About six months ago, I saw an amazing deal on a resort in Belize. It took me all of about ten seconds to jump on the deal and secure two rooms during February break. Only after booking the trip did I learn that the resort was in a rather remote part of Belize, requiring another short flight from Belize City. No matter. I proceeded in planning the trip. Try as I might, I could not find reasonably priced airfare for a direct flight to Belize City. In fact, the flights with connecting flights were not exactly reasonable either. But they were cheaper, so we booked those and waited for the day of the trip to arrive.
Our first layover was overnight in Miami. We thought that would be fine: we could just stay in a hotel room in Miami until our flight at noon the next day. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Miami, the airline wanted to send our luggage on to Belize (though we of course would still need it for that night). After doing battle (politely) with the airline, we received our bags, only to realize that we had just missed the shuttle to the hotel. At around 11:00 that night, we finally arrived at the hotel, where we learned that they had given our room to someone else (though we had already paid of course). They gave us a room that did not have enough beds for everyone, so Tony had to sleep on the floor. No matter - the next day we were bound for paradise!
The flight to Belize City went smoothly. The line to go through customs and immigration however did not go so smoothly. The line was five people wide and wound through a seemingly endless corridor and ended at a handful of Belizeans who were in no particular rush to deal with all of these foreigners. The kids did not handle it so well. One of them wanted to lay down on the floor while we waited in line (which I am assuming is frowned upon in Belize). Others wanted to drape themselves on us and kick and irritate their siblings. After a painful hour, we made it through customs and immigration (though I had my doubts whether they would let us through after all of that commotion in the line). And of course, because of the line, we missed our flight to Plascencia. Thankfully, those flights run every thirty minutes, so they booked us on the next available flight out - which meant another hour wait or so. Finally, we made it to the little plane.
Once landed, we boarded another shuttle to our resort in Plascencia. Finally, over 24 hours after leaving our house, we arrived at our home for the next few days! All we really had time for on that day was a short trip to the pool and (a rather pricey) dinner.
We had requested that our rooms be adjacent to each other, but, unfortunately, they were in separate buildings. The girls had one room (equipped with a full kitchen and a jacuzzi tub!), while the boys had a more basic room. Tony again opted for the floor.
The next day we relaxed by the beach and pool and soaked up the Belize sun.
Unfortunately, the Belize sun was a little too powerful for our unaccustomed skin, and the sunscreen we acquired at the airport was apparently ineffective. We all ended up with a terrible sun burn. That made for an interesting next day learning about how chocolate is harvested and made and hiking through a jaguar preserve. We persevered and had a great time. We did not see a jaguar, but we did see some tarantulas and other wildlife and a lovely waterfall. For dinner we took a trip to the village of Plascencia for another delicious (and expensive) meal and gelato.
The next day we took a long van ride to Mayan ruins on the other side of the country. If I had known how scared our kids would be in climbing to the top of the ruins, we may have chosen a different excursion. There was much crying and hand-holding, but we all made it safely back to solid ground. I think I noticed that the views from the top were astounding, but we were moving so quickly to get down that I am not quite certain.
We went from the top of the world to the depths of the earth when we went cave tubing on the way back to our resort. The coolest part was the steamy crack in the jungle rocks where we descended into the cave where the river was.
We had one more sunrise before our late morning flight to Belize City.
The flight back to Dallas was unremarkable...and yet somehow we barely made our connecting flight back home (thanks mostly to customs and immigration again, and the long security line). We raced to board the sky train and came running to the gate just as the last stragglers were boarding, but we made it. We once again waited for the shuttle to parking once back at our airport. We finally pulled into our driveway at about midnight, after having navigated three airports with three kids in one day. Whew. It was exhausting. The kids learned a thing or two about airports and air travel. We may not want to do that again for some time.
And the great "deal" that we snagged on the resort? Sure, it was a great value for a nice place, but, all told, when we added up all the airfare, the food, the excursions, this was easily the most expensive trip we have ever taken (including more expensive than Disney World!). Would we do it all again? For the memories, sure...(I think.)
