By spring break 2024 we’d done three cold-weather trips in a row — Ireland, Iceland, Germany — and we’d had enough of packing fleeces in March. We wanted heat. We wanted not to rent a car. We wanted a flight that wasn’t a brutal haul. Belize hit all of it, and we’d loved the Yucatán a couple years back, so Central America felt like a known enough quantity to risk.
The Belize Collection runs a handful of resorts and lets you mix and match, which made the planning easy: three nights in the jungle, four at the beach. Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge in the interior for the adventure half, Jaguar Reef on the coast at Hopkins for the relaxing half. Both meal plans, all transfers pre-arranged through the resorts, no driving ourselves. The whole trip engineered for low friction.
That held until the JetBlue connection from Boston to JFK ran late and we landed in Belize three hours behind schedule. Belize City airport at peak arrival hour is a long, slow shuffle — every international flight seems to land at the same time — and by the time we were in the van for the 90-minute drive into the jungle, Henry (11) and Elias (10) were running on fumes.
Sleeping Giant was where the trip turned the corner. The Riverview Suite has stepping stones through a small pool to get into the room, which is the kind of thing that immediately registers with the kids. There’s a warm plunge pool on the balcony, an outdoor shower, real AC. It’s effectively a luxe studio — the boys slept on the pull-out, which wasn’t great for them, but the rest of the room made up for it. The grounds were better than we knew how to use in three days: hiking trails, kayaks, paddleboards, swimming holes in the river, plus a regular pool the website doesn’t really mention.
Most of what we did from Sleeping Giant was off-property. On the first full day we drove out to Xunantunich. Unlike the Mayan ruins in Mexico — which were our point of comparison — you can actually climb these temples, and you get to the site by crossing a river on a hand-cranked cable car ferry, which is the kind of detail kids remember for years. The tour itself moved slowly, which is the only complaint.
The next day was the heart of the trip. Angel Falls Extreme Zipline — speeds up to 60 MPH — was the activity I was sure Henry was going to hate. He’s the cautious one. He told me afterwards he’d never been more scared in his life and that he’d loved every second of it. Horseback riding, included with the package, was on-site and a clean hit with both boys. We capped the day with a jungle safari after dark — interesting in concept, brutal in practice. The humidity at night doesn’t drop. The mosquitos, surprisingly, weren’t the problem.
Tuesday morning we did St. Herman’s Cave Tubing before the transfer to the coast. This one I’d skip if we went back. Floating through caves on inner tubes is a great idea on a hot day; the actual run was longer than it needed to be, and the guide laid heavy historical and religious commentary over the whole experience when we mostly just wanted to be in the cool water. The ATM cave is supposedly the better choice. Next time.
Then the 90-minute transfer to Hopkins, where the trip’s character changed. Jaguar Reef sits in the middle of town, not secluded like Sleeping Giant — three resorts share the same stretch of beach and a swim-up-bar pool (Almond Beach and Colonial Inn are the other two). There’s traffic noise. One night there was a drum circle. The beach is clean and the water is warm with less seaweed than the Yucatán. Our room felt dated against what we’d just come from — ’90s beach theme, an oddly laid-out bathroom, another plunge pool that ran cold and seemed to be leaking.
The Big Dock Bar carried the whole second half of the trip. It’s a two-story pier with a rope swing into the ocean, jumping platforms at different heights, rope hammocks over the water, and a bar that turns out fresh ceviche, salsa, and chips that I’d fly back for. Every day at Jaguar Reef ran the same way: beach, dock, rope swing, ceviche, repeat.
Which was fortunate, because the resort itself worked less well than Sleeping Giant did. The main restaurant, The Paddle House, was hot at breakfast (sun coming straight through the windows, not enough fans) and sometimes blasting music. The Don Tonito’s location at Jaguar Reef was nearly twice the price of the one at Sleeping Giant for a doughier, less-good pizza — $15 small versus $8. The housekeeping was inconsistent, sometimes not coming at all, sometimes showing up just before dinner. There wasn’t a designated place to hang wet towels, no foot baths for sandy feet, and the beach towel system was something I never fully figured out.
Thursday was the cooking class — Garifuna cuisine, advertised as a hands-on experience for the boys. In practice they got to watch. Elias was already lukewarm on it, and then he discovered a small gecko had been accidentally cooked on top of his fish, which more or less concluded his interest in Garifuna cuisine. That same evening I got hit with food poisoning from something in the restaurant. The kitchen never looked clean or well-organized to me, which in retrospect tracks.
Friday was the reef snorkeling excursion, included with our package. Jen and the boys went. I stayed in bed. They came back loving it, which only made it worse.
The other thing that wore us down at Jaguar Reef was the pressure. The concierge would find us at meals, on the beach, at the pool, working another excursion. Every advertised price had 22% added at the back end, which was disclosed in the fine print but not anywhere prominent. By the time we hit the beach portion we were already toured-out — the guides at the various stops tend to repeat the same historical material — and the constant push to book more felt like the resort was trying to extract another couple hundred dollars before we left.
Departure was its own thing. The day before Easter is the day of an annual bike race that runs across most of Belize. Our driver knew about it, knew the route, tried to avoid it, and we still ended up driving through the pack for miles, getting honked at by support vehicles. A one-hour transfer turned into two and a half.
We’d go back to Belize. We wouldn’t go back to Jaguar Reef — Ambergris Caye is what I’d try next. Sleeping Giant we’d return to in a heartbeat, probably for an extra night.
The Reference Version
At-a-glance route.
Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge (3 nights) → Jaguar Reef Resort, Hopkins (4 nights) → fly home.
The trip.
Saturday March 23 to Saturday March 30, 2024 — Easter / Spring Break week. Family of four: me, Jennifer, Henry (11), and Elias (10). Booked through The Belize Collection, which lets you stitch together stays across their resorts on a single itinerary. Flew JetBlue JFK↔BZE with a Boston→JFK feeder leg. All ground transfers pre-arranged through the resorts.
Where we stayed.
Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge — Riverview Suite. Stepping-stone entry through a small pool, warm plunge pool on the balcony, outdoor shower, working AC. Large-studio layout with a pull-out sofa for the boys (the pull-out wasn’t comfortable, but the room itself was beautiful and well-maintained).
Jaguar Reef Resort, Hopkins — part of a three-resort cluster with Almond Beach Resort and The Colonial Inn. In-town beachfront location, not secluded like Sleeping Giant: traffic noise, occasional events (a drum circle one night). Room felt dated against what we’d come from — ’90s beach theme, odd bathroom layout, another plunge pool that ran cold and seemed to b
Even that's Odd 
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