Belize Island Resort Builds Wellness Stays Around One Pickleball Court
- Prana Maya Island Resort sits on a secluded five-acre island off Placencia, Belize, with 10 oceanfront suites and seven private villas.
- Its single pickleball court is a 3,000-square-foot palapa with open sides and a grass-thatched roof, and paddles and balls are provided.
- The Pickleball Weekly’s article lists no rates.
A Single Court Under A Thatched Roof
The only pickleball court at Prana Maya Island Resort is a custom-built, 3,000-square-foot palapa with open sides and a grass-thatched roof. Dr. Mära Kevan, the resort’s medical director, says that even when it is hot, it is “really temperate and really lovely under the palapa.” Paddles and balls are provided, and TRX suspension straps are available for strength training.
The Pickleball Weekly published the resort profile on October 14. Adriana Falco, the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief, wrote it. She started playing pickleball in 2012.
Getting To The Island
Guests arrive in Belize City, then take a short regional flight or drive the Hummingbird Highway to Placencia. A private boat makes the crossing from the Placencia Peninsula to the island in about three minutes. On arrival, guests receive a refreshing beverage and cool, peppermint-scented towels.
Rooms, Meals And Wellness
The island holds 10 oceanfront suites and seven private villas. The villas have living areas, kitchens and private plunge pools. Breakfast is included with accommodations.
Ingredients are fresh, seasonal and organic where possible, with locally caught seafood, produce from nearby farms and responsibly sourced meats. Women-run agricultural cooperatives supply organic poultry and eggs. Dr. Lyra Spang, a cultural anthropologist who specializes in food-as-medicine traditions, helped bring Belize’s culinary heritage into the resort’s dining.
Activities include yoga, sound healing, spa treatments, a fitness center, paddleboarding, snorkeling, scuba diving, fishing excursions, and Garifuna music and dance experiences. Many are optional. The coastal waters are part of the region around the Belize Barrier Reef, and nearby mangrove ecosystems and communities are open to explore.
The People Behind The Program
Dr. Mära is medical director and wellness visionary at Prana Maya, and founder and chief executive of Mar Wellness Group. She is a primary care physician, a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, and a licensed acupuncturist with more than two decades of clinical and functional medicine experience. Before medicine, she spent a decade managing travel for The Rolling Stones. The resort’s founders are Steve Hall and David Keener.
She describes the island’s quiet this way: “You literally hear the lapping waves of the water.” The goal, she says, is for guests to “feel better when they leave than when they arrived.”
The article gives no costs or rates, so players planning a trip will need to ask the resort for pricing. What it does describe is a resort where the pickleball sits alongside a spa, a kitchen built on local ingredients and a boat ride of about three minutes from the mainland.
