ddawson
Contributor
We made our first trip to Isla Marisol on Glovers Atoll in Belize in March 2011. Overall impressions: excellent diving, very good food, average accommodations, nice grounds, less-than-great boats, average dive operation, problematic travel logistics.
For slideshow go to
https://sites.google.com/site/dkimdawson/home/scuba-shows
For pictures go to
Scuba Photo Gallery by kimdawson at pbase.com
The travel: Getting to Isla Marisol was long and tiring. We flew from Charlotte to Belize City on US Air, then had to wait a long time for a delayed Tropic Air flight from Belize City to Dangriga (with the counter agent saying 10 more minutes many times). Eddie Usher, the resort owner, met us in Dangriga and took us to the boat launch for the 2-hour boat ride to the resort. Because our flight was so late, other guests had been waiting at the very remote boat launch in the drizzly weather for about 3 hours. The crossing to Glovers Atoll was pretty bumpy due to the weather and at least one guest became seasick. Once again we were told that wed be at the island in 10 more minutes several times. On the day of departure, the resort split us into 2 groups for the trip back to the mainland based on departure times from the Dangriga airport. We were on the early boat (the smaller boat) and were somewhat concerned because we had heard stories of people and luggage getting wet on the small boat. We packed our luggage in large trash bags, but the ride was actually very nice and we didnt get wet at all. But when we arrived at the landing our ride wasnt there and we had to wait about half an hour for the van to show up. The group of guests on the later trip aboard the large boat ran into trouble when the boat ran out of gas about two miles off shore. The small boat went back to help them and brought gas, but it was apparently a long ordeal. Based on these travel difficulties, we determined that the logistics of getting to Isla Marisol and back are too fragile for us to go there again.
The resort: We were disappointed when we arrived at the resort to find that we were not assigned to the ocean-front bungalow we had confirmed but rather to an inland bungalow behind the main dining hall. The bungalow was clean and tidy, but it got very hot. There was an A/C unit but it did not work well and the afternoons were extremely hot I would not want to stay there in the heat of summer. Perhaps the ocean-front bungalows got more breeze in the afternoons and were cooler. Evenings were actually pleasant and we slept with the windows open and the fan running. We didnt have any problems with bugs in the room. The shower water pressure was extremely poor and we didnt enjoy even lukewarm water all week. Also, the shower head was very low so anyone over about 58 has to do the Marisol squat to shower. Of course, there was no phone or television (yea!). Electricity in the room worked well and outlets were standard US outlets. Drinking water was not provided in the rooms; guests fill up personal water bottles in the dining hall. Daily maid service was provided.
The resort grounds were nice and well-maintained lots of palm trees and pretty white sand. We know that other guests have complained about the no-see-ums in the past, but resort does a good job of spraying now and the only place they seem to exist is on the dock. There are two common buildings at Isla Marisol the dining hall and the bar. The dining hall is situated very near the shore and the breeze kept it very comfortable. All meals were served buffet style and guests sat together at long tables. The bar is located over the water and stayed very cool with the ocean breeze blowing through. There is a nice deck all the way around the bar where guests can enjoy sitting over the ocean and watching the sunset. Free wi-fi could be accessed in the dining hall and bar.
The meals at Isla Marisol were quite good. All meals were served buffet style at set times. Breakfasts included homemade breads/muffins, eggs, breakfast meats, as well as fruit, yogurt, and cereal and fresh juice. Coffee was available in the dining hall from early morning throughout the day. Lunches were all hot meals such as spaghetti, various soups, chicken sandwiches, or fish, always with plenty of side dishes and a dessert. Dinners were very good typically salad, vegetables, and choices of meats/main dishes that were very tasty. Portions were plentiful and many people had seconds.
The diving: The dive operation at Isla Marisol was not the best we have experienced. The resort has a large boat that is not well suited to diving and a small boat that we actually liked better than the large boat. There was also a third smaller boat that was used for snorkelers while we were there. There are no moorings at any of the dive sites so you have to get in the water and stay with your DM and then come up together as a group on every dive. We had a large number of divers (around 20) on the first couple of days, including some folks who were going through their certification, so we went on the large boat. This boat has a large covered interior area that is nice, but there are large engine compartments in the back that block access to the dive deck. The DMs lay all the tanks with gear attached on the platform on top of one another this is somewhat disturbing for guests like us who have all of our own gear and expensive computers. Once you reach the dive site, the DMs call divers to the back in groups of 4 and have you sit on the back of the boat to gear up. It is an awkward process at best. For the rest of the trip, we dove from the smaller dive boat, which had tank racks running down both sides of the boat. Entry from this boat was by back roll from either side of the boat. The days we dove on this boat we typically had only 6-8 divers so it was a much nicer experience. The resorts gear storage area is located in a small covered room at the dock, and cleaning and storing gear was easy and convenient.
The dive schedule included 2 morning boat dives and an afternoon boat dive each day. The boat returned to dock between the two morning dives. Boat rides were generally 10-15 minutes, though we went further on some trips. One morning we went to Long Caye, which took about 30 minutes. We found that the first morning dive was generally deeper than we would have preferred, with the top of the reef at about 60 feet. We were not diving on Nitrox, so this meant that we could only spend the first part of the dive on the reef, with the last half or so swimming about 10-15 feet above the reef not fun for a photographer. In retrospect, we should have switched to Nitrox. The diving included a mix of relatively flat reef tops (the morning 60 foot dives) and walls, as well as shallower reef/wall dives. The DMs with us for the week were Kitty and Matthew. Kitty is a regular DM but Matthew was there filling in from another resort on another island for the week. Both of them were very helpful on the boat and good at pointing things out for us underwater. Kitty took the spear gun on some of the dives to kill lionfish and she was quite good with it. On one dive she fed one of the lionfish to a spotted moray very cool.
The diving here was pristine and the reef looked very healthy. The tops of the walls were not very colorful, but we saw large elephant ear sponges and pretty deep water gorgonians and other large colorful sponges and corals on the walls. The fish life was average, though we did see a number of large creatures including a spotted eagle ray, some hawksbill turtles, a large loggerhead turtle, and a few nurse sharks. We also saw some giant groupers as well as midnight and blue parrotfish. We were disappointed with the lack of macro life here; it was almost non-existent. We saw more macro critters on the one night dive than we did for the rest of the dives on the trip combined. The resort offered one night during the week. Only two other divers went with us on the night dive so it was very nice. We saw tons of little red hermit crabs as well as cryptic teardrop crabs, large crabs, lobsters (Caribbean and sculpted slipper lobsters), and a sharptail eel.
We had a great time with the group of people who were there with us. Everyone got along very well together and we really enjoyed sharing meals and spending time with the other guests. The people were all easy-going and fun to be with -- folks wed love to dive with again.
Overall, we enjoyed our trip and are glad we went, but it is unlikely that we would return. The travel logistics and the many opportunities for something to go wrong are just too uncertain for us. Also, we thought the price was too high for the quality of the trip. We understand that it is expensive to operate a resort on a remote island, but we still thought it was over-priced, especially in comparison with the Peter Hughes live-aboard in Belize that we dove on 2 years ago. Also, we honestly thought the diving on Lighthouse Atoll (where the Hughes boat is located) was better much more macro life and a more impressive reef (colorful sponges/corals/etc.)
For slideshow go to
https://sites.google.com/site/dkimdawson/home/scuba-shows
For pictures go to
Scuba Photo Gallery by kimdawson at pbase.com
The travel: Getting to Isla Marisol was long and tiring. We flew from Charlotte to Belize City on US Air, then had to wait a long time for a delayed Tropic Air flight from Belize City to Dangriga (with the counter agent saying 10 more minutes many times). Eddie Usher, the resort owner, met us in Dangriga and took us to the boat launch for the 2-hour boat ride to the resort. Because our flight was so late, other guests had been waiting at the very remote boat launch in the drizzly weather for about 3 hours. The crossing to Glovers Atoll was pretty bumpy due to the weather and at least one guest became seasick. Once again we were told that wed be at the island in 10 more minutes several times. On the day of departure, the resort split us into 2 groups for the trip back to the mainland based on departure times from the Dangriga airport. We were on the early boat (the smaller boat) and were somewhat concerned because we had heard stories of people and luggage getting wet on the small boat. We packed our luggage in large trash bags, but the ride was actually very nice and we didnt get wet at all. But when we arrived at the landing our ride wasnt there and we had to wait about half an hour for the van to show up. The group of guests on the later trip aboard the large boat ran into trouble when the boat ran out of gas about two miles off shore. The small boat went back to help them and brought gas, but it was apparently a long ordeal. Based on these travel difficulties, we determined that the logistics of getting to Isla Marisol and back are too fragile for us to go there again.
The resort: We were disappointed when we arrived at the resort to find that we were not assigned to the ocean-front bungalow we had confirmed but rather to an inland bungalow behind the main dining hall. The bungalow was clean and tidy, but it got very hot. There was an A/C unit but it did not work well and the afternoons were extremely hot I would not want to stay there in the heat of summer. Perhaps the ocean-front bungalows got more breeze in the afternoons and were cooler. Evenings were actually pleasant and we slept with the windows open and the fan running. We didnt have any problems with bugs in the room. The shower water pressure was extremely poor and we didnt enjoy even lukewarm water all week. Also, the shower head was very low so anyone over about 58 has to do the Marisol squat to shower. Of course, there was no phone or television (yea!). Electricity in the room worked well and outlets were standard US outlets. Drinking water was not provided in the rooms; guests fill up personal water bottles in the dining hall. Daily maid service was provided.
The resort grounds were nice and well-maintained lots of palm trees and pretty white sand. We know that other guests have complained about the no-see-ums in the past, but resort does a good job of spraying now and the only place they seem to exist is on the dock. There are two common buildings at Isla Marisol the dining hall and the bar. The dining hall is situated very near the shore and the breeze kept it very comfortable. All meals were served buffet style and guests sat together at long tables. The bar is located over the water and stayed very cool with the ocean breeze blowing through. There is a nice deck all the way around the bar where guests can enjoy sitting over the ocean and watching the sunset. Free wi-fi could be accessed in the dining hall and bar.
The meals at Isla Marisol were quite good. All meals were served buffet style at set times. Breakfasts included homemade breads/muffins, eggs, breakfast meats, as well as fruit, yogurt, and cereal and fresh juice. Coffee was available in the dining hall from early morning throughout the day. Lunches were all hot meals such as spaghetti, various soups, chicken sandwiches, or fish, always with plenty of side dishes and a dessert. Dinners were very good typically salad, vegetables, and choices of meats/main dishes that were very tasty. Portions were plentiful and many people had seconds.
The diving: The dive operation at Isla Marisol was not the best we have experienced. The resort has a large boat that is not well suited to diving and a small boat that we actually liked better than the large boat. There was also a third smaller boat that was used for snorkelers while we were there. There are no moorings at any of the dive sites so you have to get in the water and stay with your DM and then come up together as a group on every dive. We had a large number of divers (around 20) on the first couple of days, including some folks who were going through their certification, so we went on the large boat. This boat has a large covered interior area that is nice, but there are large engine compartments in the back that block access to the dive deck. The DMs lay all the tanks with gear attached on the platform on top of one another this is somewhat disturbing for guests like us who have all of our own gear and expensive computers. Once you reach the dive site, the DMs call divers to the back in groups of 4 and have you sit on the back of the boat to gear up. It is an awkward process at best. For the rest of the trip, we dove from the smaller dive boat, which had tank racks running down both sides of the boat. Entry from this boat was by back roll from either side of the boat. The days we dove on this boat we typically had only 6-8 divers so it was a much nicer experience. The resorts gear storage area is located in a small covered room at the dock, and cleaning and storing gear was easy and convenient.
The dive schedule included 2 morning boat dives and an afternoon boat dive each day. The boat returned to dock between the two morning dives. Boat rides were generally 10-15 minutes, though we went further on some trips. One morning we went to Long Caye, which took about 30 minutes. We found that the first morning dive was generally deeper than we would have preferred, with the top of the reef at about 60 feet. We were not diving on Nitrox, so this meant that we could only spend the first part of the dive on the reef, with the last half or so swimming about 10-15 feet above the reef not fun for a photographer. In retrospect, we should have switched to Nitrox. The diving included a mix of relatively flat reef tops (the morning 60 foot dives) and walls, as well as shallower reef/wall dives. The DMs with us for the week were Kitty and Matthew. Kitty is a regular DM but Matthew was there filling in from another resort on another island for the week. Both of them were very helpful on the boat and good at pointing things out for us underwater. Kitty took the spear gun on some of the dives to kill lionfish and she was quite good with it. On one dive she fed one of the lionfish to a spotted moray very cool.
The diving here was pristine and the reef looked very healthy. The tops of the walls were not very colorful, but we saw large elephant ear sponges and pretty deep water gorgonians and other large colorful sponges and corals on the walls. The fish life was average, though we did see a number of large creatures including a spotted eagle ray, some hawksbill turtles, a large loggerhead turtle, and a few nurse sharks. We also saw some giant groupers as well as midnight and blue parrotfish. We were disappointed with the lack of macro life here; it was almost non-existent. We saw more macro critters on the one night dive than we did for the rest of the dives on the trip combined. The resort offered one night during the week. Only two other divers went with us on the night dive so it was very nice. We saw tons of little red hermit crabs as well as cryptic teardrop crabs, large crabs, lobsters (Caribbean and sculpted slipper lobsters), and a sharptail eel.
We had a great time with the group of people who were there with us. Everyone got along very well together and we really enjoyed sharing meals and spending time with the other guests. The people were all easy-going and fun to be with -- folks wed love to dive with again.
Overall, we enjoyed our trip and are glad we went, but it is unlikely that we would return. The travel logistics and the many opportunities for something to go wrong are just too uncertain for us. Also, we thought the price was too high for the quality of the trip. We understand that it is expensive to operate a resort on a remote island, but we still thought it was over-priced, especially in comparison with the Peter Hughes live-aboard in Belize that we dove on 2 years ago. Also, we honestly thought the diving on Lighthouse Atoll (where the Hughes boat is located) was better much more macro life and a more impressive reef (colorful sponges/corals/etc.)
