Finally pulled the trigger on Roatan!

[Dive n00b]

Okay... so after much research, dozens of posts on SB, and a lot of deliberation, the wife and I finally decided to roll the dice on Roatan!

We will be staying at the Mayan Princess from March 22-29th and can't wait to get there. We hope to fall in love with the island like many of you already have.

As its stands, we are going to start out with a pair of 10 dive packages from Mayan Divers (we are open to Bannanramma too, so please post recommendations).

Outside of diving, we hope to relax on the beach, and just enjoy some quality decompression time.

I am hoping your collective experience can help us build our what not to miss, and what to avoid lists for the week.

I know we will be eating most meals off the resort, and that Bannanaramma has some great places to hang out for a drink or get a nice meal. (Vintage Pearl and Thirsty Turtle). I've also been told that the Brazilian BBQ place in the west end is not to be missed.

Anything else in terms of food and drink to plan for?

Any thoughts on the zipline tour? We've currently got that on our to do list.
Any other topside activities worth our while?

In terms of underwater fun, I know Mary's Place is not to be missed, but I think we will work our way up to that as we are heading down with only 10 dives under our belt, and from the youtube vids that I've seen of Mary's Place, we need to have our buoyancy in check. The Prince Albert is also on the list of must see's.

Can anyone shed some light on the Roatan Marine Park and the AKR Dolphin Dive? Worth the money? Any details would be greatly appreciated.

Any other tips around ensuring that we have the best Roatan experience possible would be greatly appreciated. We hope to love the island as much as you all do.

Cheers,
Andre

 

[Papa_Bear]

Here is a video of the Dolphin dive and I like it and have done it a number of times! I like the Zip line at the park..... Also go to Oakridge and do the water taxi to the floating bar!
Two Tanked Productions HD & SD Underwater Productions and video services

 

[Doc]

Can anyone shed some light on ...the AKR Dolphin Dive? Worth the money? Any details would be greatly appreciated.

Do a search here on SB and you will see that the general consensus is that the 'dolphin encounter' (snorkel) is not only less expensive but allows for vastly more encounter time and actual physical contact with the critters.

Downside? The 'encounter' is in the murky shallows of the pens.

Upside? This can be done on your last 'off-gassing' day and will not penalize your Nitrogen loading for airflight delays.

 

[Papa_Bear]

There is just something special about diving with these animals in the open ocean! You still get to get pretty close and you get direct contact during the orientation! I like the dive because I am a diver!

 

[DandyDon]

I thot the staged shark dives and dolphin encounters sounded hokey, but my resort gave me a freebie after screwing up my room first night. First we tried a day trip to Utila but the boat failed. By then the dolphin snorkel for last day was sold out as everyone said it was better & cheaper than the dolphin scuba. I took nitrox with me from the resort so that shallow dive would be even shallower the day before flying and did the dolphin scuba. It was ok.

This next trip, I would really like to find something different to do the last afternoon.

 

[Papa_Bear]

Go to Oak Ridge and do the water taxi tour and the floating bar! It is way cool! The zip lines are fun too or do both!

 

[DandyDon]

Go to Oak Ridge and do the water taxi tour and the floating bar! It is way cool! The zip lines are fun too or do both!

Looks interesting, but maybe the Tropical Bird Park Carambola Botanical Gardens or the Mangrove Canals Tour are more my speed.

 

[CODMAN]

Just for information, the dolphin encounters and dives are with captive dolphins, which encourages the internation dolphin trade. It is quite controversial these days... I'm not trying to bash anyone who decides (or has decided to do it); I'm just trying to inform. Hey I did it while I was there, and shortly after returning, I saw a few documentaries on this subject. I now regret having done it...

Anyways, to each his/her own! I just wanted to throw this in so people can make their own educated decision about this!

 

[robint]

A group of 5 divers that was on our dive boat said they had done both the snorkel and dive with dolphins (they go to Roatan every year) and they said the snorkel was much better as you get more time with the dolphins. I haven't done either so I am just relying on what they said.

 

[georoc01]

I agree on those that say to do the dolphin encounter or snorkel. I was dissapointed with the dive. Recognize that these are still wild animals and when out in the wild will come visit when they are ready, no matter what your personal air consumption is. We had two people who missed them entirely, as it was a good 20+ minutes on the sand before we saw them.

Obviously every dolphin dive is different and I have heard people rave about it. Much of it has to do with the mood of the dolphins which is out of the humans control.

We thought the shark dive rocked. Lots of sharks and interaction. First time I was able to swim the sharks, rather than just sit on the sand and observe. Pretty cool.