FIBR trip report 6/14/2010-6/20/2010

[rayaa3]

I meant to post this weeks ago - got it posted on my 'home' forum (scubatoys) but forgot to post it here. I want to iterate - everything you see below was my experience and my opinion.

Also - if you see me playing with the Monkeys in the pictures - do it at your own risk, they can bite or scratch. The Monkey's are after all, wild animals.

Fantasy Island Beach Resort trip report 6142010 - 6202010

Foreword:

Throughout writing this, I continued to make comparisons between Roatan and Cozumel. At first I avoided it. However, then I realized that it might be helpful. For many in the southern and central US Cozumel is the most affordable, and accessible dive vacation available. Eventually folks want to broaden their experiences and Roatan is a natural progression for those of us whose travel is limited to budget and length of trip. From central/southern US it might be the next most economical dive vacation, if limiting your stay to a week. (I know many will say that asia and the pacific have much cheaper offerings once you fly there, but I think for those of us in the southern/central US those are only cheaper if you can stay for 2 weeks, to justify the higher airfare). So, I have made several comparisons to Cozumel. I have been to Cozumel several times, and stayed at a few different hotels. Cozumel is always going to be my baseline which all other destinations will be compared to. When I pick someplace new to stay, I scour the forum for trip reports. I like to get an idea of what to expect. If that's what you are doing, well, that's why I wrote this. I hope it helps make an educated decision on whether or not Roatan, or FIBR is for you.


Now on to the report:

First a little about booking this resort. There are effectively 2 ways to book for US travellers:

1) privilege resorts website - booking with the hotel directly.
http://www.privilegehotels.com/--fantasyisland--home

2) booking with a US based travel agent - the guy who runs it is named Nick. His agency seems to have several sites for the hotel - but they are all the same folks:
http://www.fantasyislanddiveresort.com/

Depending on what's going on as far as specials the price may be cheaper to book with the privilege hotel group directly. It was for me - as I was booking a 6 night trip. With Nick's folks I was given a 7 day price, and told that it was because on 7 night packages, the 7th night is free. I pointed out the hotels site didn't have a 'free' 7th night, and was cheaper for 6 nights. Nick insisted to me my cheaper reservation was invalid because all USA travellers MUST register with him. According to him, the hotel would not sell to me directly, as a US based traveller. I found that difficult to understand, The package I got on the privilege hotel website was called "dive pack for US divers". I'm sure Nick is a good enough fellow, he certainly has some fans out here. However, when I dealt with him I found him to be rude, and dismissive. So - I booked with the hotel directly. What I found was...

When booking with the hotel directly you have a much more liberal cancellation policy:

- no funds are due up front, it's like a normal hotel reservation you reserve with a credit card, and pay when you get there.

- if you don't call within 24 hours and cancel, you pay 1 night. If you cancel before 24 hours, you pay nothing. This is much more liberal than if you book with a travel agency.

However - it comes at the following compromise:

- There is no USA based rep to call and confirm reservation (if you do have to call the hotel before hand I recommend getting a skype account and doing it on your pc - about .25 per minute from USA -> Honduras.

- The hotel takes a while to respond to any emails you send to them confirming your reservation - like a week or more response time.

All in all - the compromise was worth the couple of hundred dollars I saved.


OK - now on to the trip:

Getting here - We caught continental flights connecting through Houston. Flying was about half the total cost of the trip. We paid around 750pp. If you can drive to Houston there are good deals to be had through TACA, but that's 8-9 hours driving for me - so, no thanks.

The Roatan airport is small, smaller than Cozumel (is it possible?) - there is no timeshare blockade to run to get to the taxi/pickup area. I recommend calling the hotel, when you arrive, if your van isn't there for pickup. Get the local number from the website before you leave, use a payphone if you need to when you get there. The drive is about 25 minutes or so, maybe a bit less. So - if you don't see the van, don't waste time - call the hotel and make sure they are coming to get you, it will take at least 20 minutes after you call if they leave as soon as they hang up the phone. Particularly if you don't come in on Saturday, which is the big arrival day for Fantasy Island. We arrived on Monday, which is unusual for the resort. If you arrive on a Saturday, I imagine the resort is accustomed to having pickups to make.

Check in is uneventful if you are the only one on the van, if you are not, I'm sure it takes a few minutes. I've never seen more than one person staffing the front desk at a time.

The resort:

I loved it. This is the kind of place where you can walk around barefoot and feel at ease. After 3 days in wet flipflops my feet were beginning to bother me, so I went barefoot pretty much every place but the bathroom for the next 3 days. The main lobby is the place to hang and have coffee in the early AM it opens to two beaches, and on breezy days is WONDERFUL. I mention the breeze, it was breezy/windy the first 4-5 days of our trip. This makes the water rougher on the dive boat, however, it makes the resort cooler on hot days. It also keeps the flying bugs down. On the days without wind, the dive boat was a smooth ride, but it was warmer in the afternoons, and I required more dips in the ocean to cool off while laying on the beach (it was awful

).

There are more bugs on Roatan than Cozumel. Noseeums are basically sand fleas that will give you what I found to be painless bites, on the beach. You won't feel them bite, but at night you'll find pink spots where you were bitten. They are present no matter what the wind does. The pink spot seems to go away by the next AM. Bring off with DEET or something similar. My wife bought bug spray - something eco-happy with no deet in it - didn't stop em. We ended up buying off deep woods from the gift shop - yep that did it. I think I got 8 bites all week. All painless.

The resort has a bunch of critters on it. There are at least 3 resident monkeys that like to come out around meals and look for handouts. There is a peacock. There are a bunch of these little rabbit like creatures (someone elses will know the name) that are about as common as squirrels are here. There are some ducks, some geese, some island deer.

The rooms:

Simple, clean, nothing fancy. The room we stayed in functioned. There were a couple of missing light bulbs - but I didn't care. The toilet was a bit odd, requiring you to hold the flush for about 7 full seconds to complete a flushing - if you didn't hold it in that long, you would have thought it was broken. The bathroom fixtures were old, but functional. Little water pressure, but enough to do the job. Water would get hot any time we tried it day or night. Pergo floors were peeling a bit, walls were scratched in several places. It's not the ritz. Someone described it as dive camp - yeah, that's close. It's a clean, air conditioned, plumbed place to sleep, take showers, and go to the bathroom. That's exactly what we did. The bed was comfortable by Mexico standards. Not too firm, not too soft - definitely not new, or fancy. However, after 3-4 dives a day - I just wanted something to crawl into at 9pm...and it was very nice for that activity. The shower rod was a bit flimsy and kept falling. Nothing we couldn't handle. If there was one place that showed that it was the least expensive place on the island, it was the rooms. That's ok - I would rather be the case, than the dive op being low quality, or the location, or something else. Our room had neither a alarm clock, or a hair dryer. No biggie for us, the wife brought a hair dryer, because she knows she wants one no matter where we are in the world. We planned on using our phone as an alarm clock, but we only slept in till 7am one day. Our bodies were just waking early.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046373&id=1017085395&l=6c4c73baa1

 

[rayaa3]

continued:
The food:

There is 1 restraunt, it is located outside most days for lunch (weather permitting) and above the lobby for dinner and breakfast. The food - I found the food to be pretty good. However, I'm not a picky eater. Also - my mom is Brazilian, and raised me on rice and beans...every lunch or dinner there was a rice dish to eat - and I enjoyed all of them. This resort gets poo-poo'd for food quite a bit. I think I understand why. The food is no better or worse than what I had at Allegro in Cozumel in February, or at Hotel Cozumel, or at Fiesta Americana. The quality is on average close to those. THE VARIETY is not. At any lunch there are only a handful of choices, dinner has a handful more, with repeats from lunch. So - the problem isn't food quality - the problem is that if you don't have many choices, if you don't like what you see. My favorite lunches included conch off the grill, really great rice dishes, grilled chicken sausage links (yummy). Every meal had Fresh pineapple, and some type of melon (watermelon, or something else), papaya was on the buffet a couple of times, as was bananas a couple of times. Salad bar was sparse, but you could make a salad. Dinners were good, a few more choices than lunch. They have a version of pizza that was pretty good, though it's not Pizza hut...it's pizza(crust, sauce, cheese, topping) but it's not exactly what you eat at home - anyways, wife and I thought it was good - especially after putting jalapenos on it (available at every meal - jalapenos) Breakfast is great - fresh tortillas a few days, scrambled eggs, ham some days, french toast a few days (don't miss the french toast made with thick slices - OMG), breakfast grill was always open. I understand how people get frustrated with the limits on selection - some days it makes it harder to find the choice you want. However, I found the actual quality of food to be normal mexico resort AI buffet food. Only place I had better buffet was at Palace resorts - and again - I think it was more about choices, plus a much more expensive stay. Another high point for meals - the ice cream. Easily better than anything I have at home - creamy, rich, great flavors (look for banana, and chocolate, get a scoop of each OMG) flavors change a bit daily but chocolate is almost always there...the flavors that rotate in and out are banana, vanilla, cookies/cream, cake batter, a few others. There are usually 2-3 flavors to choose from. Also for desert for dinner - almost everyday featured a flan - I LOVE FLAN. I rarely get to eat it at home - so I ate flan 6 nights in a row. Each day the flan was slightly different flavor. Also there was one alternative pastry for non-flan lovers (cake, or something similar) I ate very well, and except for a tummy ache from over indulgance (fixed in 20 minutes with alka-seltzer from the gift shop, which cost $1) I never had any issues with the food. The wait staff was very helpful in serving drinks and filling glasses. We tipped $1 per diner, for each meal ($2 per meal for the two of us) I don't think it is expected, but know it's appreciated.

Also - AI resorts in Cozumel and Cancun always have some type of grazing snack bar open. This isn't true at FIBR. Coffee is available as early as 4:45am (my earliest morning), as is Tea. Breakfast starts at 7am, I think it goes until 9am. Lunch starts at Noon and serves until 2:30. Dinner starts at 6:30 and serves till at least 8:30, maybe 9pm. There is no AI food between meals. This wasn't a problem, I was diving between meals. I was never hungry, EVER. However, I did miss chips and guacamole that I always get at the pool, at Hotel Cozumel.

Activities:

Well - naturally there's all you can eat diving. We stayed 6 nights, dove 5 days, I got in 15 dives. I'm not sure I could have done much more diving. I was quite tired. However, if I wanted to, there was time to get at least 1 more tank in every day. As it was we got heavily into the 'yellow zone' on our computers one day.

Other than diving - There is a little seaplane that gives rides, I think a 30 minute ride was $90 ppdo. I saw something about jet ski rental, but never saw it. There was a GREAT swimming beach. The beach is protected by a barrier reef of rocks, so it's always calm, clear, and pleasant. My wife usually prefers a swimming pool, however, she didn't visit it once, the ocean was too inviting on that beach. I think you can arrange fishing trips, I saw sailboats in the area advertising sailing tours. I know there is a zipline tour. You can take a cab to west end, I didn't catch the price, but it's a 40 minute ride I understand.

There is a single kayak available, there is a beach volleyball court. I think that was it. Oh, and of course, snorkeling.

Staff:

As stated meal staff is great. Front desk staff: there are a handful of people that work the front desk, usually no more than 1 person staffs it at a time. I found a few of them to be excellent customer service representatives. I found one to be slightly indifferent. However, we had no issues. The overnight/early morning guy speaks pretty poor english, so if your spanish isn't up to par, it may be difficult to communicate. We locked ourselves out of our room and it took a couple of minutes to get the point across.

Bar staff:

There is one bar for lobby/pool/beach - it simply has 3 windows. When it gets busy this guy works hard, so wait times can be a couple of minutes. There is no staff roaming the beach fetching drinks - so your on your own here.

Dive staff:

We dove on the Little Kashi with Miguel (DM) and Pedro (captain). The guys were professional, personable, and all around great guys. Always willing to help. Unlike many Cozumel ops, you will assemble your own gear here. No problem if that's what you are accustom to, but for some it may be a surprise. Tipping the dive staff - ok - I had a hard time getting a solid read on this. You tip the captain and DM seperately. There is also a tip box for the dock crew (air fills, shore diving help, etc). I ended up tipping the DM and Captain like we were in Cozumel - I figured $5 per tank, we dove on the boats - then split it 50/50 between them. Neither could have functioned well without the expertise of the other - so it seemed fair. Captain helped you to the water, up the ladder, took cameras for you, would fetch air tanks, etc. The DM was more of a safety diver than a guide at times. The divers would dive their own profile and stay more or less as a group strown across different depths, the whole group was within 70-100ft of each other (buddies were pretty good about staying close, some pairs better than others). Only one dive was the DM "leading" the dive group - Mary's place - and only because it was a swim through. I thought it was a perfect balance of assistance and independance. "If you wanted to stick with the DM, ok, if not - please come back to the boat with some air left, don't get lost, don't get bent - have fun, now get off my boat " For the Prince Albert shore dive - they will run you out to the wreck on a little 18ft boat and drop you right on it if you like...just backroll in. Roberto the shop manager will give you a orientation (20minutes) before you get to dive. He basically reviews the way things are done here, how the dives work, etc. It was a great little orientation - and I think should be standard operating procedure at more dive ops. However, because of this - there is no diving the afternoon of your arrival - you can't dive till Robert gives you the run down - PERIOD. Roberto seems to give orientation in the morning.

The diving:

Great - there are not a lot of big animal encounters in this area. I think I saw 4 Barracuda, 2 turtles, 3 Grouper all week. However, the coral is amazing and abundant. Most dives are wall dives. The boat will drop you in about 25 feet of water on top of a reef, then you swim over to the wall, go down one side, come back on the other. Only 2 dives all week were drift dives. The non-wall dives we did were Mr. Bud wreck, Prince Albert Wreck, Mary's place - which is really a wall dive with a swim through. I won't bother listing dive sites specifically beyond those. In Roatan, where your dive shop goes is determined mostly by where they are located. West end hits western/northern sites. North shops hit north shore sites. South side...you get the picture. The longest boat ride was about 20 minutes. Most were closer to 10. Night dives from the boat are on Thursdays - however, if wind conditions are bad - they won't do boat night dives. However, you can still do the Prince Albert and shore dives at night. I took about 140 dive pics through the week, and 95 were keepers. They are on my facebook page, and I'll post a link here. All in all, I think the diving here is easier than the diving in cozumel. If you desired, you could stay up on the reef for the entire dive in less than 40 ft of water. There is no current to contend with. However, Cozumel has more big animals, at least more than the south side sites I visited. Vis is higher in Cozumel, but vis isn't prohibitive in Roatan, it's just not as high as Cozumel. I'de say vis was consistently around 60ft.

A little about the dive boat procedures:

Boats go out at 9am, 11am, and 2:30pm, they will visit a different site each trip. Each trip is for a single tank. They ask that you come down to the dock 15minutes before the boat leaves. This is time for you to pull gear out of the locker room, make sure you have everything, assemble your gear. Before you leave the dock make sure your tank is full, make sure your o-ring isn't leaking. I had 4 leaky o rings, and 3 light fills. Simply tell the captain, he'll get you a new tank. Each drop is intended to take you to a site - however, if you prefer, your captain will drop you on the prince albert, and you can swim to the gazebo when you are done diving the wreck. Also, on the 3rd trip of the day, you can make an optional 4th tank drop off on the wreck, or some other shore dive (newmans wall, coco view wall, etc). Any of the drop off dives, or shore dives for that matter, you swim to the gazebo when you are done. There is a phone in the gazebo. You call the dive shop and they will come and get you on a little boat (saves you a walk with gear). If you are getting back late (8pm or later) you simply leave the tank at the gazebo, and take gear to your room for the night.
Next to the dive boat dock is the gear locker room. There are no locks on the lockers, you simple have a space to hang or put your gear. The room is locked nightly, at 8pm. I had no problem with hooligans taking gear, but have heard stories. I've heard that hangers are often taken, I think people assume they are shop property.
Next to the locker room you will find the gear rinse tanks. One designated for Cameras. There is also a freshwater spigot and garden hose. Also there are 3 fresh water showers for rinsing yourself off.

The boats:

Large comfortable, no head, but with such short trips back and forth, it's not needed. Our boat carried 13 divers. In Cozumel I use small boat ops that carry 6-8 divers. I was concerned about larger dive groups. This wasn't a problem. The divers on our boat dove pretty independantly. It never felt like a 13 diver group.

Typical dive day schedule would look like this - though other than dive boat departure time, it isn't this regimented - this is simply what I observed to be average:

8:45am get to the locker room put gear on boats, assemble gear test your tank.

9:00am boat leaves - WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, they don't know if you are skipping the dive. If 12 people were on time, and you were late - you get left. If someone is there to say "he'll be right here" they will likely wait for you - but if you simply don't show - they go.

9:15am dive site

9:20am everyone is in the water

10:20am everyone is out of the water, some sooner than others, but no dives lasted longer than an hour

10:25am Captain will log your name, max depth, site name, bottom time, air left
10:40am back at the dock - change your tank - check to make sure it's full

11:00am boat leaves again
same dive schedule, though they choose a very close site for this dive - it's a slightly shorter trip

around 12:20 back at the dock - leave your gear on the boat, if you plan on coming back for the 2:30 dive.

12:30 - 2:15pm - get lunch, relax, whatever

2:15pm - get back to the dock, check your tank, let the captain know if you plan on doing the 4th tank drop off dive on the shore sites

2:30pm boat leaves

around 3:45pm boat drops off 4th tankers on the shore site

around 3:55pm boat is at the dock, rinse and put up your gear, or make arrangments for a night shore dive (sign up at the dock/shop).

I did 3 dives a day, every day. The wife averaged 2 tanks a day most days, and 3 tanks a couple of days. You dive as much or as little as you want. I could easily have logged 4-5 tanks a day - but my computer would have had fits if I wasn't careful. SI between the first two tanks tends to be an hour. You have a long SI between tank 2 and 3. However, between tank 3 and 4 be careful, you will only have a 15 min SI and if you are diving deep profiles, you may need to watch your computer closely.

 

[rayaa3]

last little bit:
Other things to know about diving:

On Friday the boats only go out for tank 1 and 2. This is because most depart on Saturday afternoon. They won't let you dive 24hours before departure time. If you aren't leave Saturday, you can still do the shore sites Friday afternoon, and evening. When you tell them you want to dive that afternoon or evening, they will ask you when you are flying. Same goes for the Saturday afternoon - shop closes early. Saturday morning is actually a great day to dive. They only take out 1 boat, as there are fewer divers (more Saturday departures) so we only had 4 on the boat. You dive on the same boat all week, with the same Captain, and DM. However, if you dive on Saturday, you'll likely end up on a new boat just for that one day. Sunday is back to business as usual, all boats are up and running, 3 trips.

We had a great trip, and will definitely come back. We will need to bring the daughter, maybe next summer. It's a great deal for very good diving.
One closing warning, be sure to save USD $38 per person in cash for the airport departure tax. You won't leave until you pay. You can withdraw at the airport ATM, however, they only give Lempira, so you'll likely have some left over foreign currency.

If considering Fantasy Island Beach Resort, I hope you found this helpful.

Oh - I don't have the energy to proof read for spelling, or typos. I invariably make some...sorry in advance.


picture links:

topside hotel/beach photos:
Ray Aslin's Photos - Roatan Surface pics | Facebook

diving photos (same as I posted in another thread that I was jacking)
Ray Aslin's Photos - Roatan 6142010 dive pics | Facebook

 

[Didje]

Thanks for the VERY detailed report and pics! This is some great info for anyone looking into FIBR/Roatan. Cheers!

 

[LynnB]

Thanks for the awesome report! That pretty much sumed it all up. We are ready to go. Sounds like we will love it. Stayed on West Bay last year and they say the diving on south side is different. Not the big stuff but beautiful Macro...
Thanks again,
Lynn

 

[Reef Tank]

Perfect report. Thanks

 

[BDSC]

Excellent report! One of the best I've seen on SB!

 

[Cajuncru Diver]

rayaslin: thanks for the detailed trip report....after more trips to FIRB than I care to mention I can attest to the fact that your trip report nailed the resort. Good Work and thanks again.

 

[vfox]

WOW !! What a completely detailed, amazing trip report. Thank you so much for all the information you included. We're even more excited to leave now. ThanX again !

 

[billmosel]

That was a GREAT report. I was there in March and your report hit everything right on the head. you were able to write it much better than I could. If anyone is thinking of going to FIBR this is the report to go by.