Customer Feedback

Holidays to Belize arranged by Condor Journeys and Adventures

Instead of displaying only one-sentenced-flattering and useless comments, we decided to publish the whole message of out customers as they wrote it. This page provides you with valuable information about our holidays into Belize as well as about our organisation skills and the feedback is written by people who experienced it during the past years. Our customers being international, comments are published in the native language of the writer.

Elke from the US, Tailormade arrangements all over Guatemala and Belize 06/2004
Now, to our trip! Our vacation was really terrific, and not at least for the fact, that this time we had a couple days of simply doing nothing.
Then Belize - Pooks Hill. I know you wrote that the place was perfect, in fact we took your long email about your trip along, so that we could take advantage of your experiences. Well, to show you that everything I am writing is absolutely honest and from my heart, I will be honest about Pooks Hill, too. We found the cabins a bit primitive, the owners weren' t there, only that nice Belgium couple (shame on me, I forgot their names!). There was not much to do, or to see, there were many nasty biting insects, but the cooking was probably the main reason why I came home overweight. All the meals were included, which is actually way too much for me, but the food was so absolutely delicious, that I could not reject it. I had to eat every last bite! The Belgium lady explained to us how hard it was to go shopping in Belize. There is not much available on the markets, you have to buy what' s being offered. You cannot plan the meals, you have to cook what' s there. That' s pretty hard when you have to feed ten or twenty people in a lodge!
John and the kids went swimming in the little pond that was close, I passed. The trip to the Mountain Pine Ridge wasn' t a good idea, since it' s gone! We drove around all day to see miles and miles of bare tree trunks. All the pines had died in the previous years, caused by a beetle infestation. It must have been overwhelmingly beautiful while the trees were still standing, but without them, the trip was quite a disappointment! At least we explored one of the huge caves, so it wasn' t a complete loss of that day. All of the people we met at the lodge were educated, intelligent guys, some of them with a history that truly impressed me and led me to be grateful that I had the chance to meet these people. That was another highlight at Pooks Hill - our fellow tourists.
Belize is incredibly poor with outrageous prices. One liter of gasoline is one dollar, exactly twice of what we pay here! Food – true insanity! We went shopping on Ambergris Caye, sodas, bread, peanut butter, jelly, and Single cheese, for us five for four days, and we had to pay (are you sitting down?) - $175!!! (!!!) Moreover, we couldn' t even find nice bread, or cold cuts, or a good cheese. The people live in cardboard shacks, it is unbelievable. Trust me, we' ve already seen a lot, but this was total poverty! My children' s eyes were big and round like saucers as we drove through the countryside in Belize. They got all quiet and sat and stared.
Chan Chich – the next highlight. Unfortunately Mike had an illness the whole time we stayed there, but I was equipped with antibiotics, and the day we left he was already feeling much better. The lodges in Chan Chich are a dream and very comfortable (it felt good after the primitive ones in Pooks Hill!) There are only about a dozen lodges, and we were almost the only ones there, in fact, the day we left, the whole staff left, too, since for the next five days they didn' t have any guests. They have a lounge and a friendly bar keeper, however again we only took the breakfast and the dinner, because the prices were very steep. Another problem was, that for lunch you had to take the full course, appetizer, entrée, and dessert. We don' t need to have such a meal twice a day! If they would have offered just a soup or something like that for lunch, we would have gladly had that, but no, it was either everything or nothing. Too bad!
Chan Chich is built in the middle of old Maya ruins, which are not yet excavated. There are so called “looters' trenches”, trenches that had been dug out by illegal looters. We tried to explore one of them, but dropped this idea, since as soon as we entered the dark, spooky trench, we were invaded by a flock of huge bats… We felt a bit like Indiana Jones! The kids were screaming with happiness and delight as they ran out of the trench as fast as their feet could carry them! Every year in June, July, and August, the archaeologists come back to keep digging. Too bad that we were a bit too early, it would have been so interesting to be able to talk to these guys! Honest, Danielle, and I hope you will forgive me, but if I had known how fantastic Chan Chich was, we would have skipped Pooks Hill, so we could have stayed there a bit longer! Oh yes, we found an autographed picture of Jimmy Carter in the lobby, looks like we were following some ex US presidents around!
After Chan Chich we flew to the Caribbean, another relaxing stay like at Lake Atitlan, four days of doing nothing. Ambergris Caye – did you know that this is the “Isla Bonita” from the old Madonna song? When we flew from Pooks Hill to Chan Chich we had our own charter airplane, and from Chan Chich to San Pedro as well. We felt a bit like the old Greek king Croesus, it was rad! There we are, flying all over the place in our very own airplane (or better: very own, very small, airplane! Each one had only eight seats, pilot and co-pilot, 6 passengers, which was us five.)
The huts on the beach couldn' t have been more romantic. However, they were ultra-primitive, and when we found out that each was $120 a night (incl. a very minimal breakfast) we were a bit shocked. Salamander is at the brink of bankruptcy, and we found out that if it hadn' t been to us and an American film team that stayed there for underwater filming of the coral reef they would have had to close down. That was a spooky thought! Again, there were a lot of nasty biting insects, but thanks to our experience, we had brought along our deet lotion!
We spent the days snorkeling at the coral reef, which is in front of your nose, we took advantage of the catamaran, which we could use without extra cost, and we goofed off. Danielle, it was a dream, the snorkeling, I mean. I can see why you are interested in diving! I can' t describe how beautiful it was, I felt as if I was snorkeling in one of the Sea World tropical fish tanks! Nemo live! Octopi, sharks, doctor fish, giant star fish, I have never seen anything like this in reality! Unfortunately in the meantime Chrissy had caught whatever got Mike and so she had to stay on shore and play with Rocky, the adorable baby mutt of the cook. The water' s temperature was much to my liking – 90 degrees, just like our pool at home. You walk in, no screaming and disgusted turning back because it' s too cold, no, it was perfect! However, it was also quite strenuous, because you can only climb on the catamaran by pulling yourself up. We usually went to sleep at seven at night, since it was pitch black dark, there was nothing else to do, and we were tired from snorkeling all day.
From the Isla Bonita we were again the only ones on the airplane back to Belize City, from where we returned to Guatemala City via El Salvador. The latter was Marvin' s 100th flight, and we naturally celebrated that. Unfortunately he was not allowed to visit the pilot in the cockpit, like Mike and Chris when they had there 100th. Since September 11 this is not possible any more, too bad! However, the pilot congratulated him via micro, and Marvin was quite embarrassed. The next morning, which was Sunday, we returned to Orlando. The rest you know, two more stressy weeks of school and now, for 11 ½ weeks, until August 25, we have vacation. Yeah!
Well, I told you this would be a long one, and now you may understand why it took me so long to sit down, take my time and write it. However, this is not a good excuse, and I apologize. I can imagine that you must have wondered why I did not write yet!
I am looking forward to hearing from you,
Best regards,

Ruth - US, Ambergris Caye & diving.... May 2003
Hi Danielle,
To let you know we had a fantastic time in Belize, everything run really smoothly - met at the airport by a rep and then flew to ambergris caye and taxid to the resort very smoothly. The resort - tropica was really nice - the rooms are quite simple - but they have air con and are pretty spaciuos, the pool was gorgeous and the food in the restaurant was great. I would definately recommend tropica to other people. The diving was really good - we went through an operation called aqua divers who were professional and effecient. All in all me and Ben had a fantastic time and thank you for your help organising it. I will definitely recommend you to people in the future.
Thanks