CAPTAIN SINBAD
Contributor
It has been a week since I returned from AKR and a trip report seems overdue. Overall, Roatan as a diving destination exceeded my expectations and so did AKR. The diving was fabulous even though weather wise this was the worst season to be there. Visibility was fifty feet and there were occasional showers. Still we had a lot of fun. AKR exceeded my expectations in all areas except one. I will try to go over the pros and cons so bear with me.
GETTING THERE:
Flights to Roatan are easy to find as there are connections available from Miami as well as Atlanta. My flight was from DC to Atlanta to Roatan. Atlanta airport is a nice place to spend three hours waiting for your plane. Plenty of shops to kill time in. Once you get on the plane to Roatan everyone is a diver. I had the pleasure of meeting some great people on the flight and though they were not heading to AKR we still exchanged phone numbers and I am looking forward to diving with them.
Once you land at the Roatan airport things may seem a bit chaotic. It is a small one room lounge where everyone is dragging their luggage. Baggage is crowding the place and you will find yourself jumping over bags to get from one place to another. A lot of dive bags look exactly the same so I would strongly advise that you put a name tag on your bag. I ended up dragging someone elses bag only to realize that they are going to the same resort so even if I had taken it with me it would have ended up in the same resort. Still … please tag your bag.
AKR people are there on the spot. The moment you come out of customs they are there to take care of your luggage. They will start piling it on the curb. If it seems a bit crude and haphazard, do not worry. They have narrowed it down to a science which they understand very well. Soon a truck will come and you will see your bags being loaded on it. I did not have to wait for long before an AKR bus came and all of the AKR guests boarded the bus. It was a good 20 minute ride to AKR and on the way I learnt that AKR is the biggest resort on the island, capable of hosting 120 people. They are definitely the big boy on the block with Coco View being second with 75 guest capacity?
WELCOME:
The outside of AKR looks more like a prison compound with barbed wire fence and a gate with a sentry. Once you go in you will find yourself in a lush green tropical jungle paradise. We were instructed to go up the stairs to the lounge for our cocktail and welcome as our luggage will be taken straight to our rooms. This is another reason why it is important to put name tags on your luggage. Without those the AKR people will have no idea where to take your luggage and you will have to do it yourself.
We were greeted by Yolanda who gave us maps and explained where everything on the resort was situated and how they plan on serving us. It is important to listen to this briefing because AKR offers a whole lot other than diving. They have wake boarding, Kayaking, tours to another island, fish identification presentation, picnics, dance nights, shark dives, dolphin dives etc. Most of it is free! During this briefing you will be given forms to fill out which will have your departure flight information. It is important to be accurate about this because they will plan on taking your luggage with your minimal involvement and this information that you will fill out on your forms is all they will have.
ACCOMMODATION:
Various kinds is available. My dive buddy and I were first led into an ocean side room with no AC. It was November and was not uncomfortably hot and if we had stayed in that room it would still have been fun but we realized that we had an upgrade. Soon we were taken to a hillside room with AC. The hill side rooms are a climb but they have a wooden stairs that connect hillside rooms to dining area and main lobby so it was not too bad. You do not have to carry your luggage as they do it for you. The rooms have all the luxuries of a low end hotel room with fresh towels, shampoo, soap and daily room service. This was a pleasant surprise to me because I had lived in Utila for a week and all I had was a bed with a single pillow and rotating pedestal fan! This was luxury compared to what I had in Utila.
DIVING OPERATION:
If ease of diving is what you seek then I do not see how things can be easier. They carry tanks for you, assemble the gear for you and pamper you like anything. On the first day of your dive you will be assigned a gear locked right next to the boat. Your gear goes in it after the dive and it picked up from there the next morning. AKR is not about shore diving. They have a shore diving site but the place offers 3 boat dives a day so that satisfies most people’s appetite for daily diving. AKR has a very large boat fleet so on your first day you will be assigned a boat. Each boat goes out 3 times a day so you have to go to the chalk board and put your name on the boat for the dives that you plan on going that day. Everything is very systematic and methodical.
If you are diving nitrox then it is 120 USD for the whole week for unlimited nitrox. Their nitrox fill station has tanks and analyzers so you are required to analyze, label and then leave your tanks. Once analyzed you will find them already loaded on to your boat wondering how they got there. The magic of diving here is that things get done for you.
Boat rides are short and you always come back for surface interval.
DIVE SITES:
November was a bad time of the year for Roatan and I wish I had known that before I left. The vis was crappy by Roatan standards 40 – 50 feet and there were only a couple of days when the sun was out. Overall Roatan did not have the never ending steep walls that Utila had but nevertheless, its bottom topography was awesome. There were so many swim-throughs and reefs that it was truly an amazing experience. Almost every dive site presented us with different topography. Marine life included, usual reef fish with turtles, eels, lobsters, groupers and a spotted ray.
Wreck dives were also fun. We did the Odyssey and the Aguila and they were great wreck dives.
Shark dive: This was the highlight of the trip for me. The sea conditions were very rough and we were told that they were about to cancel these dives but since most people were experienced, they went ahead with it. It was a long boat ride and when we jumped in, the current was strong. We literally had to pull ourselves down using the horizontal line but it was still a lot of fun. Sergei and Marcos were awesome and we had a lot of sharks.
They make you sit down in two lines and the sharks are already there the moment they hear you splash. Before opening the bucket of chum, divers have a chance to free swim with them. When you settle down, that is when they open the chum bucket and the sharks go crazy. Amazing experience.
DINING:
If there was anything that this place can improve upon then it is food quantity. It is not buffet style so you choose a soup or a salad, followed by a main course followed by a desert. The main courses were fine dining quantity and not fast food quantity or what some of us normally eat. I understand that I eat slightly larger meals so I thought that I should not mention this in my trip report but I was not the only one feeling undernourished. I found some other people literally haggling with the waiters for more food and they were eventually served, but with reluctance.
I made two trips to West End and ate the way I wanted to. While we were told that there is crime and the barbed wire fence was an indication of that, people that I came across were exceptionally friendly. The best meal that I had was grilled chicken in West End and the whole meal costed no more than 10 USD and it was fast food quantity that I am used to.
If serving portions could be increased then this place would leave absolutely nothing to be desired.
CONCLUSION:
Roatan is an amazing place to dive. The underwater terrain, corals and bottom topography made it worth my while. AKR is an amazingly run establishment and I am glad that I met some great people there. I must confess that I only went there because they were offering the TWO FOR ONE special and had the price been the original price then I would go somewhere elsefor that money. For my next trip to Roatan, I am more inclined to stay at the West End and use some of the cheaper accommodation and dive packages that are situated right in the hustle bustle of West End. Splash Dive Inn seemed like an interesting place. The street food that you buy at West End appeals to me more than the fine dining sized portions I had. You also have the choice to buy whatever you would like to eat rather than be at the mercy of the chef. If you like an all inclusive place where all decisions have been made for you then AKR is the place to go.
GETTING THERE:
Flights to Roatan are easy to find as there are connections available from Miami as well as Atlanta. My flight was from DC to Atlanta to Roatan. Atlanta airport is a nice place to spend three hours waiting for your plane. Plenty of shops to kill time in. Once you get on the plane to Roatan everyone is a diver. I had the pleasure of meeting some great people on the flight and though they were not heading to AKR we still exchanged phone numbers and I am looking forward to diving with them.
Once you land at the Roatan airport things may seem a bit chaotic. It is a small one room lounge where everyone is dragging their luggage. Baggage is crowding the place and you will find yourself jumping over bags to get from one place to another. A lot of dive bags look exactly the same so I would strongly advise that you put a name tag on your bag. I ended up dragging someone elses bag only to realize that they are going to the same resort so even if I had taken it with me it would have ended up in the same resort. Still … please tag your bag.
AKR people are there on the spot. The moment you come out of customs they are there to take care of your luggage. They will start piling it on the curb. If it seems a bit crude and haphazard, do not worry. They have narrowed it down to a science which they understand very well. Soon a truck will come and you will see your bags being loaded on it. I did not have to wait for long before an AKR bus came and all of the AKR guests boarded the bus. It was a good 20 minute ride to AKR and on the way I learnt that AKR is the biggest resort on the island, capable of hosting 120 people. They are definitely the big boy on the block with Coco View being second with 75 guest capacity?
WELCOME:
The outside of AKR looks more like a prison compound with barbed wire fence and a gate with a sentry. Once you go in you will find yourself in a lush green tropical jungle paradise. We were instructed to go up the stairs to the lounge for our cocktail and welcome as our luggage will be taken straight to our rooms. This is another reason why it is important to put name tags on your luggage. Without those the AKR people will have no idea where to take your luggage and you will have to do it yourself.
We were greeted by Yolanda who gave us maps and explained where everything on the resort was situated and how they plan on serving us. It is important to listen to this briefing because AKR offers a whole lot other than diving. They have wake boarding, Kayaking, tours to another island, fish identification presentation, picnics, dance nights, shark dives, dolphin dives etc. Most of it is free! During this briefing you will be given forms to fill out which will have your departure flight information. It is important to be accurate about this because they will plan on taking your luggage with your minimal involvement and this information that you will fill out on your forms is all they will have.
ACCOMMODATION:
Various kinds is available. My dive buddy and I were first led into an ocean side room with no AC. It was November and was not uncomfortably hot and if we had stayed in that room it would still have been fun but we realized that we had an upgrade. Soon we were taken to a hillside room with AC. The hill side rooms are a climb but they have a wooden stairs that connect hillside rooms to dining area and main lobby so it was not too bad. You do not have to carry your luggage as they do it for you. The rooms have all the luxuries of a low end hotel room with fresh towels, shampoo, soap and daily room service. This was a pleasant surprise to me because I had lived in Utila for a week and all I had was a bed with a single pillow and rotating pedestal fan! This was luxury compared to what I had in Utila.
DIVING OPERATION:
If ease of diving is what you seek then I do not see how things can be easier. They carry tanks for you, assemble the gear for you and pamper you like anything. On the first day of your dive you will be assigned a gear locked right next to the boat. Your gear goes in it after the dive and it picked up from there the next morning. AKR is not about shore diving. They have a shore diving site but the place offers 3 boat dives a day so that satisfies most people’s appetite for daily diving. AKR has a very large boat fleet so on your first day you will be assigned a boat. Each boat goes out 3 times a day so you have to go to the chalk board and put your name on the boat for the dives that you plan on going that day. Everything is very systematic and methodical.
If you are diving nitrox then it is 120 USD for the whole week for unlimited nitrox. Their nitrox fill station has tanks and analyzers so you are required to analyze, label and then leave your tanks. Once analyzed you will find them already loaded on to your boat wondering how they got there. The magic of diving here is that things get done for you.
Boat rides are short and you always come back for surface interval.
DIVE SITES:
November was a bad time of the year for Roatan and I wish I had known that before I left. The vis was crappy by Roatan standards 40 – 50 feet and there were only a couple of days when the sun was out. Overall Roatan did not have the never ending steep walls that Utila had but nevertheless, its bottom topography was awesome. There were so many swim-throughs and reefs that it was truly an amazing experience. Almost every dive site presented us with different topography. Marine life included, usual reef fish with turtles, eels, lobsters, groupers and a spotted ray.
Wreck dives were also fun. We did the Odyssey and the Aguila and they were great wreck dives.
Shark dive: This was the highlight of the trip for me. The sea conditions were very rough and we were told that they were about to cancel these dives but since most people were experienced, they went ahead with it. It was a long boat ride and when we jumped in, the current was strong. We literally had to pull ourselves down using the horizontal line but it was still a lot of fun. Sergei and Marcos were awesome and we had a lot of sharks.
They make you sit down in two lines and the sharks are already there the moment they hear you splash. Before opening the bucket of chum, divers have a chance to free swim with them. When you settle down, that is when they open the chum bucket and the sharks go crazy. Amazing experience.
DINING:
If there was anything that this place can improve upon then it is food quantity. It is not buffet style so you choose a soup or a salad, followed by a main course followed by a desert. The main courses were fine dining quantity and not fast food quantity or what some of us normally eat. I understand that I eat slightly larger meals so I thought that I should not mention this in my trip report but I was not the only one feeling undernourished. I found some other people literally haggling with the waiters for more food and they were eventually served, but with reluctance.
I made two trips to West End and ate the way I wanted to. While we were told that there is crime and the barbed wire fence was an indication of that, people that I came across were exceptionally friendly. The best meal that I had was grilled chicken in West End and the whole meal costed no more than 10 USD and it was fast food quantity that I am used to.
If serving portions could be increased then this place would leave absolutely nothing to be desired.
CONCLUSION:
Roatan is an amazing place to dive. The underwater terrain, corals and bottom topography made it worth my while. AKR is an amazingly run establishment and I am glad that I met some great people there. I must confess that I only went there because they were offering the TWO FOR ONE special and had the price been the original price then I would go somewhere elsefor that money. For my next trip to Roatan, I am more inclined to stay at the West End and use some of the cheaper accommodation and dive packages that are situated right in the hustle bustle of West End. Splash Dive Inn seemed like an interesting place. The street food that you buy at West End appeals to me more than the fine dining sized portions I had. You also have the choice to buy whatever you would like to eat rather than be at the mercy of the chef. If you like an all inclusive place where all decisions have been made for you then AKR is the place to go.
Go figure.
