WavyGravy
Registered
I am an inexperienced diver, and this was my first pure diving vacation (as opposed to diving while going to a destination wedding), so go easy on me. I noticed there isn't much out on the Henry Morgan, so I thought I would share a short review of what I thought of it.
The Resort
Not listed as a Diving Resort, some friends and I stayed at the Henry Morgan as it was inexpensive and had a great beach for the non-divers in our group.
The Henry Morgan is not as fancy as the large mega-resorts of Mexico and D.R., but it is clean, rooms are air-conditioned and bug free, the beach is nice, and the staff is friendly.
I found it more like being at a cottage (but on the ocean) where someone does all the cooking and cleaning for you. If you go with this in mind, you will not be disappointed.
The Good
-Rooms are simple, but clean and air conditioned, with a TV. Nothing fancy, but you have all you need and are comfortable. Who spends their vacation in their room anyway? Each room also has a back balcony with hammocks on which to pass time reading while your significant other gets ready.
-The food is ok. We had some great fish. After a week, it can be repetitive, but there are some good seafood restaurants in town for some variety.
-The dive operation was great (see below).
The Bad
-The only thing in the mini-fridge in your room is two small bottles of water. They are not replenished additional bottles of water need to be purchased by you from the bar and brought back to your room.
-The bar closes at midnight (the beach bar even earlier), so if you are looking to have a fun night, it had better start early. I guess as a diver this can be good; getting a good night sleep before a morning dive no longer means missing the night out with non-diving friends.
-Meals are scheduled 3 times a day, and there is no chance to get food on the resort other than scheduled times. There is no room service to get around this. :shocked2:
-Although the buffet is pretty good, not everyone will be pleased (of course). Unlike larger resorts, there are no other style of restaurants (like French, or Japanese etc) on the resort to choose from for variety; just the buffet and a beach restaurant (cost not included).
-Noise - this is a noisy resort. They play that horrible generic Caribbean resort music (or Devil Music as we call it) on the beach and in the bar constantly. Really, really annoying. Call me a grouch, but when I am on the beach I only want to hear waves breaking on the sand, not that annoying crap.
Also, the walkway to the bedrooms is a lot like a dock, and the noise from people walking goes right into the rooms. We were lucky enough to be towards the end of the line and on the 2nd floor, so it was minimized. However, I can only imagine how it would be on the ground floor in a higher traffic area in the morning with kids running around when you want to sleep in, or at night when people like me are stammering to our rooms with our drunk friends later at night.
-One of my travel companions found that wake-up calls were unreliable, although I found the opposite.
-Checking in was a pain as rooms were not ready and some of the personal safes in the rooms had problems.
-BUGS; being from Canada we are used to clouds of bugs that you can see, hear, and feel. In Roatan you see nothing and might feel some bites on your lower legs, but use your DEET, they are there!
One day we thought "Why are we putting bug repellent on, I haven't seen anything?!" and we stopped using our repellent. Big mistake. Within a day or so the ladies were ravaged with bites, their lower legs and backs covered in itchy bumps.
I didn't find the bites as bad as Canadian mosquitoes, and my bites were gone in a day or two, but the women were not as fortunate. It's just that you don't know they are there and that you are getting that bitten until it is too late!
I know I have listed a lot of negatives, more than positives, but as a demanding person, these are things that stick out in my head. Overall I had a positive experience with the resort and would go again, especially considering how inexpensive it was compared to other resorts I have stayed at.
TGI Diving
The diving in Roatan is truly amazing; I didn't want to leave. After my last vacation of disappointing diving among the barren rocks of Punta Cana in the DR, I was truly blown away diving in Roatan.
The dive shop on the resort is TGI Diving, a 5-Star PADI shop and Mares dealer. The manager and instructors were very friendly and I really enjoyed diving with them, and hope to dive with them again. Although most of them are Italian (it is an Italian resort, only one instructor was a local), almost all of them speak fluent English, so there were no problems there. Thanks to Oliver, Sergio, Linday, Enrico, and Chiara (apologies for any bad spelling) for an amazing week of diving.
They offer 3 scheduled dives a day (2 morning, 1 afternoon), plus a few night dives and shark dives during the week. Some other guests told me they were able to go shore diving (the Marine reserve is right there), but I never did and didn't see it advertised; so don't hold me to it.
Perhaps it is the time of year (even though the weather was beautiful) but the dive boats were almost empty. I had numerous dives where there would only be 6-8 of us on a large boat meant for many more people.
Rented equipment was fine for the most part, with the exception of one leaky tank that I had problems with after a dive, and a reg that free-flowed on the surface when my buddy first jumped in. The reg was quickly replaced with another and the dive went on without any problems.
After reading about the tragic incident in the Maldives with the bad air here:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ac...-baani-adventurer-incident-22-may-2008-a.html
and subsequent reviews of a portable CO detector here (thanks DandyDon):
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...able-co-monitor-tester-field-experiences.html
I ordered a SCUBA CO kit (the same detector Don reviewed, but with some other stuff to make it easier to use for SCUBA I will do a separate review when I catch up on Christmas shopping) and took it with me to Roatan and tested the air on my first dive and was happy to see the air at TGI came back at 0 PPM. Nice.
Overall
As a resort, not as nice as some of the larger resorts in Mexico or DR, and not a pure 5-dives-a-day place like some other Roatan resorts like CCV etc, Henry Morgan was a good compromise for a mixed group of divers and non-divers.
I did my 2 or 3 amazing dives a day, but spent enough time with my non-diving GF on the beach to keep her from leaving me for a suave Honduran bartender. Divers were happy with the diving, non-divers were happy with the beach.
I know I will go back to Roatan, but there is just so much else to see first...
The Resort
Not listed as a Diving Resort, some friends and I stayed at the Henry Morgan as it was inexpensive and had a great beach for the non-divers in our group.
The Henry Morgan is not as fancy as the large mega-resorts of Mexico and D.R., but it is clean, rooms are air-conditioned and bug free, the beach is nice, and the staff is friendly.
I found it more like being at a cottage (but on the ocean) where someone does all the cooking and cleaning for you. If you go with this in mind, you will not be disappointed.
The Good
-Rooms are simple, but clean and air conditioned, with a TV. Nothing fancy, but you have all you need and are comfortable. Who spends their vacation in their room anyway? Each room also has a back balcony with hammocks on which to pass time reading while your significant other gets ready.
-The food is ok. We had some great fish. After a week, it can be repetitive, but there are some good seafood restaurants in town for some variety.
-The dive operation was great (see below).
The Bad
-The only thing in the mini-fridge in your room is two small bottles of water. They are not replenished additional bottles of water need to be purchased by you from the bar and brought back to your room.
-The bar closes at midnight (the beach bar even earlier), so if you are looking to have a fun night, it had better start early. I guess as a diver this can be good; getting a good night sleep before a morning dive no longer means missing the night out with non-diving friends.
-Meals are scheduled 3 times a day, and there is no chance to get food on the resort other than scheduled times. There is no room service to get around this. :shocked2:
-Although the buffet is pretty good, not everyone will be pleased (of course). Unlike larger resorts, there are no other style of restaurants (like French, or Japanese etc) on the resort to choose from for variety; just the buffet and a beach restaurant (cost not included).
-Noise - this is a noisy resort. They play that horrible generic Caribbean resort music (or Devil Music as we call it) on the beach and in the bar constantly. Really, really annoying. Call me a grouch, but when I am on the beach I only want to hear waves breaking on the sand, not that annoying crap.
Also, the walkway to the bedrooms is a lot like a dock, and the noise from people walking goes right into the rooms. We were lucky enough to be towards the end of the line and on the 2nd floor, so it was minimized. However, I can only imagine how it would be on the ground floor in a higher traffic area in the morning with kids running around when you want to sleep in, or at night when people like me are stammering to our rooms with our drunk friends later at night.
-One of my travel companions found that wake-up calls were unreliable, although I found the opposite.
-Checking in was a pain as rooms were not ready and some of the personal safes in the rooms had problems.
-BUGS; being from Canada we are used to clouds of bugs that you can see, hear, and feel. In Roatan you see nothing and might feel some bites on your lower legs, but use your DEET, they are there!
One day we thought "Why are we putting bug repellent on, I haven't seen anything?!" and we stopped using our repellent. Big mistake. Within a day or so the ladies were ravaged with bites, their lower legs and backs covered in itchy bumps.
I didn't find the bites as bad as Canadian mosquitoes, and my bites were gone in a day or two, but the women were not as fortunate. It's just that you don't know they are there and that you are getting that bitten until it is too late!
I know I have listed a lot of negatives, more than positives, but as a demanding person, these are things that stick out in my head. Overall I had a positive experience with the resort and would go again, especially considering how inexpensive it was compared to other resorts I have stayed at.
TGI Diving
The diving in Roatan is truly amazing; I didn't want to leave. After my last vacation of disappointing diving among the barren rocks of Punta Cana in the DR, I was truly blown away diving in Roatan.
The dive shop on the resort is TGI Diving, a 5-Star PADI shop and Mares dealer. The manager and instructors were very friendly and I really enjoyed diving with them, and hope to dive with them again. Although most of them are Italian (it is an Italian resort, only one instructor was a local), almost all of them speak fluent English, so there were no problems there. Thanks to Oliver, Sergio, Linday, Enrico, and Chiara (apologies for any bad spelling) for an amazing week of diving.
They offer 3 scheduled dives a day (2 morning, 1 afternoon), plus a few night dives and shark dives during the week. Some other guests told me they were able to go shore diving (the Marine reserve is right there), but I never did and didn't see it advertised; so don't hold me to it.
Perhaps it is the time of year (even though the weather was beautiful) but the dive boats were almost empty. I had numerous dives where there would only be 6-8 of us on a large boat meant for many more people.
Rented equipment was fine for the most part, with the exception of one leaky tank that I had problems with after a dive, and a reg that free-flowed on the surface when my buddy first jumped in. The reg was quickly replaced with another and the dive went on without any problems.
After reading about the tragic incident in the Maldives with the bad air here:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ac...-baani-adventurer-incident-22-may-2008-a.html
and subsequent reviews of a portable CO detector here (thanks DandyDon):
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...able-co-monitor-tester-field-experiences.html
I ordered a SCUBA CO kit (the same detector Don reviewed, but with some other stuff to make it easier to use for SCUBA I will do a separate review when I catch up on Christmas shopping) and took it with me to Roatan and tested the air on my first dive and was happy to see the air at TGI came back at 0 PPM. Nice.
Overall
As a resort, not as nice as some of the larger resorts in Mexico or DR, and not a pure 5-dives-a-day place like some other Roatan resorts like CCV etc, Henry Morgan was a good compromise for a mixed group of divers and non-divers.
I did my 2 or 3 amazing dives a day, but spent enough time with my non-diving GF on the beach to keep her from leaving me for a suave Honduran bartender. Divers were happy with the diving, non-divers were happy with the beach.
I know I will go back to Roatan, but there is just so much else to see first...
