Most of the luxury hotels we feature are full-service affairs since, as we’ve said many times, it’s the staff attention that really separates a great hotel from an average one. There are times, however, when you want something that falls somewhere between a villa rental and a straight hotel. You want a kitchen and plenty of space, but a staff that’s there to serve you drinks and clean up each day. And maybe you don’t want to stay there for a whole week.

In laid-back Belize, these condo hotels work quite well, so we’ve featured two of them. A while back we posted a review of Chabil Mar Villas, a place I visited myself by just walking down the beach from Turtle Inn. It’s got the most dramatic beachfront, the largest rooms, and the most in-room amenities in Placencia. For a family, this is really a more sensible choice than Robert’s Grove or Turtle Inn.

We just added another place that fits that description: Phoenix Resort in Ambergris Caye. This place “has many of the same top-notch amenities that other Ambergis Caye resorts do, with the additional convenience of being within short walking distance to San Pedro’s restaurants, stores and nightclubs.” And of course more room, with a full living room and kitchen.

These two hotels will probably never end up on any glossy magazine’s “Hot List” or fill a wall with awards, but if your idea of pampering is a full-size fridge and a concierge equivalent to give you the scoop on everything in town, they’re great vacation spots.

See other reviews of the best hotels in Belize.

I just got the story posted from my family adventure excursion in Belize this past summer. We avoided the cruise ship crowds and Ambergris vacationers to explore the wilder side of Belize.

After perusing a bunch of itineraries from upscale tour companies, I decided to use three of the best adventure lodges in the country as a base, in three different regions, and take excursions from there. We stayed at these fine hotels, all featured in Luxury Latin America: Blancaneaux Lodge, Turtle Inn, and Machaca Hill.

The weather wasn’t as cooperative as I would have liked in Placencia (that’s what happens when you go to Central America in the summer—their rainy season), but overall it went well.

See the full story here: Family-Friendly Adventure Excursions in Belize.

There’s apparently something in the water in Central America that inspires their tourism boards to latch onto silly and meaningless slogans like a birdwatcher reaching for binoculars. The latest one to earn guffaws and ridicule is Panama’s, which is a year old but just got pilloried by this Jaunted post: Panama Picks A Tourism Slogan Reminiscent Of Childhood Trauma, STDs.

What is this inspired tourism slogan? “Panama – It Will Never Leave You.”

Could it be any worse? Panama watchers are having a heyday with this one, wondering whether it refers to malaria, dengue fever, stalkers, or something picked up from a prostitute. That’s one way to get honest feedback I guess. Just put out your new slogan and see how many people make fun of it on blogs and twitter. (If nobody does, it probably means your slogan is just boring, since few of these things seem to actually move the needle in terms of visitors anyway. But better to be boring than a laughing stock.)

Back in 2006, Guatemala launched the focus-group-inspired slogan “Soul of the Earth” and they’ve stuck with it ever since. WTF?! I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, much less how it applies to Guatemala and not any of its neighbors. Will there be shamans and chanting involved? Or spelunking? Will I feel the ground vibrate during the summer solstice?

Honduras appears to have used three slogans in as many years. I’ve got a hat a local tourism person gave me with the Spanish version of their slogan “One small country, three big worlds.” I put this into an article I wrote for another publication after I returned from there because I thought it nicely summed up the answer to the inevitable question, “Why go there?” You go because you’ve got a great Maya ruins site, nature preserves, and the coral-fringed islands. So the slogan actually means something.

Alas, I then got a wrist slapping from a PR and advertising agency person who had worked with me setting up part of my research there. Apparently her agency had spent tons of money on focus groups and reports to come up with a brand new slogan: “The Central America you know — the country you’ll love.”

Again, are you kidding me? You could slap that same tag line onto Costa Rica, Guatemala, or Panama and nobody would know the difference. That slogan is still up on the agency-built website, but there was yet another one in between those two for a brief time: “It’s All Here In Honduras.” Apparently it wasn’t all there after all. But now Honduras really is looking like “the Central America you know,” coup d’etats and all.

El Salvador and Nicaragua both go for a one-word slogan. Nicaragua’s is simply, “Unique.” El Salvador went for “Impressive!” Well, the waves are impressively grarly in El Salvador I guess and Nicaragua is unique in being the poorest mainland country in the Americas, but neither slogan does much to sell the destination or paint a picture of why anyone should visit. How about just saying, “We’re generic”? Or “You’ll probably have a good time if you come here on vacation.” Pretty much the same thing.

Belize has “Mother Nature’s best-kept secret.” Maybe Mother Nature’s best-kept secret is that the soul of the Earth is actually in Guatemala. And Belize isn’t exactly a secret anymore. But really, at least that one at least doesn’t leave you scratching your head.

So are there any Central American destination slogans that really work? Yes one, and it’s no coincidence that it’s from the country that gets the most tourists by far.

“Costa Rica: no artificial ingredients.”

Nicely played Ticos.

If you go inland in Belize, you learn in a hurry that it takes a long time to get from Point A to Point B. This may be a small country, but driving or riding from one part to another can take up most of a day, even if you’re heading to what you thought was a popular tourist spot. So what do most people with money do? Give up and fly.

Enter Tropic Air, the bus service of the skies for Belize. This is not an airline you fly to get pampered. This is an airline you fly on to shave hours off your travel time. Tropic Air uses a fleet of small prop planes—some so small they look like a toy, holding only four passengers. Others hold a few times that many, but in all cases you can see what the pilot is doing up front: there’s no wall between you and the cockpit.

Some find these kinds of planes nerve-wracking and scary—including my wife and daughter who were with me in Belize—but I think they’re kind of fun. Yes, they bump around a bit if the skies are windy, but you can really see a lot of the countryside since they fly relatively low over short distances to islands and towns.

These are no rickety old planes either, but a fleet of “factory new Cessna Caravans.” Flight prices are quite reasonable, often under $100 one-way. Perversely, in some cases that’s cheaper than taking a car transfer and it’s definitely cheaper than renting a car. There’s a 50% discount for children too—very nice. Tropic Air flies to nine destinations exclusively in Belize. To fly to Flores/Tikal or Cancun you need to book on Maya Island Air, which also has domestic flights on many of the same routes as Tropic. (Their prices are a bit higher but the only difference I could see is they have bigger terminal buildings.)

Note the luggage restrictions on the website before you haul down two wheelie suitcases filled with shoes and gadgets. They’ll let it slide if the flight is not full, but if the plane is sold out, you’re technically restricted to 35 pounds checked, 30 pounds carry-on.

Related reviews: Latin American Airlines

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I had the pleasure of staying at Machaca Hill Rainforest Lodge in Punta Gorda, Belize a few weeks ago and it was a fantastic experience. It is part of a huge private nature reserve in southern Belize. Most tourists don’t make it this far, but if you do you’ll be rewarded. It’s a great area for outdoor adventure activities and the Mayan ruins nearby get only a trickling of visitors. The reserve has lots of hiking trails and you can go kayaking on the river near the lodge, getting down there by a built-in tram.

See our review of Machaca Hill in Belize here and then tune in later in the month for a Belize family adventure story we’ll be posting. Want to take a walk through the main lodge building? See the video tour below. You’ll have to supply your own twittering birds and Garifuna music for the soundtrack though: somehow the sound got lost in the conversion from Quicktime to Windows to YouTube. Sorry!