Our family of four stayed at Chateau Giselle for five nights in mid-February 2007. We would not have stayed so long but Amanda, the property manager, only takes bookings for 5 or more days. We wanted a house rather than a hotel so that we could prepare some meals instead of eating out the entire time.

We have traveled to several third world countries and have never stayed at a luxury hotel or resort. We expect third world standards with the accommodations that we choose. In even the smallest hotels there exist a minimum standard of cleanliness, not withstanding the expected cockroaches, ants, etc. But shortly after our arrival at Chateau Giselle we discovered how incredibly dirty the kitchen (and the whole house) was. The kitchen sink and counters were dirty, appearing as though no-one had washed down the food scraps from the previous guests. The inside of the kitchen cabinets had a layer of dust and grime in which the dishes were sitting. The kitchen sponge, with which we were expected to wash the dishes, was brown and smelly. The glasses and flatware had dried food on them. Amanda's assistant, Bobbi, did bring us paper towels and napkins when we first arrived.

The bathrooms were also uncleaned upon our arrival. The sinks had dried toothpaste remaining from the last renters. One of the toilets had a brown smear on the side of the seat which we cleaned off. We immediatly purchased cleaning supplies at the store and had to clean the house before we felt it safe to cook or use the bathroom. In addition, there was only 1 bath towel per person supplied. These towels appeared gray and dirty and smelled positively terrible! We hoped they had been washed after the last renters but they seemed dirty and so to be sure we took them to the laundry lady around the corner and had to pay her $15.00 to wash them for us.

In addition, the website advertises mosquito nets but there were none anywhere. Because at least one of the screens was missing in a bedroom, and there were large holes in a few other screens, we had mosquitos visiting us.

We rented four bikes from Amanda at her Caye Caulker Rentals. They were in very poor condition and difficult to ride. Other rental bicycles on the island appeared to be in much better condition.

To the credit of the managment, the old problematic shower heads that previous travelers had spoken of have been replaced with new shower heads. The sheets were clean and there were plenty of fluffy pillows.

The location of Chateau Giselle is centrally located right in the heart of town with easy access to shops and restaurants. While this house in not an absolute terrible place to stay, the price is far too high for what you get, making it a bad value. Next time we will stay elsewhere.

Just back from a week on Caye Caulker getting certified to scuba. Choose Chateau Gizelle from the web description - we wanted three bedrooms. Overall - adequate, but overpriced. The place is located in the busiest part of town, across the street from the community basketball court - a popular place with lighted games and lots of noise and foot traffic until about 10pm each night when the town rolls up and goes to bed. You can barely see the ocean trough the basketball court. It's also a bit noisy in the mornings. The chateau is built on stilts, so it's essentially a second floor apartment. Because it's so high, there's no natural shade from tall trees. The lovely tall palm that used to grace the front yard was beheaded in a storm so there's just this very tall, forelorn trunk left. The house basks in the sun all day, and heats up quickly. It has two decks, but they are not covered so they're impossible to use until the sun goes down. It has a full kitchen, but we were three guys who ate out all the time. It has two bathrooms with hot water, and overhead fans in each room - nice. The beds are fine, but the rest of the furniture is vintage thrift shop. They charge an extra 5% if you pay by credit card. If you're looking for a place on the ocean with a porch and palm trees - this isn't it.

We spent 5 days at Chateau Giselle and had a wonderful time, because we weren't attached to everything being perfect in the house. What do you expect for $100 a night for a 3 bedroom rental?

The location and size worked for us. We needed 3 bedrooms and the house is close to great restaurants, and the Split - where we swam almost every day. Amanda and Bobbi were fantastic rental managers. They took care of everything we needed - from arranging our taxi from the airport to the water taxi, to handling the details of transporting a lost piece of luggage from the airport to the island for us.

The house and furnishings reminded us of Spring Break - perfect for a college kids who just need a place to crash. The kitchen was barely equipped, not enough dishes, towels in short supply, but the beds were fine. Generally speaking the place was almost clean. The furniture well worn. Bathrooms were okay, but the shower heads so corroded that most of the water sprayed out sideways rather than down. We had a toilet problem, called Bobbi and a very nice handyman was there to fix it in less than 15 minutes.

But in the laid back atmosphere of Caye Caulker - which was the prime reason we were there - little annoyances didn't bother us. We ate out rather than cooked and loved every meal. Spent 4 relaxing days, swimming, snorkeling and chatting with the incredible mix of locals, back-packers and other tourists from around the world.

One more note - the house is not air-conditioned. We had partly cloudy - very mild days while we were there over the Thanksgiving weekend. If it had been any hotter, we would have moved to a place with A/C.

I recently spent a week on the beautiful island of Caye Caulker off the coast of Belize. We chose on-line what looked to be a lovely island home for our stay. However, the house was completely inadequate. We weren't looking for special accommodations, just something clean with a stocked kitchen in terms of dishes etc.

First of all, it's very hot in Belize and mosquitos are a huge problem. Only a few of the windows had screens and neither of the sliding glass doors had screens. Since the house does not have air conditioning, we opened the doors & windowns to let some of the breeze in- well, the house filled up with mosquitos and we were eaten alive! Also, the kitchen had only a few mis-matched dishes and no dishsoap or sponge. We quickly ran out of dishes and there wasn't even a can opener. The bathrooms weren't very clean and the showerhead barely had a trickle of water coming out and then the water didn't drain from the tub until several hours later, sometimes the next day. Finally, there were cockroaches in the house.

Fortunately, the owner also owned some air-conditioned condos on the island and we moved after two nights to the nicer place- Auxillou Beach Suites. The owner was not present during any of this, we negotiated the move with the cleaning lady who was very sweet and helpful. The rest of our trip was very nice, Auxillou Suites were very well kept and very clean and of course, the air conditioning is a MUST, especially if you're there during the hot season which is during the summer months I believe.