Xanadu has been there maybe three years. Nice place, new pool, nice little beach area. Here's what we say about it in San Pedro Cool, the only travel guide to Ambergris Caye:
[Three Stars Plus] HHH + Xanadu Island Resort, Coconut Drive, San Pedro; tel. 501-226-2814, fax 226-3409; e-mail
[email protected];
www.xanaduresort-belize.com. Xanadu is billed as the "world's first monolithic dome resort," a description which might sound good to an engineer but doesn't exactly get our poetic juices flowing. Happily, these monolithic domes look nicer than they sound. Owner Ivan Sheinbaum showed us a new unit that was under construction. The building process is costly, but the result is a masonry dome with foam insulation that, according to Ivan, a Canadian originally from South Africa, is fireproof and can withstand winds of up to 300 mph. The domes are covered with thatch palapa roofs, and inside the 10 condo suites, most of which have a queen bed and full bath on the main floor and a second bath and queen bed in an upstairs loft, are attractively furnished in earth tone colors, with central air-conditioning, fans, phones and cable TV. You get the use of bikes, canoes and kayaks gratis, and the hotel even covers taxi fare from the airstrip. There's a nice little stretch of beach, a 350-foot pier and a new freshwater swimming pool. Rates US$165 double in-season and US$125 mid-May to mid-November, plus 7% hotel tax but no service charge. Bottom-line: Something different on the beach.
--Lan Sluder
Belize books and publications by Lan Sluder:
Belize First Magazine (
http://www.belizefirst.com)
Fodor's Belize & Guatemala Guide (new 4th edition coming this summer)
Adapter Kit: Belize (the first and only comprehensive guide to living, retiring, working and investing in Belize -- a best-seller on Amazon.com)
San Pedro Cool (the first and only visitor guide to Ambergris Caye)
Belize First Guide to Mainland Belize
UpClose Central America
Belize Book of Lists