St. George's Caye Resort, St George's Caye

If you like to go scuba diving, this is a very nice vacation choice. We stayed in the little cabanas that overlook the water. They are charming little thatched roof buildings built at the edge of the water on the leeward side of the island. They appear to be made almost exclusively out of mahogony, coated with traditional marine varnish. They are simple, basic accomodations, but have everything you'd need: bathroom with shower, ceiling fan, mini-fridge, king size bed and a little verandah with two chairs and a table outside. You eat all your meals family style at a big long table with the other guests, so you get to know everybody pretty well by the end of the week. The food is simple but hearty and tasty. They had lots of fresh fruit, freshly caught fish along with the many varieties of chicken which are a staple of cuisine in Belize. They have freshly baked bread at every meal. We felt as though they fed us quite well the whole time we were there. While there are jet skis and hobie cats and kayaks, the main reason to go here is for the scuba diving. There is a LOT of great diving on the reefs just a 20-30 minute boat ride from the lodge. This location close by such spectacular reefs allows the lodge to create a very relaxed daily schedule. 6:00 AM - A tray containing orange juice and an insulated carafe of hot coffee is placed on the verandah of your cabana, so that when you wake up, there is hot coffee and orange juice waiting for you. 8:00 AM - Full breakfast at the lodge 9:30 AM - Boat leaves for morning dive. c. Noon - Boat returns from morning dive. 1:00 PM - Lunch 2:30 PM - Boat leaves for afternoon dive. 5:00 PM - Boat returns from afternoon dive. 6:15 - 7PM - Cocktail hour at the lodge bar. 7:00 PM - Dinner 9:00 PM - Bed time. There is no television on the island, and because you're diving twice a day you get a fair bit of exercise so going to bed early, getting lots of sleep and still getting up early is no problem. The staff is really wonderful. The service is efficient and friendly and they take very good care of you. All the dives are guided, the dive masters know what they are doing and do a very nice job pointing out interesting marine life and unusual little things you likely wouldn't notice yourself. We came back from our week there relaxed and refreshed. We'd probably go back again in the future. The few downsides to this place are modest, but worth pointing out: (1) There is an air-conditioner, but it is a bit undersized for the size of the cabana and it struggles to keep up during the hottest parts of the day. We didn't see this as a huge problem since we were there during the high season (winter), and all we wanted out of the A/C was to take the edge off. However, the weakness of the A/C means this is probably a bad choice for an off-season (summer) vacation because the A/C really wouldn't cut it in a heat wave. (2) Like many places in the Caribbean, there are no window screens anywhere. So either you have to shut up the cabana tight at night and run the A/C all night or wear bug spray at night to protect yourself from the no-see-ums and mosquitos that will otherwise invade the cabana after dark. They do give you mosquito coils to burn in the room, but that is only a partial solution. It would be great if they had at least a few windows with fine mesh screens that you could leave open at night without being attacked by bugs. In practice, this didn't bother us much as we adopted the A/C strategy after leaving the windows open until dusk.