So most tourists (but not all!) stay on either West Bay Beach or in the West End. West Bay Beach is going to have mostly resorts (no major chains, though) and the beach is just beautiful. The West End has a beach at Half Moon Bay (and it's super nice) but it's also very much a community beach shared by locals and tourists. While you will have the beach right in front of your resort if you stay on West Bay Beach, if you stay in the West End you will probably have to walk a bit to get to the beach at Half Moon Bay.
Double check, but even if you stay on West Bay Beach, few resorts have rooms that are right on the beach with that view. And if they do they will charge for that! Usually you walk through the resort to get to the beach where they will all have umbrellas and chairs, etc... out for guests to use.
Most of the West End is docks and bulkheads. It's a great place to stay if you are diving and want some nightlife as there are a lot of bars, restaurants, shops, etc... there.
West Bay is all about the beach. There are plenty of dive shops there as well but your dining options will largely be the resorts. To be clear, this is not bad! Some of them have great restaurants and there are other restaurants on the roads behind the beach (Celeste's comes to mind and that is pretty good).
If you want to snorkel, West Bay beach is probably the best, especially right in front of the Grand Roatan. The reef is super close to shore. The West End is not as good for snorkeling but people do snorkel in Half Moon Bay. I think the challenge is boat traffic there.
Either place is great, though! It just depends on how important the beach is to you vs how important shops and a variety of restaurants and bars is.
Before my wife was a diver, I would go down by myself and stay at a place in the West End because it was inexpensive and convenient. Basically a hotel built on top of the dive shop. I would dive the two morning dives and one afternoon dive, take a nap, get some dinner, go to sleep, and repeat.
But when my wife came down, we'd move to West Bay Beach and stay at the Grand Roatan as a treat for her. That place is not cheap. I didn't dive there but we would snorkel off the beach.
Finally regardless of which location you stay at (assuming you stay in one of these two places and not somewhere else), you can easily take a water taxi back back and forth. So if you do stay on West Bay beach, try to pick an afternoon to go into the West End and check it out. Or vice versa.
I can not help you on air travel except to say that if you do need to make a transfer, try to give yourself time between flights. With the flight disruptions that are happening right now, you don't want a delayed flight out of Canada to cause you to miss your connecting flight into Roatan.
I have some Canadian friends who would fly from Vancouver to Houston and then on to Roatan with a one hour connection. But that Vancouver/Houston flight was a red eye (last flight of the day) so any delays that aircraft experienced before it got to Vancouver were just going to stack up. They really gave themselves limited time between flights and they had to go through U.S. customs. Better to chill an extra hour in Houston or Miami than miss that flight to Roatan only to find the next flight is two days later or something.
Good luck!