AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Heads up about bogus vacation and trip reviews

Just saw on the Today Show something I always suspected! Resorts and restaurants report bogus reviews themselves, or using agents (that they pay); to inflate their own ratings, and run down their competitors. After, yesterday's troll event (planning Ambergris vacation), and sorry pendennis (who got caught in it) please Board users, be careful. The good thing is, regular Board members WILL give you the straight info. Beware of non-reputable Bloggers and Trip Advisor type sites. That makes this site, although opinionated a good thing. We locals try to provide good info, so visitors and prospective expats can enjoy their experience!

Thank you very much for your post. I am brand new to this site. I am planning a surprise vacation for my husband in June at Ambergris Caye. I am so excited. But i just read a post a while ago and saw a lot of negative Not anything negative about Ambergris Caye but a lot of negative and really ugly comments between some of the people posting comments. I was a little upset because i wasnt expecting to see bashing. After you put this up i feel a little better. Thank you again

I especially like the hotels that list themselves as a bed and breakfast, even though they don't serve breakfast and are not a real bed and breakfast. Guess they figured they would have a better shot at a higher rating than if they actually signed themselves up as a "hotel".

Also, to follow up, it doesn't mean that blogs and trip advisor type sites aren't telling the truth! I travel a lot, and as designated restaurant finder, use lots of sites to make choices about places that will waste my time and money. The advice given on the Today Show story, suggested you weed out the over the top good reviews and the very negative reviews, and go with the middle ones. With regard to negativity on the Board, we are protective here about our little paradise; and there is a feisty banter, one needs to know about!

Louisiana, I'm feeling confident that you will love your vacation. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. The regular posters welcome those, and enjoy sharing as best we can. We'll do our best to answer them, whether we are "locals" or not. While some of the posters here are "locals", many of them are repeat visitors to Belize, or have vacation homes there, and should be able to offer, not only good info, but also the perspective of the tourist.

I posted this on the "Travel" part but being it has a lot to do and is relative to a future trip review I hope it's ok to put in here as well...And sorry if it's not but we're needing advice and would like to purchase now for May vacation..Thanx a million !!!



Hi folks, we've been trying to decide for like 6 months exactly how we want to do our 1st ( and possibly only due to $$$ ) trip to Belize and would love input....We KNOW we are going to stay on AC for 5 or 6 days and probably at Xanadu due to much advice and agent's reference, but then we're torn about going to Placencia ( Miramar prob ) for 3 days or staying on AC and using the saved money for more snorkeling and Caye Caulker excursions...Right now we're looking at around $3500 for the flights and hotels including taxes but know excursions and chow will add another $1000 or so and we're just trying to do the best we can with what we got......Thanx for listening to my rambling and just need input and advice as to what we should ultimately do...Thanks a million and sorry so long....Marty in Texas

If it were me I would pass on Placencia after doing AC. I would head inland and see the "real" Belize. Look into Cayo or the Orange Walk District or possibly even Punta Gorda. AC and Placencia are similar in many ways and heading inland will make your trip much more of an adventure with much more variety.

Sure....make it that much more difficult for us will ya..... But truly appreciate the advice/input and will do some checking that route.....Thanx so much !!!

Or, you could stay on AC and take a day trip to Lamanai? Day trip on a Cattamaran, fishing and snorkeling to Caye Caulker, also?

Tourist/Travelers are usually smart enough to figure out who is real and who is not, I think they recognize honesty. All of us have grown up in a world that throws false advertising at us daily and weed it out to get to what we want.
The internet makes it a little more difficult, Dumpy Hotels I wouldn't lay down in depicted with glamorous photography and rave reviews, one even has a fake dive shop on its pier. Looks great in the photos but in the end its just a loss of credibility for the deception.