La Perla del Caribe — Hotel in North Ambergris Caye

My wife, I, and two friends stayed at La Perla's Amber Villa for a week. It was a great home base for our Belize adventures. Full of character, comfort, and beauty.

To be clear. This is an island, in a jungle region of Central America. We kept our expectations in that context. Maintenance needs in our villa included: Front door lock worked poorly. I eventually fixed myself with WD-40. We had a gas range with convection oven - better equipment than I have at home. But it was missing a rack. And two of the eyes could only be used as warmers. Both shower heads had issues making the showers more island tolerance, and not the luxury that the beautiful design suggests. The can opener had a broken handle making it difficult to use - impossible to use for some of us. A sliding exterior door tended to come off it's track.

In a week, a boat we chartered broke down once, the bikes we wanted to rent never happened, and the golf cart we rented broke down twice. The road to this end of Ambergis Caye is very, very rough, especially for golf carts. The open ocean can be choppy for the small boats. Some parts of travel are just very rough by U.S. standards. But, we saw our stay as a Central American adventure.

Despite the jarring travel, I like La Perla's location. Only 20 to 30 min from downtown San Pedro. Far from the din of their city streets, bustling with noisy, diesel golf carts. Beautiful and relatively secluded, it was a good location.

To make it wonderful, La Perla offers one of the best views of any lodging on the island. Villa Amber, and I assume the other villas, are thoughtfully laid out such that the focus is always the amazing ocean view. The furniture was all of quality and character, tastefully designed with Belizian style. The beds and couches were very comfortable. The air conditioning ample, and the hot water plentiful. The fully equipped kitchen with a full-size fridge was a great asset for us. We ended every day with a home cooked meal in the comfort of our villa. However, there were multiple restaurants that delivered to our villa or resort pool if wanted, even if we just wanted a cocktail.

The grounds were gorgeous. They looked natural, but the maintenance crew seemed to be working hard every day to maintain that look.

The best part of La Perla is the service. Phone use was not easy. So our host and tour operator made sure to connect on Whatsapp and to get us on the villa wifi. The host encouraged us to message them any time day or night, for anything large or small. When we wanted lunch on our first day, she made sure it was delivered to our villa. They arranged our local flights, COVID tests in our villa, everything we needed. They would have arranged grocery delivery, but I like shopping myself. When my golf cart broke down, each time, I messaged them. They had a solution so fast each time, we didn't miss a beat.

La Perla also worked closely with the local dive shop operator. This resulted in on-estate tour planning for all adventures both sea and land-bound. They made sure we had guides every step of every adventure. I don't think we stood in line for a ticket once. Everything was just handled. We had constant concierge attention at every turn. They even sent people to knock on our door and make sure we were awake for our morning departures.

To top it all off, the Belizean people are some of the warmest people I have encountered anywhere in the world. Belize is a great place to see some of Central America, and La Perla de Caribe is a great home base for your adventure or for a...

DO NOT RENT FROM LA PERLA del CARIBE. I would highly discourage anyone from going to La Perla. My immediate and extended family rented the Topaz Villa for 1 week between Christmas and New Year’s 2018/2019. The Villa was touted as a luxury 5-star destination backed by Sotheby’s therefore we had no reason to think that there may be any issues, we were wrong. The house and furnishings were more like a 2-star home. When we arrived half of the lights in the basement bedrooms and bathrooms were out, half of the lights in the kitchen were out and there were very few other lights in the house, so we were in darkened rooms once the sun set. The kitchen was poorly stocked with glasses to drink from, we had 3 water glasses, several coffee mugs and a lot of wine glasses. The house had one dish towel that was stained and quite old to dry the dishes, and no dishwasher. When you have 8 people staying at a home that is quite difficult to manage especially when you spend a lot of money to be there. The sheets were stained on the beds, there were very few blankets when it cooled at night and my daughters’ beds had bed bugs so they would wake up with terrible itching bites. We changed the sheets several times, but nothing remedied the bites. The main furniture in the sitting area had blood stains on it and was very dirty. The house felt like it had not been cleaned in a long time. When we reached out for help with our issues the management was extremely slow to respond, days in fact, halfway through our stay. It was just terrible. Also, the upper bedroom toilet did not flush without dumping a pitcher of water into it, this also took days to remedy. Overall it was an extremely expensive villa that was TERRIBLE. After we returned home, we reached out to the management company La Perla del Caribe and they basically ignored our request for some sort of compensation. They never called after they said they would, it felt like they had no interest in making sure guests had a wonderful experience. Their customer service was horrible. I would recommend finding another place in Belize, it is a beautiful place with...

We just returned from a week at La Perla with seven 18 - 21 year olds and three moms. We had a WONDERFUL time and loved every minute of our stay at Villa Amethyst. Our hostess, Star, was THE BEST … Very responsive whenever I reached out and always provided great recommendations. The entire staff was fabulous!!! In fact, the very first night I lost my diamond cocktail ring. We searched and searched .. Security saw us at the pool about 9 PM and helped us look too. I finally text Star to see if just maybe it had been turned in, and she had it!! The bartender found it when closing up earlier in the day!!!||Roberto provided transportation to and from the ferry terminal, and he also took me and three of the girls snorkeling last minute. Picked us up at the dock right in front of our villa and his co-captain (Mr. Chocolate 😂) came in the water with us and never left our sides, primarily because my 18 yo was wrapped around him terrified .. LOL!!! Seriously tho, because of him she stayed in the water and got to have an amazing experience seeing stingrays and nurse sharks!! It was an affordable simple trip, just ten minutes straight out (the reef is very close to the shore line). Renting our golf carts from Omar at Beez Belize Rentals was great … Very convenient and he was super flexible about delivery / pickup when our plans changed a bit. Seaduced by Belize provided an amazing day relaxing at sea on their houseboat (breakfast, lunch, rum punch, drinks included). Portofino Restaurant delivers and their food was AMAZING .. We did both breakfast and dinner while there. All were...