Our Hot Card arrived today! We’re set for savings and maximizing our adventure return. We’ve identified several different places where we can get everything from 15% discounts to free cocktails.

I’m planning to capitalize on the 15% discount for cash exchanges as Ecologic Divers in particular. Lizzy and I have them booked for a Sunday snorkel and manatee encounter on Sunday. I’ll be diving with them on Monday and Tuesday. Those three bookings combined should total well over the $50 cost of the card. We’ll follow that up with a visit to a few of the area restaurants and bars for discounts and complementary wine and cocktail options each evening.

Being that this is within 2 weeks from leaving for Belize, we have our transportation plans finally set in stone for our transportation to and from Ambergris Caye and to and from San Ignacio. What a relief!

Courtney called up RentalCarGroup.com and requested a Suzuki Jimni for our three day rental- Wednesday around noon until early Saturday morning of our trip. The Suzuki Jimni was no longer available and apparently they claimed that all cars that were within budget there were already reserved as well as with the other car rental companies in the area. Maybe we should not have procrastinated so much on booking the car rental?

We did make a reservation with RentalCarGroup and had to weigh in the pros and cons of doing so with them. The cons, a tad bit more expensive than the other car rental places we had looked at but the pros involved this company having two locations- at the Marine Terminal where the water taxi arrives/drops off and also at the Goldson International airport. The ease of taking a water taxi from Ambergris Caye and grabbing the car right there will be much better and worth the money of the headache of taking/paying a taxi to take us back up to the International airport to pick-up a car rental. All in all- we got the car rental for $195. And we are able to drop it off at the airport when we leave Belize nixing a taxi cab ride from the trip.

We have also decided to take a flight right from the International Airport when we arrive in Belize straight to the Ambergris Caye. While taking flights from the municipal airport is way cheaper, you also still have the headache of getting your bags, grabbing a taxi and traveling to the municipal airport and then waiting for the flight you booked there. Also, if you book with Mayan Islands Air and pay
with cash, you tend to get a 20-25% cash discount. A one way trip is $63 and add in the discount and you pay $53.55 each. If flying from the Municipal airport with Maya Airlines it would have cost $35 but with the discount at $26.25 per person but add on the cab fare of $25 and the time you waste doing it. We can fly out of The Philip Goldson International airport for an additional $15ish dollars each and save about an hour or more of down time and nix that taxi ride.

As for the water taxi, we found an express water taxi (San Pedro Express Water Taxi) that will take about an hour to San Pedro from the Marine Terminal near the Swing Bridge in Belize City. The price is the same as the other water taxi we were considering. We have decided that will be our method of leaving Ambergris Caye.

Our planning and research that we have done prior to today has left us little to worry about nearing 2 weeks until lift-off. Which is exactly how I wanted it to be. Worry and stress free from the moment we arrive in Belize to the moment we step foot off the plane back in Boston, MA.

• The few things left we need to plan:Transportation: After writing to Table Rock Jungle Lodge, “How far is the Closest bus stop from Table Rock Jungle Lodge (and which one is it?). What are available methods to get from the Bus to Table Rock? Taxi, etc?” They replied with, “The bus from Belize City brings you directly into San Ignacio (about a four hour ride for around seven dollars US). We are located five miles from San Ignacio and offer a transfer for up to four people for $35 US. From San Ignacio bus stop, you can pick up a taxi to Table Rock for about $20 to $25 US. The taxi service is located at the bus stop.” A FOUR hour ride to Table Rock? It takes an hour and a half via car. And then a $20-$25 taxi ride? That right there is $68 between Courtney and I from Table Rock Jungle Lodge to Belize city. That does not even include getting to/from Xunantunich and the ATM tour. And four hours each way in the bus? That’s an added 5 hours of unnecessary travel. You can’t put a price on the time that you have to enjoy Belize, and not doing so on a hot crowded bus. With that said: Buses are ruled out officially now.

• The problem with the car rental is that you can’t take certain cheap cars off paved roads. Courtney and I are asking around and may consider a Suzuki at Belize Car Rental. It’s not much more money than the Galant we wanted to get at Crystal Auto Rental, however, Belize Car Rental only has one location, and that is at the international airport. This means that when we fly in from Ambergris Caye into the Municipal airport we will need to backtrack to the International Airport to get the car, however, we can drop it off at the International airport the day we are leaving back to the states and won’t need to take a cab then, so that is nice.Travel Insurance. We have looked into our health coverage and both Courtney and I are covered outside of the United States. We won’t need that option on the insurance. Also, there is an option for the car rental insurance. We’re pretty sure Courtney’s does not carry over outside of the United States and I also am not old enough to rent a car (25 years old is the typical age) so we need to add that on. Most car rental places allow you to add on insurance at the time of rental, or you can opt to get it through your travel insurance company. We need to investigate which option is cheaper/best quality. Apparently, car accidents are the number one cause of death in Belize. Most people on the roads drive erratically and no one abides to the speed signs as police do not enforce it.

• Catamaran. See Courtney’s Post.

• We were charged a fee for everything we booked in Belize (around $20 per hotel booking) due to the change in currencies. We got charged this fee by the credit card companies, not by the actual hotels. To avoid that fee on the ATM tour we will be reserving a spot and calling the day before to book the tour for good. We will be paying for cash at the time of tour rather than reserving by credit card and paying an additional fee. We need to remember to call MayaWalk tours on September 17th. We can remember that.

• Courtney’s diving trips.

And then we should be all set!

I got some really great advice about the self-guided tour to Xunantunich. Thanks to Trip Advisor Forums!

I asked “Can anyone recommend how to get to Xunantunich? We’re trying to do a self guided tour (adventure people, adventure!) and want to know if it’s possible to do it without a tour guide and how to get there. Also, we’re renting a vehicle and they don’t want it on anything but paved roads. Whats the closest paved point road that we could park before starting the trek toward Xunantunich?”

-“A guide will know the history and be able to answer your questions and tell you about stuff.” Katzgar

-“You take the Western Highway all the way out past San Ignacio to San Jose Succotz, then cross it on a hand cranked ferry (no charge), and can drive it right up to the Xunantunich Ruins parking lot. No need to leave pavement for this trip. From there, you pay your entrance fee and can totally do the ruins on your own, although hiring a guide at the site can be very affordable and worth the knowledge that they can share. Hope this helps!” Belize Jungle Girl

-“We did the ruins without a guide and really wished we had one! You have to hire a guide BEFORE the hand cranked ferry. We thought we could hire a guide up at the ruins but that was not the case at all and we felt like we missed out on all the history of the ruins!” sindy1232

-“You won’t have to leave the pavement at all… I must ask why would a rental company here in Belize ask that it not leave the pavement??? You should rent from somewhere else, that way you could see Mountain Pine Ridge. Better yet, rent from Cayo and save a lot of money since they are cheaper here. You don’t need a tour guide at Xuanantunich. If you hit a bigger ruin, like Tikal, I’d recommend it though.” DrFeelAwesome (Belize Travel Expert)

-“Your right, you don’t NEED a tour guide but we thought it would of been more informative if we had hired one. But then again, we made the mistake of walking up the hill instead of driving, lol. Don’t miss the visitors center because you will get a lot of information about the ruins there. With a rental car, if you can’t go off paved roads you will sure miss a lot of the wonderful country side in Belize. If you wanted, you could not even go to ATM because the road is more gravel, dirt and pot holes then pavement. I would check with Crystal Rental Cars for a rental or someone in SI if it were me. Just my humble opinion. BTW, we did fine without a tour guide but if I were to do it again I would hire one.” sindy1231

-“The buses are not at all terrible. If you like adventure, and seeing a place as it really is, then they are a good cheap option. Most people in Belize do not have a car, so even quite well off people regularly travel by bus. I have a vehicle, but occasionally travel by bus myself.”

-“If you are restricted to just paved roads, then you will miss out on a lot of places. Essentially, there are four paved roads in Belize – the Western, Northern, Southern and Hummingbird Highways. The bigger towns have paved roads – mainly. You would not even be able to go to parts of Belize City if you stuck to the rules. Nor Placencia, Monkey River, most if not all of the ruins – no, that isn’t going to work!” BelizeQueen

-“We took the bus around Belize but not from the airport to SI and we loved the bus. If you have a lot of luggage then you might want to get a transfer driver. If you want the names of the two we used then just let me know. Maybe see if someone else on a message board is arriving at the same time and wants to share a transport, just an idea as they are about $90 USD one way. I was going to get a rental car but at the last minute decided not to and we were fine with tours, transfers and buses.” Sindy 1232

I think we will still go with the avoiding-the-tour-guide idea. It is a possibility to take the bus from Belize City to San Ignacio and try arranging transportation from the bus stop to Table Rock Jungle Lodge.

We can gage whether we want to pay the money for a car rental that will be allowed off the pavements by to packing up our suitcases as a trial run to see what we are dealing with weight wise. I cannot imagine trekking across Belize with three huge suitcases would be a good experience.

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