Beaches and Dreams

This is the most magical place! We spent 5 days in Belize, and every element of our stay was carefully curated, and we were extremely well cared for! The rooms are spacious, clean and bright with amazing views of the Gulf Coast. I cannot say enough about the staff, especially Justin, who was so kind to our son and attended to our every question, and Darnell, who dried our clothes after we were caught in a downpour to King, Ms. P, Armando, Amanda, Doreen, Donna, Kelsie (and anyone I forgot!) in Barracuda - your food and service is 5-star. Plus, the excursions were the best I've had in recent memory! We climbed a Mayan temple, tubed and swam in caves, had an amazing morning snorkeling with SO MANY FISH (thanks K'Mike, Antony & Floyd), and had the pleasure of chasing dolphins, manatees and howler monkeys with Monkey River guide Jeremy. And to Victor and Keith - thanks for getting us where we needed to be and sharing your knowledge about your beautiful country. Our gratitude goes to everyone on Ryan and Jessica's team who made our vacation one full of amazing memories!

I don’t truly know where to begin. The week we spent at Beaches & Dreams was perfect from start to finish. We were a family of 5 (2 teens & 10 y/o) and stayed in the treehouse which was so special and unique. The staff took such great care of us and treated us like family. Knew all our names. The food was incredible, every meal delicious- my kids LOVED flapjacks. The best part was having a family meal 3x/day!! And the tours were outstanding! We snorkeled, fished, cave tubed, Mayan ruins, & zip lines. Rented a golf cart to town for local music. We celebrated our 20th anniversary with a vow renewal that was the most special ceremony ever. Everyone made that night so special for us and we will never forget it. If you are looking for a super chill resort this is the place to be! Just enough things to do to keep you & kids occupied with a safe resort where you can just relax from the real world. Thanks to Dona, Armando, King, Ben & Darnell for making our trip the trip of a lifetime! I hope one day we will make our way back to you!!

I selected this resort because it offered both jungle and sea excursions while many other hotels suggested we move to a sister resort half way through our trip in order to get the best of both worlds. We think we got the best of both worlds as the resort is right on the sea and backs up the jungle as well. The other incentive was that we could go all inclusive (or choose not to). We went all inclusive. They did an outstanding job meeting our excursion needs and providing us with a warm and welcoming place to stay with great food and drinks. I want to shout out to Victor who was our best guide and we were fortunate to have him a couple of times. He was outstanding, he kept us safe and also keep us smiling/laughing along the way. Our favorite server was Doreen - so attentive, sweet, and endearing and provided excellent service and felt like a friend. The best bartender, Ben, was a delight with a big smile and always ready to make your drinks just as you ask! The three of them were real standouts! We did guided river kayaking, Monkey river and the rainforest (plenty of monkeys), barrier reef snorkel and the cave tubing. They were all great.

Rooms were not cleaned well, or consistently during our stay. One day bed is made, next its made, but different then the other bed in room etc. Food is the best part of the resort. The daily specials were always so so good. Great excursions.

My husband and I recently honeymooned at Beaches and Dreams. It was a wonderful time overall! The staff was phenomenal and very friendly. Kelsy, Ken, Ben, Victor and a male front desk worker (I forgot his name 😭) were such great hosts! The food was DELICIOUS! I was so surprised by the food. Highly recommend the specials. All the workers were great for the most part. They really all went above and beyond. However, there are a few things I want to touch on! This resort is NOT truly all inclusive. Once we got there they described how everything worked and there were multiple drinks not included along with scallops and lobster, unless it was included in that days dinner special. You could get them but it would be an upcharge. It was a little frustrating hearing that considering how much we paid for ALL inclusive. The excursions were great! They were very well planned and Victor did a great job every time, but there were some instances where we felt rushed. I understand there is a timeline typically to follow but I really wanted to enjoy the excursion and it's hard to follow a timeline with multiple people. For our snorkeling adventure they didn't do a good job at all on teaching us how to snorkel. I was lucky enough to book through happy go lucky (highly recommend booking through them instead) and they taught me everything I needed to know, so I was prepared for it but others were not and I spent some time trying to teach them things myself. The guide didn't really show us much either. He seemed too interested in fishing for lobster, which was disappointing. Also, my husband was very sick from drinking too much the night before (100% his fault), so he missed that excursion, but we still had 5 days left of our trip and there was no willingness to reschedule our snorkeling trip which was disappointing. We just ended up losing the money on it when they definitely could've rescheduled us with another of the 3 snorkeling excursions we saw go out while we were still there. The seaweed was typically raked up off the beach every morning. Near the end of our stay they stopped doing that so our room started to smell like the seaweed and it was not pleasant at all. Overall, again we had a great time and I'd love to come back! Only a few complaints but definitely worth it!

Excellent:|* The staff: All staff were friendly and committed to making your stay enjoyable. The wait staff, for whom we had the bulk of our interactions with, obviously were trained in getting to know you and your preferences and seemed committed to doing whatever they could to make your experience enjoyable. |* The tours: All tours were arranged by the resort and very conveniently left from the resort. I appreciated the "what to bring" lists. Very helpful! Whether led by a member of the resort or an employee at the attraction, every single guide was fantastic, and all were a fountain of knowledge about Belize. I could barely find Belize on a map before I left for this trip, but I now feel like I know SO much about this beautiful part of the world - it's history, culture, people, government, agriculture, landscape, animals, etc. And most interesting were the real world stories from the guides about what their lives are like, where they live, how they live, and what they hear about the US. You come home with a unique perspective that you would never have if you went to a big resort and never left the grounds.|* The food: I am not a "foodie", so I am surprised to be writing that it was my greatest joy at the resort. So good. I could not wait to eat dinner. Also, my children are vegetarian and I was pleased to find there was a vegetarian menu upon request for which they were more than happy with (and for which I was tempted to try as well). They were also fairly accommodating with special requests. If for example the pasta special was made with shrimp, and you wanted chicken instead or even no meat but extra veggies, they would almost always be able to make that change (within reasons).||Good: |* The rooms. While our room was nice, clean, had a great view and contained everything we needed, it could benefit from a little TLC (basically just in the bathroom). I found the bathroom a bit worn and in need of a general refresh. The room did not have a television, not necessarily a bad thing (just an FYI).||Poor:|* The flies at the restaurant. It made a number of our dinners very challenging. It did not happen every night. If it was breezy there were no bugs at all. But we had a few nights where as soon as dinner was served, the flies immediately attacked our food and could not be deterred from it. We also had a night or two where "sand flies" attacked our legs. The wait staff offered repellant which helped a little. In the end, we "survived" and looked upon it as more of just a nuisance, not a deal breaker.|* Fans. I believe our dining experience would have been dramatically enhanced by ceiling fans for which there were none. The staff set up electric portable fans, but there were not enough to go around. So if your table did not have a fan, you received minimal benefit from the fans at other tables. |* The beach. While the resort beach is small, it was well kept and raked every morning. I do recall seeing some of the seaweed others have reported at water's edge. But the poor part, which I realize is not the resort's fault, is that the beach beyond the resort is not easily walkable. And the amount of plastics washed up on the beach was just unbelievable/sad. Again, not the resort's fault, just a sad observation of how much we humans are trashing the planet.||Conclusion: If you want to travel outside the resort and see Belize, Beaches and Dreams is perfectly fine to establish as your home base (which our family did). I strongly suggest taking advantage of as many tours as you can. It is not the kind of place where your family is going to simply find all its fun AT the resort for the entire week. Inside the resort, you'll have the choice of the beach, kayaks, paddle boards, a super small pool, volleyball net, and cornhole. Great for filling in downtime, not for planning your whole vacation around. And honestly it was too hot and humid much of the time to really want to be out in the sun playing volleyball (for example) during the day. For reference we were there in August which is obviously the peak of summer so it may be cooler in the winter. Lastly, based upon what I read and my experiences in and around Hopkins (took daily jogs and also ventured out on a golf cart with my family), Hopkins is a safe place for which I would not anticipate having any issues.

Fantastic trip!! The staff and everyone we came in contact with were absolutely fantastic. We were in Belize to celebrate my son's 21st birthday, and they made the experience something we both will always remember.

The rooms were very nice and the food was absolutely amazing...we never had a bad bite of food everything was so fresh. The restaurant was right on the beach. The ocean breeze and crashing water were amazing. Our service was impeccable. Save 1 guide who was not helpful and too busy on his personal cellphone or stopping to talk with locals while with guests. The gentleman in the office who booked our vacation was unhelpful and had no interest in greeting us, checking in on us even after miscommunication from the resort, causing 3 lost days by being stuck in the U.S. We had an excellent vacation despite those 2 because everything and everyone else was amazing!