From Cruise, in Roatan 8am-6pm, Anthony Key vs Maya Divers, or others?

[Torontonian]

Hi.

We are arriving Mahagony Bay from Carnival Conquest cruise ship, in port 8am to 6pm (actually need to be back at 5pm).

In my family of 4, my wife will just tag along, and enjoy the beach. My children and I will like to do some certified diving. The ship contracts with Anthony Keys, and provides round trip transportation.

We contacted Maya Divers (at Maya Prince resort), and they can also provide transportation for us to do diving there.

How do the two compare, in their service, diving, and the resort/beach?

Another thing we are thinking is after the morning dive, and a bit of time for lunch, we like to do zipline, before getting back to the ship. South Shore zipline seems to be on the way back from Maya Divers. Not sure about AKR.

Can you give some suggestions/comments?

Thanks.

 

[Herb-alaska]

I just did two dive days in Roatan and Belize with the cruise ship dive ops, who's name I can't grab right now but it was all through Carnival Sunshine and both days were nice dives, convenient because it was all through the ship.

I am a experienced cold water diver with about 600 dives and i had a nice time. The tanks were AL 80 and I had 49 to 55 min dives each location with a average depth of 45 feet. We stayed above 90 feet on all four of the dives. We had vacation divers with only a few dives along as well and they split everyone up very well. In Roatan they did separate out the 3 teens and kept them above 45 with their own DM

I dove in Cozumel again with the ship shop and That was exactly what I was expecting 30 min everyone up at the same time over a so so reef. I would skip Coz my next cruise but I for sure would return to the dive ops in Roatan and Belize

Herb

 

[diversteve]

Look at Barefoot Divers possibly also. They're the closest to MB and have a cruise program. On the south side about 10mins. away. Dive Tours Roatán - Ship Shore Excursions - Barefoot Divers If you're all AOW, they'll take you to Mary's Place - one of the signature Roatan dives - 5 mins. from their dock. Our 2nd dive we rode over to Cocoview and dove the Prince Albert. If you're looking for something easy for the kids - that's it, the top of it is about 25' deep - bottom is 70ish IIRC. Big wreck, purposely dive prepped and sunk some years ago so there's a lot of growth on it.

They have a small beach for your wife and it's treated/raked for sand flies. If she snorkels, the lagoon out front is shallow and reef protected. They have kayak and stand-up paddleboards for rent also. There's a palapa at the end of their dock for access. There's also a spa. The whole resort was about this crowded when we were there also - it's a pretty small place: http://barefootcay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/7402469976_e51a7e0dd0_o.jpg

They do an add-on catered lunch for $12 and the food is excellent.

There's not much of a beach at AKR. It's sort of sandwiched in between a couple of the bungalows also. It's the strip of sand on the south point here: About Us - Anthony's Key Resort - Roatan - Honduras Your wife would be better off taking a 5min. cab ride to Half Moon Bay Beach in the West End.

Mayan Princess being on West Bay Beach has the best beach. Some of the cruise line beach excursions go to West Bay beach also so it can be a little crowded. Not good or bad just maybe not the quiet relaxing beach she might expect. http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd370/papiyako17/146123_zps43da2961.jpg If you go with them, you can also do a canopy tour (zip line) at Gumbalimba Park nearby.

 

[Torontonian]

I just did two dive days in Roatan and Belize with the cruise ship dive ops, who's name I can't grab right now but it was all through Carnival Sunshine and both days were nice dives, convenient because it was all through the ship.

I am a experienced cold water diver with about 600 dives and i had a nice time. The tanks were AL 80 and I had 49 to 55 min dives each location with a average depth of 45 feet. We stayed above 90 feet on all four of the dives. We had vacation divers with only a few dives along as well and they split everyone up very well. In Roatan they did separate out the 3 teens and kept them above 45 with their own DM

I dove in Cozumel again with the ship shop and That was exactly what I was expecting 30 min everyone up at the same time over a so so reef. I would skip Coz my next cruise but I for sure would return to the dive ops in Roatan and Belize

Herb

In Belize they use Hugh Parkey. In Roatan they use Anthony Keys. Both seem to have good reputation.

I Coz, there are many good ops. It's one place I wouldn't use the ship's excursion.

Look at Barefoot Divers possibly also. They're the closest to MB and have a cruise program. On the south side about 10mins. away. Dive Tours Roatán - Ship Shore Excursions - Barefoot Divers If you're all AOW, they'll take you to Mary's Place - one of the signature Roatan dives - 5 mins. from their dock. Our 2nd dive we rode over to Cocoview and dove the Prince Albert. If you're looking for something easy for the kids - that's it, the top of it is about 25' deep - bottom is 70ish IIRC. Big wreck, purposely dive prepped and sunk some years ago so there's a lot of growth on it.

They have a small beach for your wife and it's treated/raked for sand flies. If she snorkels, the lagoon out front is shallow and reef protected. They have kayak and stand-up paddleboards for rent also. There's a palapa at the end of their dock for access. There's also a spa. The whole resort was about this crowded when we were there also - it's a pretty small place: http://barefootcay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/7402469976_e51a7e0dd0_o.jpg

They do an add-on catered lunch for $12 and the food is excellent.

There's not much of a beach at AKR. It's sort of sandwiched in between a couple of the bungalows also. It's the strip of sand on the south point here: About Us - Anthony's Key Resort - Roatan - Honduras Your wife would be better off taking a 5min. cab ride to Half Moon Bay Beach in the West End.

Mayan Princess being on West Bay Beach has the best beach. Some of the cruise line beach excursions go to West Bay beach also so it can be a little crowded. Not good or bad just maybe not the quiet relaxing beach she might expect. http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd370/papiyako17/146123_zps43da2961.jpg If you go with them, you can also do a canopy tour (zip line) at Gumbalimba Park nearby.

Steve you got lots of good info. Thanks.

So AKR doesn't have much of a beach. That's not good. The other thing is Maya Divers seems very flexible in the arrangement, vs the ship's excursion to AKR. So that's one plus for Maya Divers.

Barefoot looks good. But their pricing is higher already, even without transportation. So for 3 divers it adds up. My kids will have AOW, but won't have the 50 dives they need to go to Mary's Place.

How good is this Mary's Place? We've have dived Spiegel and Brentwood at Key Largo. I had done Atila at Aruba, Stav at Barbado, SeaTiger at Honolulu, etc. So had done some good wrecks.

For Gumbalimba Park zipline, do you mean South Shore? That's the one I'm thinking.

 

[diversteve]

Mary's Place is not a wreck, it's a fissure in the reef. It closes up in some areas so you can't surface everywhere which is why they want AOW typically.
google it, there's some good videos. It's how I found it, we made a special trip down to Barefoot to dive it from the West End. Your kids can also follow the bubbles on top but they'd be missing a lot. The problem with showing up at Barefoot off a cruise ship is they have a short time to evaluate your experience level - Mary's is 5 mins. off their dock. So that's why they have the restrictions.

Prince Albert is the wreck off Cocoview. I don't know any of those you mentioned so can't compare it. I think it's 140' long and has been down for a while. Robint - a member here - shot this video last year. Diving the Prince Albert wreck, CoCoview Roatan, June 2013 HD on Vimeo

I know very little about the AKR program except I see Overheat Reef mentioned often. We dove it from the West End - IMO it's not memorable. Happens to be close to AKR - the name is from one of their boats that used to overheat nearby. I was there once when the cruise dive came back - they had their own boat separate from the resort guests - not sure if that's good or bad depending on your fellow pax experience level - and afaik that was the same group we saw later stopping at the gift shop. Which is actually big for Roatan standards but there's a lot of tourist art and t-shirts. Understand that AKR is all by itself, fenced and gated. Which is why I suggested that your wife might like the West End/Half Moon Bay Beach.The chamber is at AKR also if needed.

Gumbalimba Park is about half a mile east from Mayan Beach Resort. Still in West Bay along the same beach on the north side. http://www.gumbalimbapark.com/index.html

Their beach isn't as good as there's seagrass in that area - more so than out front of West Bay from what I understand. I've never actually been on West Bay Beach, just by it 1/2 dozen times by boat going to dive sites near the very West End - Texas there is a good dive - it's a drift usually.



Subway Watersports is another option. http://www.subwaywatersports.com/shore_excursion.htm#.U60Lq0C4OSo They offer free pickup also at MB. Not that it matters much but I believe that for either Mayan or Subway you have to walk off the MB grounds to get picked up. If you scroll far enough down the page you'll see that a day on their beach for your wife is $25 including the ride. They also offer ziplining options but IDK if you can do both with them the same day.

They're based farther east at Turquoise Bay Resort. Pretty nice beach there also but the resort itself is more isolated. TBR is about as far east as West Bay is west - maybe slightly farther. http://www.turquoisebayresort.com/resort-amenities.html Saw it from the water once, it looked as nice as they show.

 

[Torontonian]

Steve, you've been incredibly helpful. Thanks.

I'm trying to figure out timing. The ship will be on EDT. So the 8am arrival time, looks to be 6am local time as Honduras is on Central standard time. That's very early. If that's the case, after we get picked up to get to the dive shop, hope they can go out diving early.

The time to get back to ship, will be 3pm local time. So we'll probably need to leave from the dive resort to zipline without much time to enjoy the resot. Ah, that's what the time difference will make.

 

[dmoore19]

You might be interested in the dolphin snorkel at AKR. Some folks do, some don't like the idea.

AKR does keep the cruise and the guests separated. Having been there I can say they do a good job. The dive shop is very well run with nice boats and good DMs. AKR seems to keep their employees with little to no turn over.

Mary's Place is a good dive, interesting if you like the structure, it can be a deep dive (100'+) if you want.

I have done the zipline. It's fun! We did it on the day before we left, a non diving day.

Can't answer questions about the timing issue because we have always stayed on the island. We usually spend an afternoon going to West End to just look around and have a meal off resort property. That is always fun too.

 

[Lorenzoid]

AKR has a satellite site that they call Maya Key (not to be confused with Maya Divers), and I believe they take cruise ship people there. We stayed at AKR's main site but spent a surface interval on Maya Key, where they had a nice little barbecue lunch for us. Maya Key seemed really nice, and they do have beach, pool, etc., that would entertain a non-diver. If I were arriving on a cruise ship and knew that AKR's plan would be to take us to Maya Key, I would not hesitate.

 

[paulw]

You might try West End Divers : westenddivers I used them in May and was very happy. I was on Carnival Magic and they picked me up at Mahogany Bay I made three very nice dives and was dropped off with plenty of time. My family went to the beach at Mahogany Bay and had a loved it.

Paul

 

[sparky923]

I was kind of in the same boat as you last year. I was with my wife and kids and they wanted a beach excursion, and i wanted to dive. We used Bananarama. We all stayed at the beach all day, and I dived from there. The dive op is a separate entity from the beach excursion, but they are all in the same place. The dive op is Marco's and I don't know who ran the beach excursion.

My dives were great, but my wife didn't care for the beach excursion/setup as much. May have just been an off-day for the staff, though, because they get pretty good reviews. They are located at right next to Tabyanna beach and it is one of the prettiest beaches in the Caribe. It's just usually pretty packed.

Just another of plenty of options to choose from.