As many of you will know from my epic review on Belize published last week, I recently spent 2 weeks in Belize City. The hotel we stayed in was called 'The Chateau Caribbean' I promised a longer, fuller review on this venue so here goes.
How did I find out about the Chateau? ****************************************** When we decided on Belize as our honeymoon destination I took a quick look through my existing guide book, which was the Rough Guides 2003 Belize guide. I always prefer to look for independent or boutiquehotels, so I quickly discounted the various Hiltons, Marriott's etc.
An entry which caught my eye was on 'The Chateau Caribbean'. This was described as a colonial style establishment, right on the sea front, with 30 rooms. The guide said the hotel had actually featured in several films over the years, including 'Dogs of War'. The guide recommended it as being 'elegant' and 'evoking the atmosphere of another era'
It featured in the mid-range section, meaning that it wasn't budget, but it wasn't top end international hotel standards either. They define mid range by cost too. So it was listed as being around $100 US dollars a night.
Since neither of us are the sort of people that ever dreamed of a honeymoon lying around on the beach being spritzed with Evian periodically, we were happy to go with mid range. We planned to be out all day anyway.
However, that didn't mean I wanted to stay in a dive either.
Booking *************** Once I'd discussed this hotel with my partner, we decided to visit the hotel website. This can be found on http://www.chateaucaribbean.com/index.html The website confirmed the words of the guide, the picture on the home page did indeed show a very elegant, almost southern American style house, right on the sea front, flanked by palm trees. There aren't any pictures of the rooms, or other parts of the hotel, although these are described in glowing terms on the website. The hotel also described itself as having a renowned restaurant.
As something of a foodie this appealed to me and certainly had a baring on me booking there. We went into the online booking section on the Chateau website, and looked up the dates that we hoped to stay. We decided on what they called a double room, which was $89 a night for the flat room rate. Breakfast would be extra. After we sent our booking, an automatic email came back saying that they'd be in touch to confirm our booking shortly. Sure enough the next day we received said email, they didn't take a deposit for the booking so all was fine. And that was the last we thought about the hotel for a long time, this being February and the booking not until September
First Impressions ********************* Having driven through Belize City in our taxi from the airport, an experience I found unsettling due to the general run down nature of everything I saw, we arrived at our hotel.
Now I should tell you, that in the interim period, I'd seen the Lonely Planet Belize guide in the shops and bought one. When I eagerly looked up our hotel, I'd felt my heart sank as I read , that this was indeed a lovely looking building, but that on recent inspection everything in the hotel was in drastic need of a refurb. Great.
So with that in mind, our cab rounded the corner exposing a wonderful sea view, and then the hotel. From first glance it looked lovely. A large white wooden building, with wide glass windows, on three levels. A set of steps led up to the open door of the reception area. Lovely wide balconies surrounded the 1st floor, and there was a glass penthouse right at the top of the hotel. An employee came down the steps straight away as our cab arrived, and helped to take our bags out of the boot. We walked up the steps behind him and into the lobby. This was a wide dark wooden floored area, with ceiling fans whirling around, and the doors and windows open, allowing what breeze there was to pass through. As you entered the lobby there was a stair case immediately in front of you, a seating area to your left, and a large empty looking room to the right. The reception desk itself was to the left of the staircase and consisted of a white panelled desk behind which sat one person. I could see right away that even this area was a little shabby, with the white paint in need of a touch up. There was a computer terminal, and a couple of phones and that seemed to be it. The lady who greeted us was polite enough and smiled at us several times. There was no mention at this point that we were on honeymoon which we both thought a little strange as we'd made that clear on booking. We had to fill in some paper work, and then pay up front for the 10 night's accommodation, something which I felt was a little bit off, and I've never been required to do that before. So we paid, and then were given the key to our room, and the same employee that had helped us with our bags before did so again. As we climbed the stairs, which were very wide, I noticed the brown stair carpet was pretty unpleasant and looked sticky and worn out. The white walls of the stair area were again very much in need of painting and looked grubby. We entered a long corridor at the right of the staircase and were hit with the heat. Along the corridor led off several brown doored rooms, the employee led us to the first one along the floor. I must admit I was sort of dreading what I'd see. But actually it wasn't bad at all. As we walked into the room the first thing I noticed was again the fantastic sea views. The room was pretty large, and had a lovely old beam running through the middle of it in carved wood. There was a decent bathroom en suite, with a good shower, and it was clean and brightly lit. In the room itself was a large bed, bigger than ours at home so I'd say a Queen size. A built in wardrobe, again quite nice wooden door. Over by the window was a little table and 2 cane chairs, and then there was a dressing table and chair. The room also had a TV, which had cable channels. A telephone was next to the bed and had direct dialling available. The room had air conditioning and a large fan too.
The hotel had put a nice bunch of flowers in the room with a note wishing us a nice honeymoon, which we thought was a friendly touch. My sister also gets major brownie points for the bottle of champagne which she had arranged for the hotel to have waiting on ice for us. This was set
Pictures of Chateau Carribean
Entrance
out on the little table, with 2 glasses and a note from my sister wishing us a lovely honeymoon.Room Service ******************** As we were exhausted from the long journey to Belize we decided to order room service, we rang reception and were informed that they could provide sandwiches with fries up until 5pm. They ran through the options and we selected club sandwiches. When they brought the food, it came promptly and was very nice. It was also very inexpensive at something like $10 dollars which is around £2.50 for 2 club sandwiches, fries and 2 cokes.
During the course of the 10 days we were at the hotel we used room service another few times, but just for drinks. They normally came quite promptly, although on one occasion when we rang we were told that the bar was open and that we should go and get our own drinks there, which I thought, was a bit off.
Food at the hotel ******************** The dining room at the hotel is in my opinion soulless to the extreme. It's a large very airy room over looking the sea, with white walls, a few paintings, the same brown carpet as the stairs, and looks very tatty. The tables were always clean enough, with a small vase of flowers on each. The only meal we actually ate at the hotel was breakfast, as we couldn't bear the thought of having dinner there in the evening. The breakfast menu was fairly good. There was a wide choice of set breakfasts, and you could also create your own. The main choices were; American breakfast, which would feature ham, bacon or sausage, eggs however you wanted them, toast and preserves, and that sort of thing. Coffee and juice were also included. Then there was a continental option, so rolls, jam, and coffee. Then a Mayan option; tortilla filled with re-fried beans, lettuce, and chopped tomato, topped with poached egg. That was very nice actually. I tried their pancakes one morning, but didn't like them, they weren't like any pancakes I've ever had in the UK, but my OH assured me they are the American style ones. Fluffy not crispy. The waitresses that served us at breakfast were nice and friendly, very polite and the breakfast orders were normally processed quite quickly.
We did look in to the restaurant in the evening on our way out to dine elsewhere, and were surprised to see it was pretty full on several occasions, so perhaps it is popular with the locals. But for the life of me I cannot see why. The music played in the restaurant was also so dire that it made me want to kill myself. When on honeymoon the last tune one wants to hear at breakfast is D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Dolly Parton.
Staff *********** The staff were all local people, dressed mainly in a white blouse or shirt, and black skirt/trousers so all looked relatively smart. I found the service ranged from polite and friendly to pretty much not caring. The reception staff were pretty good on the whole and we received our wake up calls each day as requested, all messages were passed along, and taxis booked when asked for. There was one young Spanish looking girl working in the bar area who pretty much sneered at me on one occasion. So I'd give the hotel about 6 out of 10 overall for customer service.
Cockroach with your water madam? **************************************** I popped into the bar to buy some bottled water, as they don't recommend you drink the local water in Belize. We'd been buying it pretty much every day from the hotel on our return from days out. On this occasion they had run out, which I didn't think much of, so we had to do without as there weren't any local shops within walking distance of the hotel, or not within walking distance after dark anyway. I did notice as I turned to leave a large shiny black bug right on the bar about 2 inches away from the serving staffs nose…and I was so shocked that I just sort of looked in disgust and walked off. So that was nice then, sadly I didnt have my mobile or I'd have taken a picture for you all!
Other facilities at the hotel ******************************** The hotel website says there are conference facilities available, although I didn't see any. Things that they don't have are: A swimming pool, any sort of games room or entertainment, mini bars, any tourist information, much of an atmosphere.
Summary ******************** I have mixed feelings about the hotel. It could be a beautiful place and with a little TLC would quickly regain its former glory. But it had little atmosphere and didnt inspire me at all, and I was happiest when in our room out of the way.
Sadly if I'd only bought the more up to date guide before booking I would have discovered that there is a fantastic place to stay just around the corner called The Great House, which is also a colonial style building, but for another $20 or so American dollars a night you get access to a whole load of facilities, including shops, and an amazing restaurant - The Smoky Mermaid, which I plan to review separately.
However, if you are looking for somewhere inexpensive to stay, where all you want is to get your head down each night and use it as a base for day trips, then it's not too bad. Apart from the cockroach it was a fairly clean place, just very scruffy and run down.
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