Our Story
Building a tropical sanctuary, for us, our team, and our guests.
We’re the Janssen family, Ryan, Jessica, Fay and Rex. We left the Lower East Side of Manhattan to build a home that represents a simpler way to live—not just for us, but for anyone who needs to get away from their busy lives. Beaches and Dreams is that home!
We didn’t just want a place where people could lie on the beach and eat mediocre resort food either. We wanted a place where the beach was combined with world-class dining and fantastic adventures during the day. We searched the world over, but it wasn’t until we stumbled upon a little Garifuna village in Belize, called Hopkins, that we found what we were looking for.
Hopkins runs along a beautiful 6 mile long beach on the Caribbean Ocean. Crammed into this tiny village are 4 distinct cultures (Garifuna, Maya, Creole, and Mestizo), several fantastic resorts, and dozens of quality restaurants. Together, we’ve created a real community, not a tourist destination. Not only that, because it’s perfectly positioned between the Maya mountains and the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, we’re able to offer dozens of incredible marine, jungle, and cultural adventures right from the resort.
Beaches and Dreams, itself, perfectly combines the three elements of beach, food and adventure we believe makes for a great vacation. Every one of our 11 rooms is within 100 feet of the ocean, 8 are ocean-front, and our Sea Bar is the best party on the beach. Our fine-dining restaurant, The Barracuda, has a long culinary history, stemming from the original owner of the resort, chef, Tony Marsico. Finally, our guests can depart for any adventure, from diving and snorkeling to visiting the Maya ruins of Xunanatunich right from our adventure office Amped Coffee and Tours or our busy pier, both located at the resort.
Most importantly, Beaches and Dreams is about community. We’ve built our team entirely from locals and given them a real sense of ownership, so when you’re at Beaches and Dreams, you’re a guest in our collective home. Coming from NYC to Belize has been quite an adventure, but we believe we’ve become part of something special here, and we welcome you to join us!
Absolutely the most relaxing vacation we have taken. 2 couples, brother/sister and spouse’s. We stayed in the cabana rooms. Spacious room with wonderful location to beach, pool and restaurant, beds are comfortable and the a/c and fans kept the room perfect for us. Loved having the fridge and water bottle in the room. Loved the private patio. Restaurant and bar, lots of food to eat everyday, we had to cut back drastically as there was so much. Enough of a variety for a weeks stay. Loved the fresh made everything. Loved the staff who got to know us pretty quickly. Shout out to Ben, Amanda, Kelsey. Mrs. P. And Doreen. All were great.
Loved that we choose our excursions ahead of time and had our days planned out. We did Bioluminescence tour, snorkeling, ruin and cave tubing, ATV, and monkey river tours. Great tour guides, KMiike was wonderful in the water tours.
We felt spoiled by all staff. We loved the small all inclusive feel over a Larger resort. Would highly recommend the resort and Hopkins village.
Read the information posted when making a reservation, they are very upfront with what is offered, available and costs.
Notes = they can’t control the weather or the sand bugs. But they do offer suggestions for both, so there are no surprise.
Use a golf cart to visit the village, a small town close by.
Thanks so much for a great vacation, will recommend and come back.
