From gluten-free pizza crusts to a bistro table, Colleen Chartrand explains how she gets online orders from Florida to Belize—and what she finds locally.
Before moving from Florida to Mahogany Bay, Colleen Chartrand had three questions.
“Where can I have my nails done? Where do I get my hair done and do they have Amazon?”
About 18 months after the move, she has her shopping routine worked out. Most things she and her husband, Patrice, need are available locally. For particular products—including her gluten-free pizza crusts and favourite false eyelashes—she orders online and uses a shipping contact in Florida.
How Her Amazon Deliveries Work
Colleen uses Aisha, who runs a shipping business near their former home in West Palm Beach. Here’s the process:
Order from Amazon. Colleen enters Aisha’s Florida receiving address at checkout.
Combine the purchases. Aisha receives the packages, unpacks them and consolidates the items into shipping boxes.
Wait for dispatch. Colleen says Aisha sends shipments to Belize twice a month.
Allow for the onward journey. Her boxes generally take about seven to ten days after dispatch to reach her water taxi pickup point.
Collect the box. She receives a text when it arrives and goes to pick it up.
The seven to ten days doesn’t include Amazon’s delivery to Florida or the wait for the next shipment. This is Colleen’s experience with her service, rather than a timetable for every Amazon order to Belize.
She says her charge is based on box size. Before ordering through a forwarder, confirm:
The correct receiving address and package labelling.
Departure dates and order cutoffs.
The total charge, including whether customs and island transport are covered.
Any restrictions on your items.
Where you’ll collect the shipment.
“I don’t worry about it at all,” Colleen tells us. “It’s her business.”
What She Orders—and What She Finds Locally
Colleen is gluten intolerant. She can buy gluten-free pasta in Belize, but hadn’t found the pizza crusts and breadcrumbs she wanted when we spoke. She orders those from Amazon, along with her false eyelashes.
“I need my false eyelashes,” she says. “I love my false eyelashes.”
Their shipping contact also handles purchases from other retailers, including boat parts and parts for their Polaris. A recent delivery included a small bistro table, packed for assembly. They say their regular shipments have arrived in good condition, including the fragile food items.
But Patrice’s bigger surprise was how much they could buy in Belize.
“I was under the impression that I had to import everything.”
Having worked in cabinetry, he had specific ideas for their home. They found tile, quartz and granite in Belize City, and the supplier was already accustomed to arranging transport to the island. He was also impressed by the island’s hardware, tile and appliance stores.
His advice: check nearby before organising a mainland trip or an overseas order.
What About Shipping a Whole Household?
Their initial move was a separate undertaking from their regular shopping deliveries:
Two containers: one 20-foot and one 40-foot.
Contents: furniture, cabinetry, appliances and household belongings, plus their boat, floating dock and Polaris.
Packing: the smaller container was placed in their Florida driveway; other goods went to the shipping company for loading.
Help: they used a recommended broker and a crew to unload at their property.
Timing: approximately five weeks, against an expected three.
Damage: Colleen reports one broken wine glass among 225 packed boxes.
Patrice says shipping cost about 30 percent less than he had budgeted. They didn’t provide a total price, so that figure reflects their own estimate rather than a cost another household should expect.
Their advice is to ask people who have already made the move for recommendations. That helped them arrange the containers, find a broker and get everything into the house.
“Do your homework properly and ask somebody that lives here to help you,” Colleen says.
These days, the job is smaller: order what they can’t find locally, wait for the message and pick up the box.
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