bcadden:
Location like COCO VIEW RESORT My wife and I are planning for our next dive vacation and we would like to go to an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean similar to CoCo View Resort in Roatan, Honduras. My wife and I loved CoCo View Resort but would like to try another location this year. Any advise. I especially like the unlimited shore diving.. Thanks
There aint nothin like CoCoView.
But..
there are other good places! Bonaire is a must-do. The shore diving is always inviting, but that's what causes their offerings of included boat dives to be so sparse... most just wander off to shore dive.
In Bonaire I would rather dive the boat dives off of Klein Bonaire- the reefs are much more abundant and vibrant. The shore dives are of interest, but I have never needed to change dive sites
just to find some new critter... there's always something new every time you look. CoCoView's "Front Yard" house reef dive proves that fact. None of the house reef dive sites in Bonaire are of a similar quality to CCV, but again, Klein Bonaire is quite satisfactory... but it's not 24/7 available. I like the Divi. It's the cheapest, closest to town and has the worlds largest outdoor rinse tank. Stay away from any Casino, certainly one on a Caribbean Island.
As to another posters comments, no, AKR isn't even close. If you honestly enjoyed CCV, you would most probably dislike AKR, much as you would run screaming from FIBR. No room or energy to get into it here, but try to solicit advice on these from someone who's been to them all. CCV becomes the place by which you use as a standard of measurement. You think of the boats, the center moon well ladders, the camera tanks, tables, dock facilities, rinse tanks, showers, wheelchair accessability and that creamy shore dive, right there at your bedroom door. You'll be back, their CoCoNuts Club shows that!
Expand your horizons. Go beyond the "like CoCoView", lest ye surely be disappointed. There are other things out there that are just as good... but way different, Bonaire certainly being one of them!
Also consider the Nekton fleet of boats- the owner laughs when I called them CCV without the no-see-ums. He's repeated that more than once, enjoying the comparison and distinction wholeheartedly. This ship is the best way to see the
real Bahamas and certainly Belize... now Cayman! Once again, seek comparison from those who have a broad base of experience.
Look well at land based Tobago, especially at the town of Speyside.
There are any number of good destinations still waiting in the Caribbean, unfortunately ill served by any dive-op infrastructure or too far away to make air travel work for North Americans. Time and the world economy will tell, but look in the
future to locations such as North-East Grenada, Los Roques, The Corn Islands (The Cape of Honduras, South to San Andres), Cuba, Swan (Cisne), Barbaretta, and more and better liveaboards.
Go explore!