Myself, my wife and her 14 yr old son stayed at the Corozal Bay Inn on December 30th 2010. We originally booked to stay two nights thru the resorts website. We were on our
5th night of a week stay and to that point had had a great time and had stayed at nice places, one in Placentia and the other near San Ignacio town. We arrived in the mid afternoon on a Thursday. Checked in then ate at the restaurant next door. The first clue the Corozal Bay Inn was suspect was that the bathroom in the bar/restaurant had no soap or towels! Yuck!

We however, blew if off. We did however, expect for the resort to provide us with a CLEAN room and a reasonably quiet night sleep. This was not the case! The bed sheets were covered with some type of grit we could not completely identify. From what we could tell it was either coming up from the mattresses, really GROSS! or possible from the thatched roof. We thought it may have been sand or even dander from previous guests. It was very disgusting! No matter what we did to shake it off we were unable to. I did make a call to the front desk and the owner brought us over a second set of sheets which we put over the first ones. Although this did provide some additional protection we did not have any covers and were cold all night. We were not about to use the bed spread either since we knew that had not been washed. The pillows were also covered with matching bed spread covers, again not something that gets washed between guests. The owner providing the additional sheets shrugged it off like we were bothering him.

Near our room was also a very loud open night club that was playing music until near 1am. We did not sleep but maybe an hour our two as a result of the unclean beds, cold temperature and loud music. Its hard to relax when you are not sure what your sleeping on.

The next morning we were on the phone looking for another place to stay as there was NO WAY we were going to stay in that disgusting room another night. In addition, the resort was scheduled to have a huge New Year’s Eve party in the same open night club that was already so loud the night before. After hardly sleeping the night before, we were not prepared to stay up all night again.


Fortunately, we were able to find another resort to stay at on December 31, 2010. We stayed at the Almond Tree Resort down the road. The accommodations there were excellent! We were very grateful we were able to find a clean and quiet place to stay after the horrible experience we had at the Corozal Bay Resort the night before.

Also, I did inform to the owner of the Corozal Bay Resort about the un-cleanliness of the room when I told him we would not be staying the second night. I asked if we would be charged for the second night and he stated that because we had booked online we had already paid and would not be credited for not staying. He gave me my credit card receipt at that time.

After calling my bank and getting a credit for the 2nd night in which we did not stay the owner, Douglas Podzun disputed our request for a credit by flatly lying to our bank that we stayed two nights and that we arrived after hours the first night after they were closed. He also lied that we stayed two nights which is absolutely not true! And if he were an honest business owner with any integrity he would make this situation right by at the very least not charging for a night in which we did not stay under the circumstances.

Needless to say I would strongly recommend NOT staying at this place! Oh yea, we also had a dead scorpion in our bathroom, see picture.

It seems highly unlikely anyone could be fooled into having a positive experience here unless they were completely intoxicated the whole time. Don't book a room in advance, you will be charged for a full night no matter how far in advance you cancel (it does state this in the booking terms). I tried to cancel one of the nights I booked well in advance, but was still charged for it because the owner claimed he did not remember our phone conversation at which time he did agree to cancel the final night I had reserved with no charge. To confirm and change booking, my wife had to spend a lot of her time just trying to get a hold of anyone at the inn by phone or email. The bar is the only phone number anyone answered and that was later in the evening.
I woke up every morning at around 0400hrs because of the aggressive barking dogs 3 meters from my bed and concurrently the 4 roosters just across the street. They usually quieted down by 0530hrs but then the parrots that the owners kept in a large outdoor cage started their morning squawking ritual at around 0600hrs. I did not get much relaxing sleep.
The restaurant did not give a sustainable vegetarian option for my wife, what they did serve her was awful. My burger was edible at best. There was no breakfast or lunch offered during our stay in mid February. The beer was cold, but I noticed they would "forget" to add alcohol to mixed drinks. Keep in mind the only time to get drinking water here is when the bar was open, which wasn't until 1600hrs.
The "free" wifi was only available when the bar was open, which again, wasn't until 1600hrs. The wifi range did not reach the cabanas. There was a phone, but you needed a calling card.
The cabanas themselves were nice in concept and did look like the pictures minus the mosquito netting, but they smelled musty and the bedding was really gross. I watched the towels get hand washed and sun dried. There were way too many places for bugs to get inside.
The staff was only consistently available late at night. There was never anyone at the front desk during the daytime, unless you count the feral lizards (which was difficult to do because there were so many). When they were available, they were less than accommodating, and I would go as far as to say rude to us.
There is a cab driver they called for us once who overcharged us by a lot compared to other rates we found after the fact.
Here are the only positives: beautiful location because of the close beachfront on the bay, they let you use bicycles to get around. That's it. So if that's all you're looking for, this is your place.

My summary: overpriced (probably because of oceanfront and pool), The owners should clearly not be running an inn or restaurant. I had on overall bad experience staying here and I have fairly low standards, especially if I feel like the merchant is making an honest effort to give me a positive service. I don't usually spend time reviewing goods or services, but I hope my ranting could save others the trouble of a bad experience in an otherwise magical place. I will travel to northern Belize again but I will obviously steer clear of the Corozal Bay Inn. Douglas and Maria should be ashamed of themselves and seriously consider a career change.

Upon arrival no one in office or reception desk which was nasty. Started to leave but owner said they had big super bowl party so we thought we would give them a chance. Big mistake! Pool was nasty and still nasty after four days. Buzzards was walking around pool and bar/restaurant area. The free wi-fi we had to go out on steps to connect.The geikos and dogs keep us awake at night. The towels had holes in them. If you eat the breakfast be ready to be sick! Will not be going back to Corozal Bay Inn!!

My son and I stayed at the Corozal Bay Resort in Cabana # 1 and were very pleased with the pleasant and peaceful surroundings. The views from the cabanna were great, the resturant was charming, quiet and had the best garlic butter shrimp I ever ate in my life!! The cabana was kept spotlessly clean and we were given clean towels and wash cloths each day.

My only word of caution is to leave the outside light off by the front door of the cabannas so the small gnats don't get in when you open the door. I wished that the pool would have been cleaner, as would have liked to have swam while we were there, but the pool had algae and those rotten small gnats floating on top of the water, so we refrained form using the pool. Other than that, we had a great stay with great food and great staff!