Sitting atop the city of San Ignacio in western Belize is this Resort Hotel. The regular rooms are competitively priced, but we opted for their Master Suite. Upon arrival we discovered this is a singular room, not a class of rooms. The Master Suite sits atop the hotel and offers breathtaking views of the river valley and jungle from either your king sized bed through huge floor to ceiling windows, or the spacious patio. When you enter the suite you are immediately impressed with its aesthetics. The space is beautifully decorated with high quality essentials, but very few distractions. Thankfully there were no trendy appliances or fixtures. By the end of our stay we took note of the design choices because we felt they would be wholly appropriate for anyone designing their dream home. And not just a home to show off, but one to live well in. In our 6 day stay there were about 12 hours without hot water, but they offered free meals to compensate. The city is a short walk one way, the local Mayan ruins a short walk the other. Belize being quite small there were unlimited activities nearby you could find through the concierge. The staff are so pleasant and easy-going you quickly feel comfortable asking them for advice on all matters. The activities are worth your time and enhance any visit. The guides are all knowledgeable and are great hosts. Warning: despite the availability of a wondrous variety of fruits, try not to eat them all at once before bedtime - you may experience an unwelcome cleanse. I believe all guests at the resort experienced essentially the same qualities we did and would highly recommend this hotel for its location, amenities, food, activities and most importantly its staff.

There we were. . .honeymooners stranded in Belize with a Hurricane forcing us from the coast in our rental car. Without really knowing where to go, we headed for San Ignacio to find lodging; only we couldn't find any room. When we stopped at the San Ignacio Hotel, they were also booked completely. The difference was, they invited us to bring our bags inside to sleep in an old dinning room. Mariam and the staff were so helpful and genuinely concerned for anyone caught without lodging as a hurricane refugee. They wouldn't turn anyone away, but they did turn us towards the well stocked bar and buffet line. Eventually we were notified that a room had opened up, and we slept through the entire storm in the best bed in town.

This Hotel was by far the best service I have experienced. The building was very nice and the food was great, but what put it over the top was the personable staff and their kindness.

Last Sunday we staid in San Ignacio as we thought that hurricane Felix might hit the Cayes. To discover which hotel we would want to live we wanted to test the cuisine and service first. So I invited the second couple for lunch at San Ignacio Resort hotel.
We know that Belize is already pretty overprized and it was not a big surprise to see that we should have to pay 12 BZ$ for a pina colada or 22 BZ$ for a shrimp cocktail. The food was pretty average: We ordered Belizean bollo - a very nice specialty with corn and chicken - the bollo was not very good. Shrimp cocktail was served a strange way but tasted good. A next starter with shrimp coverd in bacon and jalapeno was lightl;y burned. We got the steaks with backed potatoes instead of French fries. When we complaint the waitress took the steaks with her and we waited another nearly 10 minutes till she returned - now with French fries but the steaks cold. Creole shrimp tasted very nice. We ordered pina colada (the coladas were nice) and strawberry daiquiris and the daiquiris were horrible - like pure sugar with any chemical strawberry flavor - we could not drink this liquid.

When I finally wanted to pay we were very surprised. On the invoice the some of the drinks were charged higher than published on the beverage list and they added 10% General sales Tax. All meals were charge additional 10% General Sales Tax. This tax exists in Belize since July 2006 and the businesses have to publish the rates including GST. 15 months after this tax has been implemented in Belize the San Ignacio Resort hotel still does not follow the Belizean law.
I tried to speak to a manager - no manager available. So I went to the reception and tried to phone with one of the owners. My friends all wanted to leave and I had to wait more than 10 minutes to finally be connected to one of the owners.
The lady was extremely unfriendly. When i told her that I would not want to pay for the additional higher price for the drinks and the additional tax she answered that they have to separate the tax for technical reasons. I told her that that's a diferent problem but she's supposed to publishe the rates including the General sales tax, that they published a shrimp cocktail for 22 BZ$ and now charged this published price and in addition 10% tax. She started to yell at me and told me that I should not tell her how she should run her hotel.
I now got angry and told her of course would not tell her how she would have to run her hotel but wanted her to respect Belizean law and not over charge me and cheat me 10%.
After a long discussion i didn't want my friends to wait longer and I finished the conversation. I paid for the additional charges and left. I'm going to report this to the Belize Tourism Board and to the tax office and think about filing a charge agains these people. Hotels who still after 15 months have that kind of practice do a lot of harm to Belizean tourism.

I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone that is looking for a comfortable place to stay close to town. I ended up ditching our first hotel in San Igancio - Cahal Pech Village - for this one because it was more convenient, comfortable and clean.

We had a lovely balcony room that overlooked the beautiful jungle-like garden and pool area. Even though it was close to the town center, it was extremely quiet. The room, while it could've used some updating, was very clean and comfortable. The mattress and bedding made it very easy to get a good night's sleep. The shower water pressure was nice and strong.

Other hotels we stayed at in Belize had indifferent service but at The San Ignacio, service was friendly and personable. Ignacio, our Tikal driver who also doubles as front desk staff, was extremely helpful and made our stay memorable and enjoyable with all his stories and advice.

The hotel is located on a hill but the walk to down is very easy. It's always harder to go up the hill, but at most, it was a 10 minute walk up and a 5 minute walk down. Unless you have a hard time walking, I wouldn't let the idea of this place being on a hill stop you from staying there.

They also have a great swimming pool (that you can actually swim in) and a medicinal trail and iguana conservation area that you can get guided tours to.

Minor drawbacks: 1) The price is *slight* high for what you get. Save money and book everything but Tikal through Eva's or in town. We paid $129/pp for our Tikal trip but everything including the border fees were included. I would recommend paying a little extra and using them for Tikal as our guide and driver were great and our minivan was very comfortable, which made a long day trip to Guatemala enjoyable. 2) Food at the restaurant was hit and miss. Try the excellent tamales and the mole soup. Breakfast is so-so. Service is attentive.