My wife and I and another couple with whom we frequently dive-travel made our first visit to CoCo View Resort the first week in August 2023. As there are many reviews of CCV posted here, rather than try to describe the whole trip, I will focus on the things about CCV that were notable to me. My two previous trips to Roatan were to dive with one of the West End operators in 2004 and then to Anthony’s Key Resort in 2013. You can find my review of the 2013 AKR trip here: Anthony's Key Resort (AKR) trip report - November 2013. As divers often seem to weigh AKR versus CCV, I will make sure to address what I perceived as differences.
SUMMARY: My wife and I loved CCV and found it more our style than AKR. CCV prices are generally higher than AKR, but we believe the adage holds true that you get what you pay for. As for the diving itself, all four of us remarked on what felt like a dearth of fish, especially larger fish. We agree with the conclusion we have seen in other reviews that AKR is a better choice for families and groups with non-divers, whereas CCV is a dedicated dive resort.
ACCOMMODATIONS: We had booked the trip about three months earlier, and the only accommodations still available were the Playa Miguel Beach Houses. From our beach house (No. 11), it would be about a 15-minute walk to the resort, but there were plenty of bicycles available for use by the beach house guests, and our beach house even came with a golf cart included, reducing the trip time to just 3-5 minutes. Nevertheless, if I return to CCV I would prefer closer accommodations. Some (all?) of the beach houses are privately owned—ours was—so amenities will differ.
DIVING: If you do not like shore diving, CCV may not be your best option. Shore diving is available 24 hours, and people dive before dawn, late at night, and throughout the day. You could forgo a boat dive and instead do a shore dive if you felt like it. CCV is truly a do-your-own-thing kind of place. The shore diving is an integral part of the CCV experience, and not an afterthought as it is at many dive resorts. The shore diving area, which CCV refers to as the Front Yard, begins with a flat expanse of seagrass, through which there is a sandy path leading to the dropoff to the walls. I overheard a diver grumbling about having to swim (five minutes) over this path on every entry and exit. In contrast, my wife and I looked forward to the exit part of the dive, as there are so many juvenile fish in the seagrass and the bits of coral. “Front Yard” is right!--it almost feels like scuba diving on someone’s lush green lawn covered with two or three feet of bathtub-warm water (too warm in our 3mm suits, but oh well). The key to enjoying this is having good buoyancy and trim.
Boats make two 2-tank trips daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. You're assigned to a particular boat for the week. The boats are well configured, and when ours was docked it was easy to walk on/off at the stern. Fruit and cookies were offered on the surface interval—much appreciated. My impression of the south coast is that it’s all wall diving. The first site is usually a wall 5 to 15 minutes from the resort. The second site is usually one of the two walls flanking the resort, CoCo View Wall and Newman’s Wall, and you end your wall dive by swimming in to shore through the Front Yard. In the channel between the two walls lies the Prince Albert wreck. The entry/exit to the Front Yard is clearly marked by a chain running from the wreck all the way along the path through the seagrass to the entry/exit point. It couldn’t be easier to navigate! Night diving is a breeze.
All four of us commented on how few fish we saw compared with some other places we had traveled. It just didn’t seem as “fishy” as we recalled from AKR, and as I recalled from my diving from West End and Utila. And definitely not as fishy as Bonaire, where we have taken many trips. We saw very few large fish. I think we saw only one spotted eagle ray the whole week. We saw green morays but few other eels. Maybe this is just how the south coast is? That said, the juvenile fish in the shallows and other protected areas were a real treat. We could plant ourselves (hover, that is) in front of a coral head in a few feet of water and watch the “aquarium.” On the night dives we saw many huge crabs and lobsters.
The divemasters did not have much to say about the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease that has plagued the Caribbean in recent years. They pointed to a few sites where the effects were evident. We could not always be sure whether the damage we were looking at was from SCTLD, bleaching, or what. There was clearly hurricane damage on at least one site, with the rubble of what looked like was once a field of staghorn. We noticed how nice the soft corals looked, but that may be because they were more abundant relative to what hard coral is left.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE: Outstanding, unpretentious, and filling. Food is served cafeteria style: You get in the chow line, and the wonderful staff will pile on as much as you want of whatever you want, and there is always a good selection of options to choose from. After a few days, some of the staff got to know what we preferred, and some of them even greeted us by name. We’re omnivores, but a vegetarian could do fine. The vast majority of CCV guests are American, and CCV seemed to cater to American tastes. Breakfast is everything we Americans would expect—there’s even an omelette station--and they always had fresh fruit. I detected a hint of Tex-Mex bias. On a couple of occasions they had excellent house-made flour tortillas. Meat, fish, chicken, salad, pasta—all made an appearance, and they were always good. If “American” food is your thing, you’ll be pleased. If you want a taste of local flavor, they offer some of that, too. Fried plantain slices and black beans at breakfast?—yep, they’ve got that. Before dinner, during happy-hour at the bar, there are snacks such as nachos, and one evening the snack was fish ceviche. On the last night, there was steak and lobster tail, which appears to be a “thing,” as we recall this also at AKR, only AKR did not pull it off as well as CCV did.
The food overall is neither gourmet nor trashy. In fact, some of it is not unlike the concoctions my wife and I cook at home, so I’d call it “homestyle” food. From descriptions I read in other reviews, I expected worse. There are always several bottles of various hot sauces on the tables, and at many meals they also had a Honduran version of pico de gallo at the buffet, but I forgot what they called it. Well duh—Americans love hot sauce. As for beverages, there are juice drinks and iced tea available, and of course water, and you can refill to your heart’s content. Sodas, beer and wine are extra and added to your tab, as one would expect. It appeared to me that fewer people were drinking beer or wine at dinner than in other resorts we have visited, adding to my sense that most CCV guests are there to dive. Most people didn’t linger long at their tables after dinner—they ate and left, presumably to get a good night’s sleep so they can do it all over again the next day. The die-hard diver’s mantra of eat, sleep, dive, repeat applies. Also, if you're planning a night dive during dinner hours, it's possible to sign up to have your meal waiting for you. Seriously—this is a resort for divers.
SAND FLEAS: The sand fleas left my wife and me looking like we had chickenpox up and down our legs. We didn’t use any repellant or other gunk during the day because we didn’t want it on our wetsuits. Maybe it worked at night. On the previous trip, we tried a few different things that had been recommended—DEET, baby oil, Skin-So-Soft—but we were lax on this trip. We think we may have gotten bitten most while on the shaded rear deck of our house enjoying our morning coffee. The bites don’t start itching until hours, even 12 or more hours, later, so it’s difficult to know what worked or where the bugs were worst. I should also mention that after a rain one day, the whole area was swarmed with termite-like insects that appeared to die quickly and leave their wings behind stuck to window screens and things. Anyone know what that’s about?
All in all, a great trip! I would return just to play in the Front Yard.
SUMMARY: My wife and I loved CCV and found it more our style than AKR. CCV prices are generally higher than AKR, but we believe the adage holds true that you get what you pay for. As for the diving itself, all four of us remarked on what felt like a dearth of fish, especially larger fish. We agree with the conclusion we have seen in other reviews that AKR is a better choice for families and groups with non-divers, whereas CCV is a dedicated dive resort.
ACCOMMODATIONS: We had booked the trip about three months earlier, and the only accommodations still available were the Playa Miguel Beach Houses. From our beach house (No. 11), it would be about a 15-minute walk to the resort, but there were plenty of bicycles available for use by the beach house guests, and our beach house even came with a golf cart included, reducing the trip time to just 3-5 minutes. Nevertheless, if I return to CCV I would prefer closer accommodations. Some (all?) of the beach houses are privately owned—ours was—so amenities will differ.
DIVING: If you do not like shore diving, CCV may not be your best option. Shore diving is available 24 hours, and people dive before dawn, late at night, and throughout the day. You could forgo a boat dive and instead do a shore dive if you felt like it. CCV is truly a do-your-own-thing kind of place. The shore diving is an integral part of the CCV experience, and not an afterthought as it is at many dive resorts. The shore diving area, which CCV refers to as the Front Yard, begins with a flat expanse of seagrass, through which there is a sandy path leading to the dropoff to the walls. I overheard a diver grumbling about having to swim (five minutes) over this path on every entry and exit. In contrast, my wife and I looked forward to the exit part of the dive, as there are so many juvenile fish in the seagrass and the bits of coral. “Front Yard” is right!--it almost feels like scuba diving on someone’s lush green lawn covered with two or three feet of bathtub-warm water (too warm in our 3mm suits, but oh well). The key to enjoying this is having good buoyancy and trim.
Boats make two 2-tank trips daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. You're assigned to a particular boat for the week. The boats are well configured, and when ours was docked it was easy to walk on/off at the stern. Fruit and cookies were offered on the surface interval—much appreciated. My impression of the south coast is that it’s all wall diving. The first site is usually a wall 5 to 15 minutes from the resort. The second site is usually one of the two walls flanking the resort, CoCo View Wall and Newman’s Wall, and you end your wall dive by swimming in to shore through the Front Yard. In the channel between the two walls lies the Prince Albert wreck. The entry/exit to the Front Yard is clearly marked by a chain running from the wreck all the way along the path through the seagrass to the entry/exit point. It couldn’t be easier to navigate! Night diving is a breeze.
All four of us commented on how few fish we saw compared with some other places we had traveled. It just didn’t seem as “fishy” as we recalled from AKR, and as I recalled from my diving from West End and Utila. And definitely not as fishy as Bonaire, where we have taken many trips. We saw very few large fish. I think we saw only one spotted eagle ray the whole week. We saw green morays but few other eels. Maybe this is just how the south coast is? That said, the juvenile fish in the shallows and other protected areas were a real treat. We could plant ourselves (hover, that is) in front of a coral head in a few feet of water and watch the “aquarium.” On the night dives we saw many huge crabs and lobsters.
The divemasters did not have much to say about the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease that has plagued the Caribbean in recent years. They pointed to a few sites where the effects were evident. We could not always be sure whether the damage we were looking at was from SCTLD, bleaching, or what. There was clearly hurricane damage on at least one site, with the rubble of what looked like was once a field of staghorn. We noticed how nice the soft corals looked, but that may be because they were more abundant relative to what hard coral is left.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE: Outstanding, unpretentious, and filling. Food is served cafeteria style: You get in the chow line, and the wonderful staff will pile on as much as you want of whatever you want, and there is always a good selection of options to choose from. After a few days, some of the staff got to know what we preferred, and some of them even greeted us by name. We’re omnivores, but a vegetarian could do fine. The vast majority of CCV guests are American, and CCV seemed to cater to American tastes. Breakfast is everything we Americans would expect—there’s even an omelette station--and they always had fresh fruit. I detected a hint of Tex-Mex bias. On a couple of occasions they had excellent house-made flour tortillas. Meat, fish, chicken, salad, pasta—all made an appearance, and they were always good. If “American” food is your thing, you’ll be pleased. If you want a taste of local flavor, they offer some of that, too. Fried plantain slices and black beans at breakfast?—yep, they’ve got that. Before dinner, during happy-hour at the bar, there are snacks such as nachos, and one evening the snack was fish ceviche. On the last night, there was steak and lobster tail, which appears to be a “thing,” as we recall this also at AKR, only AKR did not pull it off as well as CCV did.
The food overall is neither gourmet nor trashy. In fact, some of it is not unlike the concoctions my wife and I cook at home, so I’d call it “homestyle” food. From descriptions I read in other reviews, I expected worse. There are always several bottles of various hot sauces on the tables, and at many meals they also had a Honduran version of pico de gallo at the buffet, but I forgot what they called it. Well duh—Americans love hot sauce. As for beverages, there are juice drinks and iced tea available, and of course water, and you can refill to your heart’s content. Sodas, beer and wine are extra and added to your tab, as one would expect. It appeared to me that fewer people were drinking beer or wine at dinner than in other resorts we have visited, adding to my sense that most CCV guests are there to dive. Most people didn’t linger long at their tables after dinner—they ate and left, presumably to get a good night’s sleep so they can do it all over again the next day. The die-hard diver’s mantra of eat, sleep, dive, repeat applies. Also, if you're planning a night dive during dinner hours, it's possible to sign up to have your meal waiting for you. Seriously—this is a resort for divers.
SAND FLEAS: The sand fleas left my wife and me looking like we had chickenpox up and down our legs. We didn’t use any repellant or other gunk during the day because we didn’t want it on our wetsuits. Maybe it worked at night. On the previous trip, we tried a few different things that had been recommended—DEET, baby oil, Skin-So-Soft—but we were lax on this trip. We think we may have gotten bitten most while on the shaded rear deck of our house enjoying our morning coffee. The bites don’t start itching until hours, even 12 or more hours, later, so it’s difficult to know what worked or where the bugs were worst. I should also mention that after a rain one day, the whole area was swarmed with termite-like insects that appeared to die quickly and leave their wings behind stuck to window screens and things. Anyone know what that’s about?
All in all, a great trip! I would return just to play in the Front Yard.
