Caye Caulker to San Pedro Water Taxi: Schedule, Fares and the Fees at Checkout

Re-checked live on 24 September 2026 on both water-taxi operators’ own booking systems, for travel on Wednesday 7 October 2026. Tropic Air’s booking engine answered our searches for this route with a CAPTCHA page that day, so its figures further down are from our 6 September 2026 search and are marked as such.

Two operators run this crossing. San Pedro Belize Express: 9 sailings to San Pedro and 8 back, USD 29.00 one way. Caribbean Sprinter: 6 each way, From US$32.00 one way. That is 15 crossings a day up to San Pedro and 14 back. The headline fares are not what you pay: San Pedro Belize Express adds two fees at checkout that Caribbean Sprinter says it does not charge, and once they are in, the cheaper headline is the dearer ticket for every adult party size we priced.

The two companies do not agree about how long the crossing takes, and one of them does not agree with itself.

Departure times

Caye Caulker → San Pedro

San Pedro → Caye Caulker

The last boat north is nearly two hours later than the last boat south. Caribbean Sprinter’s 6:25 PM out of Caye Caulker is the final crossing of the day in either direction; the last one back to Caye Caulker is San Pedro Belize Express’s 4:30 PM, 1 hour 55 minutes earlier — our arithmetic on the two timetables.

Belize Express times come from the operator’s printed schedule, a single image whose HTTP metadata gives a last-modified date of 22 July 2025, and were confirmed on 24 September 2026 against its live booking engine, which returned exactly these departures for 7 October 2026. Sprinter times come from its sailings page and were confirmed against its booking engine, which also returned exactly these six each way.

One caveat on the 7:00 AM, and we cannot resolve it. Belize Express’s printed schedule marks that sailing "(Chetumal days only)", and its international run is marked “OPERATES 3 DAYS ONLY : TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS AND SUNDAYS”. On 24 September 2026 we ran the same Caye Caulker → San Pedro query for Monday 5, Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October 2026 — only one of which is a Tuesday — and the engine offered the 7:00 AM at USD 29.00 on all three. It did the same on 6 September for 21, 22 and 23 September. Either the printed caveat is stale or the engine is selling a sailing the schedule does not promise. The operator publishes both, so we are printing both.

Sprinter’s sailings page now carries an operating-days statement it did not carry when we last read it on 26 August 2026: “Our sailing schedule remains the same, seven days a week.”

Fares

Belize Express returned USD 29.00 on every one of its nine Caye Caulker → San Pedro sailings and on all eight back. Sprinter was a flat From US$32.00 on all six northbound sailings, and varied southbound — 06:00 US$30.50, 07:00 US$32.00, 08:00 US$31.50, 10:00 US$31.50, 13:00 US$30.50, 16:00 US$32.00. The word “From” is Sprinter’s own, and its booking page states rates are “the total trip cost per passenger, including all ancillary fees, charges and applicable government fees & taxes.”

Belize Express’s two child fares only show up at the passenger step of its booking flow. Belize Express’s FAQ names a children’s category — ages 4 to 10 — and does not say what it costs. Its search-results page shows one price and footnotes it “Base fare shown may not reflect all applicable discounts.” We got the amounts by carrying a one-adult-plus-one-child booking through to the passenger-information step, where the engine itemises the ticket types: OW Child (4 to 10) USD 12.50 against OW Adult (11+) USD 29.00, and RT Child USD 25.00 against RT Adult USD 37.00.

A Belize Express return is not two one-ways. Two separate adult one-way tickets are USD 58.00; the round-trip ticket is USD 37.00, USD 21.00 less — our arithmetic on the operator’s own two fares. Sprinter’s round trip, returning on Sunday 11 October, showed From US$40.50, with totals of US$40.50 to US$42.00 depending on the return sailing; two of its one-ways come to US$62.50–64.00 — its flat US$32.00 northbound plus a southbound fare of US$30.50 to US$32.00, our arithmetic on its own figures. When we priced a Saturday return on 6 September, every return sailing showed US$42.00.

What Belize Express adds at checkout

Belize Express itemises two charges on the passenger-information page that appear nowhere in the fare. These are the amounts that page displayed in a web browser:

Each row is a separate booking run from a clean session on 24 September 2026; the totals are our arithmetic on the operator’s own line items. We stopped at this step and did not reach payment.

The Port Authority Fee behaves simply: USD 1.50 per passenger per leg, in all five cases.

The Internet Processing Fee displayed is 11 per cent of the ticket subtotal in all five cases — USD 3.19 on USD 29.00, USD 9.57 on USD 87.00, USD 4.57 on USD 41.50; the percentage is our arithmetic on the displayed figures. The 11 is written into the fee’s row in the page’s code as incfees="11". That same code also carries larger fee figures, multiplied again by the number of passengers (USD 28.71 for three adults), which the page’s own script replaces with the 11 per cent figure before anything is shown. Because we did not reach payment, we have not confirmed which amount is finally charged. Nothing in the visible text of the site states the rate or what the fee pays for.

Caribbean Sprinter’s booking page states the opposite position in as many words: “There are no processing fees or charges, and pricing includes all applicable government fees & taxes.”

Which is actually cheaper

Belize Express has the lower headline fare — USD 29.00 against From US$32.00. On the totals the two booking systems displayed before payment, it is the dearer ticket at every adult party size:

The last row is the exception, and it turns on a published price rather than a boat. Belize Express publishes a USD 12.50 child fare; Sprinter says “discounts may apply for youth passesngers” — its spelling — and publishes no youth price at all, so its column here is two adult-priced seats. If Sprinter quotes you a youth fare at the counter, this row can move. Every other row is one operator’s total against the other’s, both priced on 24 September 2026 for the same sailing date.

These are online prices. Belize Express calls one of its two add-ons an Internet Processing Fee, which implies buying at the pier is different, but it publishes no walk-up price to compare — see the gaps below.

How long the crossing takes

These are two firms timing their own boats. There is nothing to reconcile between them — use the figure for the operator you booked.

The real disagreement is inside one company. Belize Express’s FAQ says “From Caye Caulker to San Pedro (vice versa) – approximately 30 mins”, both directions. Its own booking engine returns 45m on eight of the nine northbound sailings, and its arrival times back that up: the 8:45 AM is timed into San Pedro at 9:30, while the 6:00 AM the other way arrives 6:30. We are printing the engine’s figure because it is per-sailing, dated and transactional, and naming the FAQ rather than deleting it — the operator publishes both, so the 45 minutes is not settled.

Sprinter states, verbatim, “The sailing duration for Caye Caulker to San Pedro is approximately 30 minutes” and the same for the reverse, adding that “Sailing duration will vary based on sea, wind & other weather conditions.” It prints an approximate arrival against every departure — 08:45 arriving 09:15, and so on.

Terminals: four of them, not two

The two operators use different piers at both ends — four terminals on this one route, and not one of the four is shared.

Sprinter’s addresses are on its sailings page, but not in the text — they sit inside the map’s JavaScript in the page source, which is why the same page looked address-less when we read it on 26 August 2026. Belize Express’s come from its contact page, which calls the Coconut Drive building “our new San Pedro Terminal”.

Sprinter publishes terminal hours for Caye Caulker and for Belize City (6:00 AM – 6:30 PM) and none for San Pedro. Belize Express publishes none at any port.

Luggage, and what happens if they lose it

Belize Express charges oversized or overweight luggage at “standard cargo rates” and does not publish what those are; its cargo service is capped at 150 lbs and needs checking in 30 minutes ahead, and bags left behind pick up a $5 BZD overnight storage fee. Sprinter’s Contract of Carriage excludes “boxes, cartons, barrels, sacks, garbage bags, loose goods, or other non-standard containers” from the definition of luggage — they may be refused or treated as cargo — and lets round-trip passengers reuse the tag on the way back. Sprinter’s cap is four times the other operator’s, on our arithmetic of the two published figures.

Travelling with a dog is one of the few things this route is priced for. Belize Express publishes a kennel rental fee route by route, and San Pedro ↔ Caye Caulker is $7.50 USD, with a $2.50 USD discount if the pet travels in its own kennel. Pets must be under 90 lbs and in a carrier or kennel; certified service dogs pay no kennel rental. Sprinter asks you to notify customer service in advance, offers doggy life vests and soft muzzles, and publishes no pet price.

Flying instead: five minutes, at roughly twice the fare

Caye Caulker has an airstrip (CUK) and San Pedro has one (SPR), and Tropic Air flies between them nonstop.

Searched live on 6 September 2026 for travel on 23 September 2026, a date that has now passed. We tried to re-run the search on 24 September 2026 and Tropic Air’s booking engine answered our search for this route with a CAPTCHA page, so this table has not been re-confirmed since 6 September. On that search the engine’s flexible-date strip showed the same From USD 62.50 on every day from Sunday 20 to Saturday 26 September, in both directions. “From” is the airline’s own word: Tropic Air’s fares page describes six fare products — Lite, Everyday, Flexi, Flexi Plus, Local and Business — and their baggage and change rules, and prices none of them, saying “Start your booking search to see available fares and benefits for your trip.” So there is no published tariff to check the engine against.

Against Belize Express’s USD 29.00, unchanged on 24 September, Tropic Air’s 6 September fare made the five-minute flight at least 2.15 times the boat fare — our arithmetic, and a floor rather than a figure, because 62.50 is a “from” price. The water taxis run 15 times a day northbound against the airline’s six.

Maya Island Air is not a usable alternative on this hop from what it publishes. Its whole published timetable is nine graphics — a cover card, seven timetables and a reservations card — and all nine still returned Last-Modified: Wed, 08 Feb 2023 when we requested them one by one on 6 September and again on 24 September 2026. We opened all nine on 24 September. Its Caye Caulker timetables cover Belize City Municipal to and from Caye Caulker (three flights out, four back) and the international airport to and from Caye Caulker; none of the seven timetables shows a Caye Caulker–San Pedro flight. What each carrier does and does not publish about its network is set out on our getting around Belize by domestic flight page.

What the operators don’t publish

These are gaps in the companies’ own published information. We looked and they are not there.

• Any Caribbean Sprinter child, youth or resident fare. Its booking page mentions youth discounts and sends Belize residents and frequent riders to a section behind a username and password. No amount is public.
• Any resident rate from San Pedro Belize Express either. Its engine prices Adult (11+) and Child (4 to 10) and nothing else; it collects nationality at the passenger step and shows no rate tied to it.
• A walk-up price from either operator. Belize Express’s Internet Processing Fee implies buying at the pier costs something different. Neither company publishes a counter price to compare.
• Any explanation of the Internet Processing Fee. The checkout shows the amount; the 11 per cent rate appears only in the page’s code, and nothing says what the fee pays for.
• Any bicycle policy from either operator. Belize Express’s luggage and cargo page and Sprinter’s Contract of Carriage both go into detail on bags, boxes and pets, and neither mentions a bicycle or prices one.
• Any golf-cart shipping service or price between the two islands. Belize Express caps cargo at 150 lbs; Sprinter treats non-standard items as cargo “subject to separate rules and charges” without publishing them.
• Sprinter’s San Pedro terminal hours, and Belize Express’s terminal hours anywhere.
• What Belize Express’s “standard cargo rates” are, for a bag over 23 kg.
• An exact Tropic Air fare. The engine quotes “From”, and the airline’s own site prices nothing.

One more thing the operator publishes and probably should not: the checkout page for a Caye Caulker → San Pedro booking carries the note “The last vessel leaves at 5:30 pm sharp” — while the same engine is selling a 6:15 PM Caye Caulker departure on the screen above it. 5:30 PM is the last departure on the Belize City to Caye Caulker run, which the same printed schedule covers, so it reads as boilerplate from the other end of the network. It is still what a passenger buying the 6:15 PM is shown.

How we researched this

Scope: this page reports source research, not an on-site test. We checked the booking systems, timetables and official pages named below on the date shown; calculations, unresolved disagreements and information we could not verify are labelled explicitly.

On 6 September 2026 we ran real bookings on both water-taxi operators’ own systems and on Tropic Air’s, priced for travel on 23 September 2026. On 24 September 2026 we re-ran every water-taxi booking, priced for travel on 7 October 2026 (returning 11 October); Tropic Air’s engine served a CAPTCHA that day and was not re-run. Fares, crossing durations and the fee breakdown come from those live engines — the child fares and the fee line items specifically from the passenger-information step, which is the first screen that itemises them, as that screen displays them in a web browser after its own script has run. Timetables come from Belize Express’s printed schedule image and Sprinter’s sailings page, each confirmed against the same operator’s engine. Child-category rules, the airport-adjacent policies, luggage limits, liability caps and pet fees come from the operators’ own FAQ, luggage and contract-of-carriage pages. Terminal addresses come from Belize Express’s contact page and, for Sprinter, from the map JavaScript in its sailings page source. The Maya Island Air staleness comes from HTTP metadata on each of its nine schedule images, requested individually.

The 7:00 AM question was checked on purpose: we ran the identical query on three consecutive dates, 21, 22 and 23 September 2026, and again on 24 September for 5, 6 and 7 October 2026, to see whether the engine honoured the printed “Chetumal days only” note. It did not vary.

Where the two operators state different things, we print both rather than choosing. Where one contradicts itself, we say so and name both of its own sources.

What we did not check

Separate from the list above, because these are our limits and not the operators’: we priced one travel date, a Wednesday in the low season, and did not test whether fares move by season or day of week. We priced up to three adults and did not test larger parties. We did not complete a purchase on either system, so every figure here is what the booking system displayed before payment; Belize Express’s page code carries larger Internet Processing Fee figures than it displays, and we did not see which one the payment step charges.

Figures on this page labelled our arithmetic are calculated by us from the sourced inputs cited below — totals, comparisons, percentages, differences and per-person conversions. Every other figure is reproduced as its named source published it.

Sources

• San Pedro Belize Express — online ticketing — the USD 29.00 adult fare, the USD 37.00 round trip, both timetables as the engine returned them, the 45m/30m crossing times, and the 7:00 AM sailing on three consecutive dates, in two separate weeks
• San Pedro Belize Express — passenger-information step — the USD 12.50 and USD 25.00 child fares, every Internet Processing Fee and Port Authority Fee figure, and the “last vessel leaves at 5:30 pm sharp” note. This screen is reached from a live booking and will not open on its own; it is the fourth step after choosing a route, a date and a sailing
• San Pedro Belize Express — printed schedule — both timetables and the "(Chetumal days only)" mark on the 7:00 AM; the schedule image itself carries a last-modified date of 22 July 2025
• San Pedro Belize Express — FAQ — the children’s category (ages 4 to 10) with no price, and the “approximately 30 mins” statement its own engine does not match northbound
• San Pedro Belize Express — Luggage, Cargo & Travel Information — 23 kg / 50 lbs allowance, 15-minute check-in, the $50 USD liability cap, the $5 BZD storage fee, the 150 lb cargo limit and the $7.50 USD kennel rental
• San Pedro Belize Express — contact — the Avenida Hicaco and Coconut Drive terminal addresses and both phone numbers
• Caribbean Sprinter — sailings schedule — both timetables, the 0h 30m ±5 min durations, the seven-days-a-week statement, and the terminal addresses, phones and hours held in the page’s map JavaScript
• Caribbean Sprinter — booking — the From US$32.00 and US$30.50–32.00 fares, the From US$40.50 round trip, the “approximately 30 minutes” quote, the all-fees-included statement and the “no processing fees or charges” statement
• Caribbean Sprinter — Contract of Carriage — the luggage definition, the carry-on and backpack rule, and the $200 USD lost-baggage figure
• Caribbean Sprinter — On-Board Experience — the 60-to-110-passenger vessel range and the pet policy
• Tropic Air — booking engine — six nonstops each way, 00h05 travel time and the From USD 62.50 fare, searched 6 September 2026 for 23 September 2026
• Tropic Air — fares — the six fare products, and the absence of any price
• Maya Island Air — flight schedule — nine schedule graphics (a cover card, seven timetables and a reservations card), all last modified 8 February 2023; its two Caye Caulker timetables (Municipal and international airport) serve Belize City only

Last verified: 24 September 2026, except Tropic Air’s fare and flight times, last read 6 September 2026. Fares, timetables and checkout fees change without notice.

Written by Estuardo Enriquez. This site is independent, carries no affiliate relationship with any operator named here, and is not connected to any previous owner of this domain.