Can't decide-diving with Hamanasi or Turneffe Lodge

[redgym]

My wife and I stayed at TIR last August. My review is on the board somewhere. TIR was fantastic and I'm trying to get my wife to go back again this year. However, like someone else wrote, there are so many places out there to see and things to do.

 

[Qnape]

My daughter and I (divers) and my non-diving wife spent a great week at Turneffe this past August. I posted a trip report that should be easy to find, with lots of details and photos. We faced the same decision between Turneffe and Hamanasi, and decided on Turneffe (despite a recommendation from our LDS that we choose Hamanasi) for the following main reasons:

No additional "jumper" flight required. Turneffe is easy, fly to Belize City and hook up with their boat. To get to Hamanasi, a jumper flight from Belize city is required, adding cost, time, and confusion.

Since TIR is so close to the dive sites, all surface intervals are back at the resort. We spent a LOT more time with my wife than we would have spent had we stayed at Hamanasi. Atoll trips from Hamanasi leave very early, and arrive back at the resort late afternoon.

Hamanasi, being on the coast, can be hotter , or at least feel hotter, than Turneffe atoll with it's constant breezes. In addition and for similar reasons, Hamanasi has to work hard to keep the no-see-ums / sand flies in check. There was NO SIGN of either sand flies or mosquitos at Turneffe, in August. Having spent a week in Utila in April 2009, I've learned how much fun the sand flies can be.

We were not looking for whale sharks or considering that factor when choosing; we went to Utila in April (Utopia Dive Village) for that specific reason and were NOT disappointed!

I won't repeat all the comments in my review, but we loved Turneffe, and like others commenting, plan to return with a year or three. Please feel free to PM if you have any other questions.

Safe diving!

 

[peterbj7]

OTOH land-based trips are pretty hard from TIL.

 

[Hank49]

OTOH land-based trips are pretty hard from TIL.

Not really. I can get from Dangriga to TIL in an hour and a half on calmer days. Bigger boats, even faster. It takes about the same amount of time to take a boat from San Pedro to Belize City.
And Dangriga is the best centered launch point for land based activities.

 

[peterbj7]

Fair comment. But it still adds 3+ hours to your day.

The last ferry I took from SP to Belize City took 55 minutes. It's improved a lot with the new competition.

 

[Downing]

OTOH land-based trips are pretty hard from TIL.

Yes and no. Kind of depends on how you define "hard."

There are only two scheduled trips a week to the mainland: Saturdays and Wednesdays, but Wednesdays can be iffy.

Saturday is the "regular" transfer day when most guests are leaving or arriving. If there are no guests scheduled to leave or arrive on Wednesday and if supplies aren't otherwise needed, then there's no trip to the mainland that day.

We arrived on a Saturday and stayed for two weeks. I wanted to take a trip back to the mainland to check out the Belize Zoo. As it so happened, there were two guests scheduled to depart and two more to arrive on the first Wednesday we were there, so that's the day I went to the zoo. I didn't know for sure that would be the day I was going until about a week or two ahead of time. Otherwise, I would have gone on the Saturday in the middle of our stay, but I wanted to and did spend that day getting my nitrox certification.

So the bottom line is this: if you're planning to stay a week at TIR, which is probably the amount of time most guests spend there, and if you plan to arrive on Saturday, you may or may not be able to do a land trip on Wednesday via the TIR boat and won't necessarily know ahead of time.

You could charter a boat or a helicopter but obviously that would be an added expense. The TIR boat is included in the price of admission but if you do this then you have to be back at the dock by 2PM, cutting into the amount of time you would spend on the mainland.

I suppose another way to do it would be to stay a Wednesday to a Wednesday and plan a mainland trip on the middle Saturday. But that would be four one-hour twenty minute boat rides in a seven days plus the Blue Hole trip. Not my idea of how I want to spend my summer vacation as that's too much time on a boat vs under a boat but as always ymmv.

If we had been staying only a week, I would have skipped the zoo trip in favor of just hanging on the island. To me, it's not so much a matter of "hard" as it is a question of whether the time and expense of a mainland trip would be worth it when balanced against time spent on the island relaxing and diving.

Note: Peter, I was composing the above while you were posting your "fair enough" comment, so I didn't see it until after I posted. I didn't mean to sound like I was piling on so please don't take it in that spirit. Your comment about adding 3+ hours to the day is spot on, btw.

 

[Hank49]

Fair comment. But it still adds 3+ hours to your day.

The last ferry I took from SP to Belize City took 55 minutes. It's improved a lot with the new competition.

Fair comment But also take into account that many tourists here LIKE riding boats. They take their 16 foot speedboats and tear around lakes for fun on weekends. Down here, boats are related to work, or getting somewhere.

 

[peterbj7]

Yes, but if you have your heart set on seeing the ruins of Xunantunich or zip lining through the jungle, having a potentially wet boat ride beginning your day, dampening your clothes and your camera, can be a bit of a turn-off. The same can be true for people from Thatch Caye making these trips, but at least that boat ride is less than 1/2 hour.

 

[bsummers]

I was in Belize diving Turneffe atoll last year and the diving was great! I stayed at Blackbird Caye not Turneffe Lodge but I have to say that I was very jealous when we travelled past Turneffe lodge to dive at the Elbow. Turneffe lodge is right next to the Elbow, which was by far the best dive site during my week there! I agree with Hank49- I could dive the Elbow all week.

Never been to Hamanasi to see the whale sharks but we did go to Utila ( & Honduras is not so far from Belize) during the peak of whale shark season to look for whale sharks. We did not see a single whale shark the entire week!
Ultimately, we saw many many whale sharks over the course of 2 days in Donsol in the Phillipines but that is an entirely different part of the world.

 

[underseasian]

I stayed at TCR last year to do the whalesharks and they were amazing! I've been snorkeling with them in Utila, Mexico and Mozambique but diving with them in Belize was something special (thank you, Chico!).

The main reason we chose TCR was their proximity to the reef (15 mins as opposed to Hamanasi's 45 every time you go diving) and the fact that they take groups of 4 to see the whalesharks (and the outer reef runs) so the likelihood of a trip being planned is greatly increased. If you want to do Turneffe then they can organise that for you as they are one of the few operators close enough to do all of the outer reefs (Glovers, Turneffe and Lighthouse) and still be close enough to Gladden Spit to get to the sharks easily.

What Peterbj says is true - they go for the last possible dive slot at the end of the day as this greatly increases your chances of seeing them, they are close enough to the Spit that you can dive at the end of the day and still make it home in daylight.

Also, it's not very often you get to stay in a private island resort for the kind of prices they are offering! My vote goes to TCR!