Drift Inn San Pedro — Hotel in San Pedro Town

Awful experience, read below 😡😡😡 Where do I begin. . . I strongly advise you read this before staying here! We booked Drift Inn at the Sandbar because of it's close proximity to the beach and all amenities. We changed the date of our booking over 3 weeks before arriving. On arrival we were informed that they wondered where we were and that they were expecting us from the previous night which was a little strange. We were then told that they had charged our card twice where we would of course have to cover fees and exchange costs. They promised to refund the second charge, this meant due to the fees with our bank we lost money in the process.We entered the room and we were led all the way to the back to a pretty dingey room. We were so happy to be in Belize and just wanted to enjoy our stay so we didn't even mention the uncomfortable bed or the obvious lack of any refurbishment made in the last 30 years. We took a shower and the water was salty, so much so that we left the shower feeling like we'd taken a dip in the sea, we hoped this was temporary and just an island thing. After talking to other people on the island in similar prices resorts, we discovered this was only applicable to Sandbar. When we returned from a full day diving the blue hole and tried again, it was the same. The front desk provided us a garafon of water to clean our gear. The next day, unusually strange, the water was not as salty.Ambergris Caye, the diving and the island itself is amazing so all the little things that would have normally niggled at us, we let it go and just tried to enjoy our stay So here comes the real blow. . .Our last day in Belize we decided to visit Caye Caulker, upon returning, we find a scribbled note next to the door asking to come to reception before entering the room. I immediately thought we had been robbed so did open the door only to discover they had removed all our belongings and other people were in our room. Understandably furious, we went to the front desk. They were unapologetic and defensive. They informed us that they had double booked the room and the couple had refused to accept this other room. I went to 'our room' where we found our belongings in black bin liners. They had changed us from a double room with private bathroom to an unused 4 bed bunk room with shared bathroom. After a lot of distress they decided to book us a room in another hotel. The whole time they kept blaming BOOKING for the whole fiasco but they way THEY handled it was all on them. Only until the end did they apologise for what they had done. Of course, we were understandably upset but it was like they were blaming us. Normal procedure would be to put the other guests in another hotel until the room was available rather than move guests that were already there! I searched through all of mine and my partner's belongings and my perfume was missing (I have yet to work out if there is anything else missing) obviously due to all of our things being unceremoniously dumped. We have yet to hear what they propose to do about this as it was clearly their fault. I was disgusted, hurt and obviously distressed. The lack of respect for paying guests and the violation of our rights and our property was totally unacceptable. The owner Hailey should seriously consider her role in a customer service industry with her inability to acknowledge their wrongdoing. To think that just by finding us alternate accomodation would resolve the problem and not reimbursing us for the fact that property is missing is disgraceful. I myself, could not even find the words to talk to her constructively as I was so disgusted and started to panic due to my disorder. We've travelled the globe and have never been treated so badly in any customer service situation. Do not stay here, what happened to us wasn't the first time and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last! There are other, clean, professional options and around the same price. Don't make the same...

Drift Inn SP was the most expensive dorm I’ve paid for in 7 months of backpacking across South/Central America at USD 33 per night! The dorm room was spacious & clean, there were a few surfaces to put your belongings on which was helpful & lockers. Nice touch to get free filtered water & a bath towel! Good location to walk to restaurants, Train Station gym, shops and the waterfront. ~BZE 20 cab ride from water taxi. Reception staff were friendly & responsive + informative over WhatsApp. Love a key code entry.

The reasons for my lower rating (in no particular order): for a seaside town there need to be more hooks to hang your damp belongings, the Aircon is placed so that it doesn’t really cool the whole dorm only the entrance part so at night the back bunk got stuffy & there were a couple of mosquitos, the curtains aren’t around 4 corners so if your bed buddy turns on the light multiple times in the middle of the night as happened to me the light comes up to your bed too. I see there were yoga mats on other reviews but I didn’t know about that & I never got a wristband for the discounts they mentioned (my bad, I should have asked). But mainly - the instagram account has the image of trendy place & I found the place on Hostelworld, but the other Travellers in my dorm were 15-25 years older than me (they were late 40s into late 60s, apparently regular repeat guests) and honestly it felt a bit odd and uncomfortable - there was no hostel backpacker vibe in the dorm, just an old man talking to himself all day who never seemed to leave the premises or make any conversation back to me, a second older man who decided to read his map at 3am for an hour, and an unhinged woman who was plastered 95% of the time. I ended up forfeiting a night I had paid for and leaving early. If my diving hadn’t been cancelled due to weather I may have been able to stay the last night of my booking being distracted and out all day diving, but the crowd just wasn’t making me feel comfortable or any sense of hostel community (I was lonely). The rest of the Inn is actually more a hotel (Inn) with an older US crowd, and seems like only the one dorm room, which I hadn’t realized from Hostelworld. I’m sure had the dorm had a more typical dorm crowd, it would have been a totally different and more positive experience for me - but at the price I paid for it, I was disappointed.

If you are a backpacker on the ‘gringo trail’, honestly I would skip San Pedro and stick to Caye Caulker OR go stay at Sandbar next door. It is half the price and had a number of younger backpackers staying there - the lower price will likely usually pull in the actual backpackers even though Drift Inn has...

My partner and I found ourselves in a disgraceful situation while staying at Driftinn at Sandbar on Ambegris Caye. Prior to our last night while we were on a day trip the staff at the hostel went into our room that we had paid for and were due to check out of the next day, and packed up our bags, placing unpacked items into plastic bags and changed their location without due permission or police warrant and the presence of a police officer or simply our own presence is wholly unprofessional (or even illegal) and quite simply the biggest violation we have experienced in any form of accommodation we have stayed in anywhere in the world. Given that there was absolutely no grounds for us being evicted from our room and due process was not executed properly must lead Driftinn at Sandbar to look at their operations closely as it is unacceptable. Any clerical errors of a double booking should never result in guests bags being packed and moved from a room that has been paid for. I do not think that they really had fully thought of the ramifications of handling other peoples/guests unpacked bags and the consequences that it can lead to, whether it be stress, lost items or potential safety and security issues for us having unknown parties handling our bags without our presence. On that note of missing items, a bottle of perfume was lost during the moving of our bags, I spoke to the hostel about this, they have offered no apology or recompense for this and any of the emails I have sent to Hailey the owner and manager of Driftinn at Sandbar have been totally ignored and not replied to which is quite simply baffling. Her whole handling of this situation was awful, very matter of fact and unsympathetic for the inconvenience caused. She got angry and impatient that we got upset and angry at this situation and made it out that we were being by unreasonable. A very weak apology was made with a scoffed chuckle once we were moved into some other hotel for one night. Disgraceful.

I am trying to write this in a constructive manner but we are both still deeply upset by this situation and feel violated by their business. There were already clerical errors at the beginning of our stay where they charged my card twice for our stay, that I will incur costs for without recompense. If this is a situation that has occurred before or could happen again in Driftinn at Sandbar establishment should be a cause for deep concern. I have never in my 40 years of travelling the globe had to come close at writing a review like this which speaks volumes and should be a cause for deep reflection on their part.

I CAN NOT reccomend that you stay in this...