Chan Chich Lodge

Chan Chich Lodge is a unique eco-resort located deep in the Belize Maya Forest and surrounded by pristine habitats that harbor some of Belize's largest populations of birds, mammals and other fauna. This was our second stay at the Lodge and well worth the long quite adventurous journey driving on the dirt road through Spanish Lookout. Our cabin was gorgeous (luxurious even!) with a wrap-around porch overlooking a Maya mound. We woke up each morning to have a delicious cup of Gallon Jug coffee and to watch the birds and wildlife. While the Lodge offers several tours on property and off, we chose to explore the hiking trails along the river and deep in the forest, feeling even more adventurous. The one organized tour we did take was the Gallon Jug farm tour. This is an extraordinary farm tour which was guided by Don Luis, a very experienced, knowledgeable guide who has been with the Lodge for over 30 years. Luis explained to us the history of the ranch, while spotting bird species unique to the agricultural landscape. We saw the veggie green house, the famous pepper sauce production unit, the coffee plant and shade coffee groves etc.. We even saw the famous 'red bull' proudly introduced to us by the charming General Manager of the Lodge and farm complex. We also participated in a walk with Emil, Lodge bartender and citizen scientist extraordinaire, to check out the footage of wild cats and other fauna caught on trail trip cameras, the next best thing to seeing the wild cats. The farm-to-table food was excellent and service in the dining room by Emil and Sean was great although they could use more staff. We highly recommend the Lodge and will definitely be back!

Amazing visit to Chan Chich Lodge. It is a very special place. I felt like I was on safari with all the birds and wild animals. Staff were incredible and very helpful with pick up and drop off. Food was delicious. Would recommend flying in if you don't want a long drive to get there.

Overall, we enjoyed our stay at Chan Chich. The protected area on the property is extensive, and we were impressed with the density of the wildlife present there. While we didn’t see a jaguar during our four-day stay, we did see many other animals, including tayras, collared peccaries, foxes, toucans, and even a jaguarundi. We were also impressed with the farm-to-table food, which was incredibly fresh, varied, and delicious. Two staff members, Callie and Emil, went above and beyond to make our stay special. ||The accommodations, however, were a bit run down, and the amenities are not as described on the website. The pool in the villa is drained and non-functional, and the hot tub in the main pool area has a broken heater. A number of the mosquito screens are torn and need to be replaced. While the website advertises that they have rubber boots available for guests, there are actually only two pairs of boots for the entire lodge. Similarly, they only have four headlamps available for the night walks. So bring your own rubber boots and headlamps!||If you book the all-inclusive package that includes activities, you’ll need to be prepared to proactively advocate for all of the activities you’re hoping to participate in, since the manager who was on duty during our stay tended not to offer all of them and tried several times to dissuade us from signing up for various activities. I’m assuming this was because of staffing challenges. Additionally, if you’re interested in visiting Tikal during your stay, I’d highly encourage you to arrange this yourself rather than booking through Chan Chich. The tour operator they used to conduct this tour for us, Mayawalk Tours out of San Ignacio, was fine in terms of logistics and transportation, but the tour guide (while nice) was woefully unknowledgeable about Tikal. If we had it to do over again, we would have stayed just three nights at Chan Chich and then stayed overnight near Tikal.

My husband and I recently completed a 7-night stay at Chan Chich Lodge, in the modern jungle cabana. Though we used it on a very limited basis, we were glad we had the ability to temporarily lower the humidity in our cabana with the AC unit. If you like to sleep cool, the AC makes the first hour or so of sleep much more pleasant! The food was delicious, fresh, and the kitchen was able to accommodate our largely vegetarian diet. Menu options included traditional Belizean foods and dishes more familiar to American palates. There were relatively few other groups staying at the lodge during our visit which meant we had plenty of opportunities for activities and engagement with the staff. We enjoyed the extremely knowledgeable guides (Luis!) and managed to see lots of wildlife during our stay (oscelot, two types of peccaries, potoo, agouti, coati, several foxes, two types of monkeys, tarantulas, turtles, owl butterflies, crocodiles, and many species of birds). We did several horseback riding adventures, which we found was a quieter alternative to the safari trucks that allowed us to experience the farm in a different way. We thoroughly enjoyed our day trip to Lamanai, arranged through the lodge. Our guide was knowledable and treated us to a fantastic wildlife tour on the river. While this day was long, we enjoyed chatting with our driver and the opportunity to see surrounding villages. One of the highlights of Chan Chich is the community they've built. All the staff are there because they've chosen to be and their love of the jungle, the animals, and what they do was apparent in all our interactions. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around staff housing looking for oscelots (thanks to Emil for that tip!). Everyone we met was friendly, including the kids! In summary, this was a fantastic trip, and we would love to return!

Great jungle experience. Friendly staff. Many trails to choose from, peaceful & quiet. Get close to mother nature.

Staff and customer service exceptional. Food is amazing - truly farm to table- fresh and delicious- of course the coffee was the best. The cottage is spacious and comfortable- no AC but air flow with the fans made it quite comfortable. Elejio, Reuben, Louis and Sean awesome and made our stay enjoyable. The wildlife- spider monkeys, deers, wild turkeys, ocelot, birds owls.

Had a great 4 night stay here to celebrate our anniversary. Read so many great reviews that I might have come in expecting too much, but in retrospect Chan Chich mostly delivered on those expectations. ||Location: if you're into nature, birding, quiet, it was great. It was SLOW though during low season, so if you love the idea of having a huge lodge just to yourself, this is absolutely your place. It is definitely far away from anything else touristy -- which also means you have no other food options, no other activity options, the lodge is it. ||Price: we booked through booking.com which offered a super high discount on the room rates. Overall it was a good value given what you get -- but just be aware that transfers and tours can add up -- choose wisely!||Transfers: highly recommend flying in. The road was very very bumpy and took 3 hours of travel. For two people, the 15 min charter flight would have been less than $100 more. And the truck doesn't have a covered back, so had it been thunderstorming, I worry the luggage would hqve gotten a bit soaked. ||Food: overall I would say 3.5/4 stars here. Some dishes were really impressive and gourmet, others were a bit more meh. Of the things we tried, particularly memorable were the tostados, burger, shrimp ceviche, shrimp curry, and zucchini soup. Wish they had something chocolate for dessert at least once!||Service: super friendly staff everywhere -- trying very hard, what ends up being not perfect is not due to lack of effort but more lack of knowledge/training. ||Rooms: we started off in the Cottages, but because of how many mosquitos there are, I was really suffering...Mr. Elijio was kind enough to upgrade us to the Villa which had A/C. The A/C is worth the extra $$! Amazing views also, but man it was nice coming back to a room that was dry and cool.||Activities: I wish there were more to choose from. A beer tasting would have been really fun. Something more adventure would also be nice (like maybe even install a Zipline course?). The nature and bird viewing was amazing (we even saw a puma on a night safari!!!) and the lakes were both so picturesque too. I LOVED the pool. It was my favorite place to hang out in the afternoons. If I weren't so sensitive to bug bites, probably would have done more biking/hiking.||Internet: not amazing as Wi-Fi didn't really extend to the rooms, but cell service for me worked generally throughout the property so I was fine. ||Last thoughts: probably won't be back because of how hard it is to get to -- but if the roads were to improve, would consider coming back during the cooler/drier/less-mosquito season with the kids as a nature getaway.

My dive-buddy and I stayed for 3 nights in a Garden Cottage. Although we are divers we enjoy experiencing the other highlights and the culture of countries we visit. |Unfortunately starting with an initial complaint (because it was the first thing that happened) we were not met at the airport when we arrived as per the arrangements. Our plane was due to land at 10:45 am, in the event we landed about 10 mins early, we were the only plane arriving at the time and we collected our baggage and went through customs quickly. We were actually outside by the 10:45 landing time. For some reason our driver, Elias, had been given an 11:45 pick-up time, he then allowed 15 mins for us to collect baggage and get through customs, so we were waiting at 10:45 am and our driver arrived at 12:00 am. When Elias turned up we saw his paperwork and knew it was not his fault. |Elias asked whether we wanted to stop on the way for lunch and we pulled into a local restaurant along our route where we had a good meal. For much of the journey Elias provided us with information and spotted birds for us.|We were staying in a Garden Cottage, which was everything the web site portrays. There was wire netting over all the windows as well as mosquito nets over the beds, someone sets these up every afternoon/evening and then moves them to the head of the bed (out of the way) in the morning. There were ample power points in the room for us to charge our devices. There was no air conditioning but we found the ceiling fan adequate and slept quite well. I do not think either of us got a mosquito bite during our stay; insect repellent was used.|The food was excellent, there were menus, which changed by the day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lodge is part of the Gallon Jug Farm and that is where most of the food came from, some fish was also on the menu. One cut of beef that I had was exceptional.|There seemed to be a bit of confusion around the trips (the trips themselves were excellent). When we arrived around mid-afternoon we were told that someone would speak to us about possible trips during the evening meal. In the event no one did, we made our own enquiries with the dining staff and discovered there was an evening walk, we got on this but I had to rush my dinner and nip back to our cottage to change into socks and boots (no sensible person would walk in the rain forest in open sandals). We saw Tarantulas and other spiders as well as scorpions, a fawn and a few birds. On our last day we were approached at dinner regarding trips but other than this it seemed safer to check on what might be planned at the reception. The trips seem to be somewhat set each day with little consultation with guests although we did at one point suggest things that we would like to do the following day (all of which were accommodated).|The trips that we did included an evening walk, a morning walk, an evening drive, a morning drive, drive to the Upper Escarpment, lake kayaking, a lake cruise and we did a couple of local hikes of our own. On all of the organised trips whether walks or drives the guides were essential, they know the right places to look and what to look for and they know what they have seen when they find it (that may sound silly but identification of different birds is not always easy).|When visiting Chan Chich expect to see birds, deer, monkeys (both spider and howler). I am guessing that everyone wants to see a Jaguar but while they are definitely in the area long with Pumas (check the Trail Camera footage, usually available on Facebook) the odds of spotting them are very slim. The true owners of the area seem to be the Ocellated Turkeys, they are everywhere, every few hundred yards along every road and many wandering around the lodge.|I believe that our delayed pick-up was a one-off admin error, the issue around deciding and communicating what trips are on when and whether people want to go on them could definitely have been better organised.|So a couple of minor moans but I wouldn't want those to obscure that we had a fantastic stay and we very much enjoyed everything at Chan Chich, the people were great, the trips were interesting and the food was marvellous.