Tag: Belize

My TripAdvisor Review of Belize City

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Poor Belize City. It’s becoming something of a punching bag for yours portly. I wanted to like it so badly, but it was really the most disappointing stop on our recent cruise.

That doesn’t make me a heartless monster. We tipped our tour guide, Omar, and bus driver, as we do for all of our excursions. It was cool seeing a city and a country that I’d never visited before. I appreciated how Omar and our driver improvised to deal with the heavy rain that hit when we made landfall.

But, as I’ve noted ad nauseum, the city itself was a letdown. That’s the heart of a review I completed at Omar’s urging (he came around with a QR code on his phone that we all took a picture of). I’m still not sure I’ve actually reviewed the correct service and/or tour, as the QR code wouldn’t scan properly, but, hey, I tried my best (and gave Omar a shout-out; he was, after all, the man who inspired the genre-defying megahit “Drink the Rum“).

The Doomed QR Code

So, with a dearth of better content to share, here is the full text of my TripAdvisor review (which you can also read here):

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Lazy Sunday CCCXCVIII: Cruise Stuff

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s been nice being back home (even though it was a sad start to last week), but I did enjoy our cruise. I’ve finally lost my “sea legs,” but I’m looking forward to another in the future, although I imagine it’ll be a bit before out next one. That said, I thought I’d share some recent cruise posts:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

desk globe against black background

SubscribeStar Saturday: Western Caribbean Cruise Review

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Today Dr. Wife and I will be returning from a week-long Royal Caribbean cruise through the Western Caribbean. The cruise left from Tampa on Saturday, 11 July 2026 and returns this morning (Saturday, 18 July 2026). Along the way, we made stops in Costa Playa, Mexico; Roatán, Honduras; Belize City, Belize; and Cozumel, Mexico. It was a jam-packed itinerary with plenty of time for rest—and celebratory gluttony.

Before diving into the details, here were my favorite stops, from most favorite to least favorite:

1.) Roatán, Honduras – they have Bojangle’s! It’s also just a beautiful place with super friendly people.

2.) Cozumel, Mexico – we only saw the touristy area just off of the cruise ship, but you can buy stuff like azithromycin over-the-counter, which is wild.

3.) Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico – we saw Mayan ruins here and drove through a village called “Pineapple Town.”

4.) Belize City – I really wanted to like Belize City, hoping it’d be some kind of Anglo-Caribbean wonderland nestled in Central American. Instead, it was like the rest of Central America and the Caribbean, but somehow worse. I thought British imperialism would have left a bit more of a positive mark on this damp, effluvial city.

This cruise was only my second, but it cemented for me that I am a cruise person.

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