will provide dive training at an additional cost. Don’t forget to bring your certification cards as they are required, and they are kept at the main lodge until you leave. Due to the remoteness of the Flats, DAN insurance is highly recommended. There is a mandatory $1/tank charge, which is a direct “donation” for the hyperbaric chamber.


Turneffe recommends that you bring your own diving gear since they have a very limited number of BC’s and regulators for rent. Wet suits are NOT available. If you plan on doing the once-weekly night dive, you must bring your own light. They do provide disposable cyalume tank markers, and they require you to use them even if you bring your own.


My wife and I were wearing full 3mm suits, which kept us comfortably warm all week long. If you are a freeze-baby, and have a beanie or hood, you might consider bringing it. Dive computers are suggested, and everyone we dove with had at least one. If you have two computers, bring and use both of them. Nothing could be worse than sitting out a day of diving due to a computer glitch.



The gift shop has an extremely (and I lay emphasis on “extremely”) limited supply of diving items for sale. In essence, you should probably bring everything you think you might possibly need.



If you want EANx, you will need to inform them at the time of making your resort reservation. I’m not quite sure why this is required, because Turneffe banks their nitrox, and only allows a limited number of divers at the resort per week. Nitrox costs $10 per tank.



Speaking of air fills; they have a surgically-clean fill station with what appears to be a new compressor. In fact, the station looks better than any of the local LDS setups around here. The only mix available is 32%.


The first day of diving began with a debriefing at the dive center, at which time they covered a rather lengthy list of rules and procedures (literally ad nauseum). The DM and boat captain were extremely safety conscious. The rules applied to everyone equally. This was evidenced by the boat captain reprimanding the DM for the minor infraction of placing his hand over the side of the boat while in motion. All of the people within our group of five were experienced divers, one being an instructor/military diver, and I recently certified in tech.


There is no diving on the day of arrival and on the day of departure. There are three daily boat dives, and no shore diving. Going into deco is absolutely prohibited. Should you make this mistake, you will be sitting out of diving for the next 24 hours. Snorkeling off of the dock is permitted. There are some scattered, small coral heads about 10 meters from the dock. Make sure you ask someone about the location, as finding them on your own can be rather time consuming. Divers meet at the dock at 0800hrs, and return from diving around 1530hrs.


Turneffe’s large boat is a Pro 48, which was an absolute pleasure to dive from. It is well maintained, has a large rinse tank for cameras, GPS navigation, and all of the required safety equipment. They only use this boat when there are 6 or more divers; otherwise they utilize a 9 meter (29’) custom diving boat.


Our first dive was from the 9 meter boat. Due to the boat’s configuration, all of the divers felt that it was far too small. Water entry is back-roll. The boat is completely inadequate if you have a camera setup any larger than a point-and-shoot. Even then, a small strobe on an arm may be too large. Like the larger boat, all of the necessary safety equipment is aboard.


Fortunately for us, we only had to dive from this boat for one day. One of the divers received an outdated brochure from the reservations office, which stated that if there were 5 or more divers, the Pro 48 would be used. As luck would have it, he brought the brochure with him to the island, and promptly presented it to the management. After a few phone calls from the resort manager, they decided to honor the outdated information.

Turneffe ballyhoos about their “Valet Service Diving”, but I would caution everyone about thoroughly checking out their own gear before, during, and after diving if utilizing this service. They prefer that you do not touch your gear from the time you arrive, to departing the resort. Personally, I hate others touching my gear, and this belief was reinforced during my vacation for a couple of reasons:
1.
) The crew put one diver’s regulator on a tank upside down, which was blatantly obvious to anyone not standing on their head. In my mind, before the very first dive they should have had the diver show them exactly how they would like their gear arranged.
2.
) They indicate that they will thoroughly clean all of your gear at the end of each day. At the beginning of the second day of diving I did a “taste test” of my equipment. All of it tasted heavily of salt. From that point forward my wife, one other diver and I insisted on caring for our own gear. This was met by heavy opposition from the crew.
3.
) When we were setting up and caring for our own gear, we found numerous instances of bad tank o-rings. The crew was reluctant to change them, so we started using rings from a personal supply to fix them. It wasn’t until the third or fourth day of doing this that the crew (probably due to strong feelings of guilt) started proactively replacing o-rings when small leaks were discovered. All tanks were “born” in 2006. None of them had VIP stickers.

 

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Day one diving **We killed several Lionfish on every single dive**


Our first dive was a check-out dive, and we were not allowed to use EANx (max depth was 18 meters). The notion of not using nitrox for our first dive perplexed me. I attempted to engage the DM in conversation regarding this, but the best answer I could attain was “Because it’s company policy”. There was no skill demonstration required during this dive.


From my dive log:


Creekozine North: Max depth of 18 meters with an average of 11.5. This site has a lot of small coral heads. Decent site to dive.

Creekozine South: Max depth of 20 meters with an average of 12. Whitespotted Toadfish. Decent dive.

Amberhead: Max depth of 17 meters with an average of 11. I shot my first Lionfish; saw a huge Ray, Whitespotted Eel. Decent dive.

Day two diving:


The Terrace: Max depth of 32.5 meters with an average of 15. This is a wall dive into flats. The flats are absolutely spectacular, and all of the divers declared this as being their favorite dive. We suggest skipping the wall.
This dive has abundant, and extremely healthy/diverse coral and fans. Tons of juvenile fish. Arrow Blenny, Slender Filefish.

Elkin’s Bay: Max depth of 25 meters with an average of 12. Decorator Crab. Scrawled Cowfish. Just an OK dive.

Barrels and tunnels: Max depth of 17 meters with an average of 11. Several large cracks and swim throughs. Diamond Blenny, turtle, Yellowspot Moray. Decent dive site.

Day three diving:

The Blue Hole: Max depth of 39 meters with an average of 16. Despite seeing between 6 and 8 Caribbean Reef Sharks and the stalagmites, this dive is rather boring. To be fair, I’ve dove The Blue Hole before. More or less, this dive is one in which you do to simply say that you’ve “done” it. There is a $40/pp park fee to dive here. This fee also gives you access to the Booby Sanctuary, where you will do your surface interval and eat lunch.

Half-moon Caye Wall: Max depth of 21 meters with an average of 13. Swim-throughs. Southern Stingray, turtle, Pistol Shrimp, Caribbean Reef Shark, Slender Filefish, Moray Eel, and lots of Hogfish. Good dive.

The Aquarium: Max depth of 17 meters with an average of 9. School of Chubs feeding, Cowfish, Slender Filefish.

Day four diving:

Front Porch: Max depth of 22 meters with an average of 13. Uneventful dive. Site itself was pretty boring and absent of color. A strong current “silted” things out.

Devil’s Deep: Max depth of 19 meters with an average of 13. Moderate current. Two Pipefish. Whitespotted Toadfish. Just an OK dive site.

North Bogue: **This was a night dive** Max depth of 3 meters with an average of 2.5. This dive was obviously shallow. Lettuce Sea Slugs, lobster, Nimblespray Crabs, octopus, urchins, Southern Ray, Hermit Crabs, and Conch. Despite all of the critters listed above, this was not a great dive. In all honesty, the site is just like the coral heads off of the dock. Earlier in the week the DM had indicated that the night dive duration would be limited to 30 minutes. After relentless hounding all week long, we convinced him to stretch it out to 82 minutes.

Day five diving:


Chasbo’s Corner: Max depth of 22 meters with an average of 13. Two turtles, Pipefish, two Spotted Drums, Soapfish, tons of soft coral. Strong current. Excellent dive site.

Elkin’s Bay North: Max depth of 21 meters with an average of 12. Yellowspotted Moray, Potato Cod(?), turtle, Spiny Head Blenny, Coralymph. Great site with a lot of soft coral.

Mandy’s Dandy into The Terrace: Max depth of 12 meters with an average of 10. I was attacked by a Remora, which harassed us for about 10 minutes LOL. Diamond Blenny, Whitespotted Toadfish, turtle, Green Moray. Great site with lots of soft coral.


Day six diving:


Sayonara: Max depth of 19 meters with an average of 13. Large cavern-like swim-throughs. Viz was a little poor due to wind and current. Whitespotted Eel, several large Ocean Triggerfish.

Triple Anchor: Max depth of 20 meters with an average of 12. Spotted Drum, Goldentail Eel.
On average, I surfaced with 1258 psi in my tank, with one dive showing 1700 psi (which makes it relatively expensive diving EANx). The average dive time was 57 minutes. Water temperature was a consistent 29 Celsius.


The night dive site was close to the resort. This site was chosen because they didn’t want to travel to better locations (farther away) for fear of hitting “floating logs” in the dark. I found this to be interesting, given the fact that Turneffe Island Resort (TIR) does travel for night dives.


Speaking of TIR, last year I spent a week there. In comparison to Turneffe Flats, I can definitively say that, in overall terms, TIR was better. Additionally, at around 5 minutes by boat, the dive sites are much more close to TIR than Turneffe Flats.

 

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Miscellaneous information:


One afternoon we attended to a staff member, who had been bitten on the hand by a Barracuda. Apparently, one of the resort owners is a physician, who had decided to stock the resort with (outdated) items not normally found at such a remote resort (suture supplies and the like). Despite this, I would recommend bringing your own medical supplies for things such as bug bites, minor cuts, and Montezuma’s revenge.


Dress is extremely casual at the resort. Just to give you an idea, I only brought 5 t-shirts, 2 pairs of swim trunks, and shorts. Laundry service is available, but I thought it was a little expensive.


As indicated earlier, this resort was founded upon fishing; in particular, “Grand Slam” fly-fishing. I do not fish, so forgive me if I misspeak. The premise of this challenge is to catch a Tarpon, Bonefish, and Permit before you leave the resort. Apparently, this is not easy.

The resort has a few excursion packages, which include eco tours to Chaa Creek in the Belizean rain forest, combination fully guided fly-fishing and diving, and eco tours mixed with diving. Kayaks are available for tooling around the mangroves.


Now, on to the story about changing rooms, which I had alluded to earlier. Unfortunately for all of the guests staying during our week, there were two (in their 20’s) fishermen, who insisted upon consuming copious amounts of alcoholic beverages from sunup to sundown. We conservatively estimated that they each quaffed around 25 beers, a bottle of wine, and multiple shots (per person) each day. In fact, they drank so much that the management had to send someone back to the mainland to purchase more alcohol.


On our first night we were assigned to stay in cabana #1, which shared walls with these two fellows. For whatever reason, and to the dismay of all other guests, they decided to bring a booming stereo, which was turned on promptly at 0500hrs. I had conversations with these individuals about it, but despite turning the music down, the drunken antics continued. So, we were forced to ask the management to move us to another cabana. Within minutes, and to the credit of management, we were moved to the cabana farthest away from them.


One day we were walking back from the dock and noticed that the guys were fishing the flats in front of the cabanas. In a drunken stupor, one of the guys unsuccessfully tried to “moon” some of the guests. Upon pulling his pants back up, he managed to fall butt-first overboard. What a classy demonstration. I’m sure he has done his parents proud.


The icing on the cake occurred at dinner one night. The guys were sitting at opposite ends of the communal dining table, and started fighting about who could cast a fishing line better. Within minutes the argument escalated to spit-producing swearing. One of the guests picked up his plate of food and retired to his cabana. It was at this point that management finally stepped in to have words with the two individuals.


Normally one might ask “So what does this have to do with the resort?” We feel that the management was, more or less, directly at fault for allowing/encouraging them, on numerous occasions, to drink to excess. By the end of the first day, other guests had voiced their complaints to management. Yet, our voices went unheard until that fight at the dinner table. We feel the management should have recognized a problem early on, and at the expense of losing profits, either curtail or completely cut these individuals off.



Management’s lack of quick action clearly demonstrated poor decision making, which was at the cost of other guest’s enjoyment.


The night before your departure, bar/gift shop tabs, EANx, and tips are settled. At the time of this writing, the exchange rate was 2:1 US. US funds are accepted in Belize and at the resort. If you elect to use your credit card at the resort, a 3% charge is levied (on top of any exchange rate charges mandated by your credit card company). The resort recommends the following tips:

Fishing guides: $10-$25 US per angler per day for shared boat, and $20-$50 per angler per day for private boat.

Dive staff: $10-$20 US per diver per day (this covers all staff).

Atoll adventures: $10-$20 US per guest per day.

Lodge staff: $70-$100 US per guest per week.


They can help arrange tours in Belize.


On your departure date, you leave the island at 0800hrs for the 90 minute ride back to Belize City. They can accommodate any flight at 1130 hrs or later. There is a $40 per person departure tax, which is payable by cash or credit at the airport if it hasn’t been included in your flight ticket.


Turneffe Flats is currently building a green-house type of structure to cultivate vegetables.

 

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In conclusion:



If you are looking for limelight, excitement, crowds, and nightly entertainment, this is not the resort for you. It is a delightfully peaceful, private peninsula devoid of all things previously mentioned.



I’m writing this review, which may sound harsh, but I’ve tried to balance the good with the bad, and give an honest appraisal of this resort. The bad things we want to hear about, as these are things that might sway us away from a resort. Remember, when it’s all said and done this is not an inexpensive trip, therefore we had a certain level of expectation when we booked our reservation.



To be fair, I should state that Turneffe Flats was, in the back of our minds, being compared and contrasted to Turneffe Island Resort.



Would we return? Well, like diving the Blue Hole…..it’s something to do so you can say that you’ve done it.


You can read more about Turneffe Flats at their web site:
Belize Flats Fishing, Belize Scuba Diving and Belize Eco Tour resort, Belize permit fishing, saltwater fly fishing, Belize snorkeling, Belize's Blue Hole, bonefishing Belize, permit fishing, tarpon fishing, saltwater flyfishing, scuba diving Belize -


I recently purchased a Watershot housing for my Canon SXi SLR camera. Aside from a single quarry dive, Belize was the true maiden voyage for this setup. Unfortunately, the combination of not having strobes and my lack of skill is clearly demonstrated by the photos I took. Nonetheless, I’ve posted more trip photos on Picasa for your viewing:
Picasa Web Albums - Ben - Belize 2010

 

[Gaz]

Very detailed and excellent report Craracer good job

Gaz Cooper

 

[deeper thoughts]

This report is 5*, thnx

 

[TremayneJohnson]

Really good report. I guess your middle name is 'thorough' !!!

Much appreciated )

TJ

 

[Downing]

That was one ridiculously great trip report!

Having stayed at TIR twice now, I've always been curious about TF and how it would stack up. In some ways, you've confirmed my suspicions as it seemed to me that TIR is just a notch better, from the accomodations to the food and most importantly to the overall diving experience.

Still, even if you're in no hurry to return it sounds like you had a good vacation.