This is our first time diving in Roatan and our first time doing an AI type resort and second time doing a boat dive package. I went into it with slightly worried impressions such as what if I don't like the food, what if we get stuck with people on our boat who are f'ing up the reef/annoying, what if XXX.
We travelled in a group of 10, not a dive shop...just friends ages 30 to maybe 50 (it was rude to ask what birthday he was celebrating there). We got a boat to ourselves. Other boats were similarly full.
So if anyone was annoying....well, they were in our group and we knew how to make their drinks strong the night before if we wanted them to miss the boat the next day
Just kidding.
We picked up a 2 snorklers in their high 60's and we hung together at all meals, they were a hoot. They loved being included as much as we loved their company.
We picked up a single diver who joined all our non-boat diving activities (as he was assigned to another boat) as his wife didn't come on that trip. Insta friends for life happened that week! All we had to do was go up to a guy sitting alone and ask if he had a dive buddy and did he want to dive. We did night dives together, meals and I think we even got him out dancing so we could send photos to his family :angel:
CCV had a live band twice and they were fun to dance to.
The food: I admit, I am a super picky eater. Call me a recovering vegetarian that hates vegetables. And hasn't graduated to meat that looks like meat (ie I can do breaded chicken breast vs being grossed out seeing a quartered chicken). Yea, you get the idea! I had even emailed before booking to get a better idea of what was offered at meals, but it was still vague. BOY was I impressed! I had the Honduran rice/beans every lunch meals and I loved it! Salad bar available at every dinner (remember that whole non vegetable thing? yea, others ate the salads). Several nights of red meat, chicken, lobster, shrimp. However the second night I only had a roll for dinner, they kitchen staff noticed and asked if I was a vegetarian (how do I answer that?) so I said kinda. She went and got me beans and rice from lunch and I was HAPPY! But the following 2 nights they were sweet enough to make me a vegetable dish using a squash or..well, some other vegetable with mounded vegetables inside the squash (or whatever) body of the vegetable. My table mates loved my vegetable dishes. I ate some, it was good, but knowing it was a vegetable...ick. (my mother is still shaking her head at me)
Suffice to say, they aim to please. Food was good and plentiful and huge varieties (for the normal person) at every meal. But now you know why we typically do Bonaire/Curacao/GC and buy/cook our own meals. Luckily my husband married me knowing "more bacon for him".
The Bugs: I brought bug spray. I didn't use it. I got eaten alive. I forgot the first 2 days and then I figured why bother, I was already bit to hell. Others who actually used their bug spray: didn't get eaten alive.
The rooms: I LOVED the hammock/patio outside every door. I loved having double doors so you can lay in bed reading at night and have the breeze blow in, whispers of salt air reminding you that you are in paradise. And the A/C worked great. I have been a few places where the AC maintains 85 degrees but never lower. So wanted to point out the AC worked well for anyone with concerns.
The DM's: Boy were they great! I am pretty certain ours paid extra for a seahorse spotting memory chip in his mask. 17 years of diving, 2 seahorses ever. CCV? 5 in a week. Two in our group were brand-spankin new OW divers. They were excited to see red fish, blue fish, big fish, small fish. They had no idea that they may not see this diversity (and seahorses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at other places.
The Diving: I have been to Bonaire, Grand Cayman, Belize, Curacao. CCV was epic. The front yard, you can do 20 dives on the house reef at different times of the day and have a different dive each time. Wall to the right, wall to the left. Night dives you almost needed a crossing guard to stop you while you waited for all the lobster to stop walking across the path on the way back in. I was highly doubtful I would do more than 5 dives or so on the house reef. Each dive was different! I loved going out for night dives to find the same goliath grouper in the same area. Man that guy was HUGE! Well, I guess with a name like Goliath, ya gotta be! This place was the one place I have dove with the least amount of human trash all over the place (any shore/boat diving at CCV). I am used to finding fishing line, motors, reels, newspapers, bottles, cups on just about every dive. But we only found 2 human debris, a grill grating and a plastic bag wrapped around fire coral which our DM carefully cut and carried out.
Arrival: I travel with clothing/food (remember picky eater part) in my checked bag and my carry on is ALL dive gear (bp/w, camera, regs, light, fins/masks etc) plus a change of clothing and a swimsuit (49lbs). I typically don't let it out of my sight when traveling. With CCV, they told us to leave our carryon bags in the pile at the airport and it would be right behind us on the boat. It showed up about 90 minutes later as I was going stir crazy wanting to jump into the awesome water. We WILL be back to CCV. I just will carry my carryon bag on my lap on the short bus/boat ride to the resort so I don't have to wait for all bags to arrive before getting in the water.
In short: I would come back in a heartbeat! The diving was epic, staff was incredible and the only annoying thing is something I can't change...waiting until 2pm for the afternoon boat to go out. I wanted to head out at noon or 1pm so I could have a longer siesta before night diving. So it was hard adjusting from a freeforall that I am used to (get in the truck and drive to next dive site on a whim) or waiting for the scheduled boat departure. But if you are someone who may normally schedule boat dives on your travels, you won't notice a thing!
We travelled in a group of 10, not a dive shop...just friends ages 30 to maybe 50 (it was rude to ask what birthday he was celebrating there). We got a boat to ourselves. Other boats were similarly full.
So if anyone was annoying....well, they were in our group and we knew how to make their drinks strong the night before if we wanted them to miss the boat the next day
Just kidding.We picked up a 2 snorklers in their high 60's and we hung together at all meals, they were a hoot. They loved being included as much as we loved their company.
We picked up a single diver who joined all our non-boat diving activities (as he was assigned to another boat) as his wife didn't come on that trip. Insta friends for life happened that week! All we had to do was go up to a guy sitting alone and ask if he had a dive buddy and did he want to dive. We did night dives together, meals and I think we even got him out dancing so we could send photos to his family :angel:
CCV had a live band twice and they were fun to dance to.
The food: I admit, I am a super picky eater. Call me a recovering vegetarian that hates vegetables. And hasn't graduated to meat that looks like meat (ie I can do breaded chicken breast vs being grossed out seeing a quartered chicken). Yea, you get the idea! I had even emailed before booking to get a better idea of what was offered at meals, but it was still vague. BOY was I impressed! I had the Honduran rice/beans every lunch meals and I loved it! Salad bar available at every dinner (remember that whole non vegetable thing? yea, others ate the salads). Several nights of red meat, chicken, lobster, shrimp. However the second night I only had a roll for dinner, they kitchen staff noticed and asked if I was a vegetarian (how do I answer that?) so I said kinda. She went and got me beans and rice from lunch and I was HAPPY! But the following 2 nights they were sweet enough to make me a vegetable dish using a squash or..well, some other vegetable with mounded vegetables inside the squash (or whatever) body of the vegetable. My table mates loved my vegetable dishes. I ate some, it was good, but knowing it was a vegetable...ick. (my mother is still shaking her head at me)
Suffice to say, they aim to please. Food was good and plentiful and huge varieties (for the normal person) at every meal. But now you know why we typically do Bonaire/Curacao/GC and buy/cook our own meals. Luckily my husband married me knowing "more bacon for him".The Bugs: I brought bug spray. I didn't use it. I got eaten alive. I forgot the first 2 days and then I figured why bother, I was already bit to hell. Others who actually used their bug spray: didn't get eaten alive.
The rooms: I LOVED the hammock/patio outside every door. I loved having double doors so you can lay in bed reading at night and have the breeze blow in, whispers of salt air reminding you that you are in paradise. And the A/C worked great. I have been a few places where the AC maintains 85 degrees but never lower. So wanted to point out the AC worked well for anyone with concerns.
The DM's: Boy were they great! I am pretty certain ours paid extra for a seahorse spotting memory chip in his mask. 17 years of diving, 2 seahorses ever. CCV? 5 in a week. Two in our group were brand-spankin new OW divers. They were excited to see red fish, blue fish, big fish, small fish. They had no idea that they may not see this diversity (and seahorses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at other places.
The Diving: I have been to Bonaire, Grand Cayman, Belize, Curacao. CCV was epic. The front yard, you can do 20 dives on the house reef at different times of the day and have a different dive each time. Wall to the right, wall to the left. Night dives you almost needed a crossing guard to stop you while you waited for all the lobster to stop walking across the path on the way back in. I was highly doubtful I would do more than 5 dives or so on the house reef. Each dive was different! I loved going out for night dives to find the same goliath grouper in the same area. Man that guy was HUGE! Well, I guess with a name like Goliath, ya gotta be! This place was the one place I have dove with the least amount of human trash all over the place (any shore/boat diving at CCV). I am used to finding fishing line, motors, reels, newspapers, bottles, cups on just about every dive. But we only found 2 human debris, a grill grating and a plastic bag wrapped around fire coral which our DM carefully cut and carried out.
Arrival: I travel with clothing/food (remember picky eater part) in my checked bag and my carry on is ALL dive gear (bp/w, camera, regs, light, fins/masks etc) plus a change of clothing and a swimsuit (49lbs). I typically don't let it out of my sight when traveling. With CCV, they told us to leave our carryon bags in the pile at the airport and it would be right behind us on the boat. It showed up about 90 minutes later as I was going stir crazy wanting to jump into the awesome water. We WILL be back to CCV. I just will carry my carryon bag on my lap on the short bus/boat ride to the resort so I don't have to wait for all bags to arrive before getting in the water.
In short: I would come back in a heartbeat! The diving was epic, staff was incredible and the only annoying thing is something I can't change...waiting until 2pm for the afternoon boat to go out. I wanted to head out at noon or 1pm so I could have a longer siesta before night diving. So it was hard adjusting from a freeforall that I am used to (get in the truck and drive to next dive site on a whim) or waiting for the scheduled boat departure. But if you are someone who may normally schedule boat dives on your travels, you won't notice a thing!
