Cheap Caye Caulker hotels – Ignacio’s Beach Cabins

Since most of the more expensive hotels in Belize have their own website and are easy to book online, but most of the cheaper ones aren’t, I occasionally like to spotlight some of the cheaper places to help budget travelers out a bit.

Ignacio’s Beach Cabins is an old school hotel with shockingly low prices, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right place for all my fellow cheapskates who visit Caye Caulker. There are many cheap hotels in Caye Caulker and in many cases if you spend a bit more you get many more important services. In other words, trying to book into the cheapest place isn’t always the best idea, but this place definitely deserves a look either way.

Ignacio’s has been in operation since 1978, and at that time it had five units, charged US$1.50 per night, and could not have been more basic. Now there are about 15 cabins, but things are still very basic. Each cabin-on-stilts has its own veranda that faces the Caribbean, as well as a bathroom, but hot water is evidently sporadic and maybe not drinkable either. If you want to go someplace to totally chill out with a nice view and a good book, this place could be ideal, but if you want something that’s even on the lowest end of the luxury scale this probably isn’t the place.

There is a pier and what they call a man-made reef just out front of the cabins, so you can do some snorkeling on your own if you’ve brought the equipment, but don’t expect a lovely beach because in general the beaches of Belize probably aren’t what you expect.

Location

Ignacio’s Beach Cabins is well south of the main Caye Caulker village area. You won’t have many neighbors so it could be extremely relaxing, but that also means buying something at the village store or having more than one or two restaurants to choose from is a 10-15 minute walk to the north. The airstrip is about 5 minutes walk to the south, so it’s convenient if you are flying in and out.

Prices and booking a room

Like so many cheap hotels in Belize it’s difficult to figure out exactly what the prices here are. Their Toucan Trail page says it fits into both the under US$20 and the US$21-40 categories. I believe some cabins are larger than others and some are right on the beach while others are in a row behind those, so I guess those factors help determine the price. I also read a review where someone paid US$17 per night for a cabin and were very happy, so expecting to pay around US$20 or maybe a bit more seems reasonable.

The trickiest part might be booking a room. The site says they accept reservations only between May and November, which is the rainy season. I’m guessing they might be completely empty during parts of this stretch so perhaps they close altogether if no one has booked. They also say they are open for walk-up bookings year round, so during prime season in Belize that is your only option.

This place seems to appeal to only a certain subset of Caye Caulker visitors and I’m sure their loose booking policy results from the fact that they probably have vacancies nearly all the time as long as you get there at a reasonable hour. Many of the cheaper hotels on Caye Caulker work the same way, so this really isn’t unusual.

Here’s the contact information from the Toucan Trail page I mentioned above:

Name: Reuben Reyes
Email: reyesreubenreyes@yahoo.com
Telephone: 226-0175/610-2200
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 1169
Belize City
Belize District