I wasn’t sure what to expect from my day in Belize City. In preparing for the trip, I read some information proclaiming the area to be one of the most beautiful in the world and some which suggested it was a crime-filled slum. My husband and I wanted to make the most of our day there. We did a four hour bus tour of the city, a museum stop at Old Belize complete with a musical performance, shopped in the tourism village, and enjoyed a yummy meal. Our overall conclusion is that Belize City is a wonderful, developing area rich with many distinct cultural influences.

General Information for Cruisers
If you are traveling into Belize City via a cruise ship (which most visitors are), the ship will need to anchor about a ten minute ride from shore. You will then board a small boat and be whisked directly to the Tourism Village on Fort Street. If you purchase food or merchandise during your visit, know that prices may be in Belize dollars. When we visited the exchange rate was about $2 U.S. = $1 Belize dollar.

I will offer the suggestion of taking an organized tour of some type. The city is large, and I think it would be tough to get around without arranging transportation ahead.

About Belize
I don’t pretend to be an expert on Belize, but the following is some of the information I learned on my tour. The country of Belize has been independent for only twenty-five years. Our tour guide stressed that the country is still developing, and he felt like things were going pretty well for such a young country. Tourism is relatively new in Belize. Cruise ships have been coming to Belize City for just five years. This has been a welcome boost to the Belizean economy, as already about one in five adults is employed in the tourism industry. Other than tourism, the main industries are agriculture and forestry. Belize is particularly famous for its mahogany products, although our guide stressed that conservation measures are becoming more important.

Belize City has had some bad luck in history. Fires and hurricanes have taken their toll on the city at several different points.

Seeing the City
To be fair, the bus tour was only supposed to be three hours. However, as our wonderful tour guide informed us over and over again, it was our driver Poncho’s first day doing the city tour. This meant we saw the entire city and some parts more than once. Despite a trip the wrong way down a one way street and three circles in the round-a-bout, the tour was exciting and very informative. I learned lots of great things about Belize City and the people who live there.

The best part of our tour was seeing the people of Belize City go about their daily lives. We drove through the city between 8:00 a.m. and noon. This meant we were able to see the children of the city going to school in the morning and from school for lunch. Education is a big deal in Belize, and all the children are required to go to school in attractive color-coded uniforms. The city itself has some areas with larger houses, and some areas which are very poor. This is not a city with a lot of tall buildings, and many of the homes and businesses are very small. There are large hurricane shelters situated at intervals around the city. The poverty-stricken areas made me very sad, but at the same time I was glad to get a view of all of Belize City and not just sanitized tourist areas. I especially enjoyed the diversity of Belize. Our tour guide and bus driver were both of Mayan descent. There are also large groups of people of African, Spanish, Garifuna, Creole, and even Amish heritage as well as a smattering of people from other groups.

There are a few major landmarks that were particularly interesting. St John's Cathedral is a must see. It is the oldest building in Belize and one of the oldest churches in Central America. The Swing Bridge is manually operated and has been operating since the 1920’s. Boats can only pass when the workers manually swing the bridge around to clear the river. We also saw the old and run down Yarborough Cemetery in addition to the newer cemetery. Interestingly, graves in Belize can’t be dug very deep because of the water, so they are raised several inches above ground level. This results in a very different-looking cemetery than those in the U.S. The Fishmarket was interesting. There are lots of fish being sorted and dozens of dozens of pelicans looking on eagerly from nearby roofs.

The Belize City Government House is an attractive white colonial-style building dating from the early 1800s. We also saw a few of the Foreign Embassies. They are quite small and look like houses, and there was a ‘for sale’ sign in front of the former Mexican embassy. I thought that was kind of funny. Finally, we spent an hour or so at the Old Belize Cultural and Historical Center. This is a nice and relatively new museum offering guided tours by Belizean citizens. It’s a great way to get an overview of the area’s history very quickly.

Tourism Village
This area is worth looking at, but know that it was designed totally for cruise ship tourists who just want to say “I went to Belize!” and pick up a postcard. In other words, this is the Epcot Center version of Belize. It is also the departure point for most of the cruise ship shore excursions.

There are three terminals at the tourism village. They are brightly colored on the outside and offer some cute courtyards with palm trees and live music. The terminals themselves are air-conditioned and offer very clean and plentiful restrooms, much to my relief. This area is full of stores and food stands. You will find much of the same merchandise from store to store. The stores offer t-shirts, wood products, alcohol, guidebooks, sculptures, and jewelry. If you want something to take home with you I strongly recommend one of the beautiful wooden products made of up to seven different types of wood. We especially liked the bowls and striped cutting boards. We ate a meal at one of the restaurants in the tourism village and it was clean, yummy, and very cheap, about $5.00 per person.

If you must go online, you can use the Internet café in the village. There are no chain stores or restaurants of any kind in Belize City, so don’t go looking for Starbucks.

Other Things to Do
In addition to seeing the city itself, there are a lot of things to do in Belize. You can hit up one of the area’s beaches for snorkeling or scuba diving. If you’re just looking for a place to chill out, we thought Cucumber Beach looked like a nice place and it had a cute restaurant. My family went to some type of “Private Island” just for cruise ships and loved it. There is a large nearby Golf Course if that is your cup of tea.

There are a couple of Mayan Sites to explore nearby. These include the trade center of Altun Ha and the ceremonial site of Xunantunich. Two things I would have loved to check out are animal related. There is the Belize Zoo and also the Baboon Sanctuary. One of the most popular activities on our ship was the Cave Tubing and Rainforest Exploration excursion. One caveat, however…a gentleman I spoke to said the journey was a very long hike carrying tubes and the group didn’t see a single animal or bird.

Overall…
I loved visiting Belize City. The country has a very unique culture and everyone I encountered was extremely proud of the city and eager to show it off. Everyone in my family commented about how welcome we felt in Belize City as compared to some other places we’ve traveled. Even when we were on the bus tour, people were constantly waving at us through the windows!

If you are a tourist just hoping to eat and shop at upscale boutiques, however, you will bored quickly because the tourism village is small. I predict Belize City will continue to develop and probably offer even more to do and see on my next visit, which I hope is soon.

*Planning a trip to Belize? Check out my review of the Old Belize Historical and Cultural Center.

Recommended: Yes

Best Suited For: Couples