We have just returned from a too brief stay at Mata Rocks in San Pedro. Initially, I was kind of disappointed because I thought we could do a Tikal day trip from the resort-did not know the flights to Guatemala were not running anymore. We booked here because of a good rate and airfare from Latin Destinations, they also booked our flights to the island from Belize City and had a tour rep waiting for us at the airport. Mata Rocks sends a cab for you when you get there, so that whole thing was stress free. We tried to get an ocean view balcony but none were available and the pool deck room we had was small but nice. It had a fridge and coffee and good ac. Although there was no private place to sit, we spent most of our time on awakening at the breakfast bar and on the beach anyway. You can get cream for your coffee, fruit, and some sweet rolls that can be “doctored up” with jam for breakfast. Also, get some 1 Barrel rum in town and some orange juice for “breakfast cocktails”. The Squirrel’s Nest bar and Sherlynn are awesome. She knew our “usual” cocktail after 1 day and happy hour is fun, got to meet new friends at the resort as well as locals. They can put all your drinks and tours on your tab, so a bit like a cruise ship! The tours were good, but the guides kind of rushed us on the Lamanai tour, picked us up 30 minutes late and dropped us off 30 minutes early. It rained on us the whole time at the ruins and we only got to see 4 structures and couldn’t climb because we were trying to keep our camera dry so do bring a raincoat even if it seems to be extra baggage. The Belizean style lunch was great, just don’t let them rush you around, we didn’t have watches on and only realized later on that if we had that hour of time total (that we paid for), we could have explored a little more. We went on both the half day snorkeling trips. Both are really different, Hol Chen has the larger fish and huge coral reefs. Our guide, Leonard, was great, catching sharks and rays for us to pet, and getting the Moray eels to come out! The other trip, to Mexico Rocks and Tres Cocos was totally different with smaller, beautiful tropical fish and the most gorgeous coral gardens I have ever seen. We got dropped off a little early on this one too, and I heard another couple with us complain to the manager. There is sea grass everywhere at the resort, though they try to clean it everyday, but you can walk just past Banana Beach or go off the next pier down to get away from it. You never have to fight over a chair or palapa here and there are plenty of tables to set your stuff on. The tile footbaths outside the pool area are a nice touch and we had a lot of fun taking bikes everywhere-take number 3 if you are short like me-it also has a basket for rum. We walked all the way north to town and all the way south on the beach. Go to the Croc-Pit at 4:30 just south of the resort, it was an incredible show. The maid service was very unobtrusive and considerate-they don’t wake you up here-they know when you are out of the way, it is that small of a place, which is kind of cool. You don’t need nice clothes or more than 2 pairs of shoes, but we had plenty of space for clothes in the wardrobe. The hotel supplies body wash, shampoo, and conditioner and really cool soaps. Go to Rico’s, which was our favorite restaurant on the island, beautiful setting, great service, and amazing food. Ask for the crab breakfast burrito, it’s not on the menu, but they will make it and it’s great-we even got them to go on our last day. We also like Blue Water Grill for seafood, salads, mojitos, and goat cheese pizza, Carumba’s for fresh seafood and great service. Jambal’s Jerk Pit was cool and had the best conch fritters (and we ate those everywhere). The jerk chicken was good, pork was dry. It is a fun atmosphere and has reggae music. Elvi’s was good, but stone crab was better at Rico’s. Ali Baba’s had great lamb kabob dinners. We weren’t as impressed with The Reef or Caliente, neither were bad, just didn’t blow us away as the others did. We would have loved to have another whole week here to do more snorkling. The town of San Pedro was easy to get around and we were very glad we did not stay on the north part of the island, though we did go over the bridge (which is not a toll bridge, as some locals tried to tell us), we just rode away on our bikes. Although there are beautiful properties there, we found on our trip to Mexico Rocks that they are a long way from town, would have required taxis to go everywhere, whereas we felt the Mata Rocks location was perfect.

Great place for a couple, or young family. Staff is very helpful and Dan [the manager] is able to pick whatever tour you want to go on and book for you. All you have to do is wait on the dock for the tour boat to come pick you up and you are off!!! Palapa bar for breakfast in the morning and Happy Hour at dusk is a great way to meet other like-minded travelers. Pool is a little chilly but very refreshing on hot days. Free bike rental and complimentary breakfast is a big PLUS. We stayed at a higher priced resort on Caye Caulker but this was much better overall.

We stayed at mata rocks for 2 weeks and found it "ok". It's a small hotel and we were hoping to make some good friends at the bar and pool but it somehow never happened. It's very quiet and a bit reserved.

We are divers and we loved the fact that the boat from our dive company "amigos del mar" would pick us up at the Mata dock every morning and bring us there after the dive. That was great. We found out amigos picks everyone up at their dock so it is not unusual.

Room: "ok". There was a very easy-to-use safe at no extra cost. nice big shower but no racks or towell holders. bad: no bureaus at all. for 2 weeks we lived out of the suitcases. There was nowhere to put your stuff at all. Quite disappointing for a 'resort'. They have chairs and tables that are basically a waste of space. There are also lots of ants but we got used to that and I think it's common at every hotel.

Pool/bar: good. small pool. always clean. maintenance guys and everyone friendly and easy to talk to.
breakfast: started out good but quickly got boring. large rolls and toast. they need to make a bit of variety.

a note on getting married; we actually witnessed a marriage ceremony on the mata beach. the bride said Mata arranged everything. She looked smashing and there was a cute palm "isle" created by the florist. But, I was a bit disappointed for a couple of reasons; there was no music. the bride walked down to the small palm arbor to the strains of a radio sitting in the bar playing some rock. then the preacher couldnt be heard over the wind (no microphone or anything). passing boats didnt help the noise level. I suggested to the barmaid to turn off the radio and she just ignored me.

summary; belize is great but mata needs a bit more to live up to a 'resort' moniker.

We recently returned from a 9 day stay at Mata Rocks and couldn't have been happier. We were in an upstairs ocean view room so we could leave the sliding door open and listen to the sound of the waves. All the units have AC but we only used ours twice for a few minutes when the place had been closed up all day, otherwise we never needed it. There is a very nice sized frig and plenty of space- loved the balcony. We were certainly expecting something much smaller and were really pleased we'd chosen to stay here. We did walk into town every day, it's an easy walk along the beach and the onshore breeze makes it much more pleasant than being inland. There is a very large staff for such an intimate hotel ( 9 people) who seemed to be working ceaslessly to keep everything nice. I know some have complained about the seagrass. It's really not a problem, they clean the beach every single day, and the grass is soft enough to walk on (trust me, where we live, we have SeaWeed- with it's zillion flies, I'd trade for wispy seagrass any day!) We arranged to go snorkeling 4 times and also a trip to Tikal that the hotel set up for us, they couldn't have been nicer. You could stay closer to town- but I liked the peacefulness with the easy stroll on the beach when we did want to shop. I would recommend this place to anyone, and we did meet some people who had the misfortune to book at the north end of Ambergris. They couldn't wait to relocate as it's very sparsely populated there and they were horribly bitten by mosquitos, whereas we never had a single bite. For ambiance and location- Mata Rocks was perfect for us.