elvenhome21
Registered
Roatan
3/3-3/10
Hotel
Los Corales Hotel, 2 bedroom $50/night
Decent rooms for the price, we had 3 adults one 5yr old. It got crowded with luggage but manageable. If there were only 3 people you should be fine. Room only had the super short mini fridge and hair dryer and AC that worked great. You have to ask for new/dry towels, and they do make the bed every other day but don’t seem to sweep up the sand off the floor or replace toilet paper. However, if you ask the desk they gladly get you what you need. They do offer airport transport for $30 thru the taxi service. This hotel is on the 3rd floor of the sea turtle building, which has its pros/cons. No one comes up there unless they are staying in the rooms, the whole week we were there I think we seen maybe 6 different people on that floor. We left our shoes and swimsuits outside to dry and nothing was ever touched.
There is a good size gas station mini mart that is well stocked next to the hotel. There are 24hr security guards that monitor the area, not because it’s a bad area but to prevent it from becoming bad. It does have an ATM but it didn’t work when we were there. There is a pharmacy in the other direction a couple hundred feet.
You are 6-7 min walk from the beach on west end. Its not far, and by being away from the beach you have less craziness going on.
Dive shop
I went thru Jackson dive center, mainly because it’s an SSI shop and I did Advanced Adventurer thru them. Matt was the instructor, and I don’t have any issues with how he did the training. I would recommend him for training.
For disclosure, I use Ocean Reef Neptune FFM, and no one at the shop has ever had anyone come thru with FFM or knew what to do/how to help for OOA (this isn’t a complaint but for context later). Reason I use ffm is salt water burns the crap out of my eyes and makes me drool like a St Bernard. FFM is definitely my go to reg/mask for everything now.
IMPORTANT NOTE: DIN is virtually nonexistent on the island. Bring your adapter and orings. The shop tank valves are rode hard put away wet, 3 tanks I needed a new oring, I'm not talking a tiny stream of bubbles either. I mean hissing like a cat. Someone tell me why yoke is still a thing?
I did wreck, buoyancy, nav on day 1. Deep, night on day 2. Also did family snorkeling and 2 more dives that week with them.
The shop had 3 regular Divemaster’s Tony Blair, Matt, and one other guy that seemed to be either training to be a DM or only part time.
Matt (from Ohio) awesome, did everything that I would expect an instructor to do for advanced, helped the other guy in the class that was struggling, let me know he was going to work more with the other guy and I could swim around or hang out.
Blair (from Vancouver) nice guy, you get a bit of California surfer personality. Not annoying but you notice it. He was DM on one of the dives and at the end of the dive we were at 30 feet under the boat waiting for everyone to finish burning off their air. I was done with safety stop and had like 500 psi left so I wrote on my slate “OOA Drill to my reg” he asked what he needs to do (FFM OOA is more a involved drill). All I said was hang on to me if I start drifting. It was more of drill for me to know what to expect from other people that don’t know the system and how they react to me so I can know ahead of time how I need to present my issue to them quickly. For the Drill I did my thing and swapped over, no issue. Then told him I’m switching back to ffm. It took a bit longer to switch back and purge, I had full lungs of air and started to rapidly accent while I was busy, which Blair tried to help by grabbing me and keep me down (lesson for future). After we got back on the boat and talking about it, he was very understanding and going over different ideas to a unique setup.
Tony (from Roatan) he was on every dive I was on. He was saying that he has over 25000 dives which I can believe 3+ a day every day for over 25 years. Now with that I have a neutral opinion. He seemed to be in hurry to get back to boat/shore especially if it was the 2pm dive. On the dives he would lead with a fairly brisk pace and seem to be in his own world, not really pointing to anything or interacting with other divers.
Family snorkeling: they have some snorkeling gear but they aren’t really setup for it. Its more of, if they have room for you on the boat. Which is fair, $25 per for snorkeler vs $40 for diver. For snorkeling you go out with the dive group above them. You get a DSMB to clip on to you so boats hopefully don’t run over you.
Shop recap. I would potentially dive again with them. Very laid-back place, safety seemed to be decent for 3rd world. They did cave fill my tanks because I use enough air. Nothing came up that I was ever concerned about or felt could have been handled better.
Diving
First dive was the wreck i think 109ft. Had a divevolk knock off iphone case that imploded at 30 feet so no pic/vid of the entire trip. Intresting dive but ridiculously busy at that site. I had to come up 5 min early for low air and all I could see was bubbles everywhere as far as you could see from all the divers there. If you have the choice don't do this as 1st dive because of how many divers are there at 8am.
All other dives were right out of west end bay. Dixie, lighthouse and so on so 3 min boat ride.
Only seen 2 lionfish during the 7 dives. 1 lobster, about a gillion blue fish, a ton of parrot fish, a huge green eel. Didn't really see any big fish. Did run into jellyfish on several dives. They look like a potato with no tentacles. Didn’t know what they were until I got one in the neck and it felt weird not really painful. There were hundreds right where we dropped off the boat, swing my arm around in a circle I’d probably hit 5-6 of them.
One of the dives they had 2 tanks that didn't get filled from the last dive so both DM, Matt and Tony only had 1200psi to do a 30-45 min dive. Impressed that they conserved there air to last 80% of the dive. We were told ahead of time that they would do the loop and when we got back to the mooring line they would surface but we could stay down for 10 more min. It was only 30ft depth and forever visibility so not much safety concern, and everyone on the dive was on there 2nd dive for the day with them so it wasn't new people per sae.
Food
Silverside meh, very expensive. Food wasn't bad but not worth the price
Yahongreh awesome food. Breakfast lunch only. We at there several times over the week
Sandy buns awesome food
Gingers food was decent
Sundowners decent food but very busy took at least an hour to get food around 2pm
Argentina grill, grilled shrimp was fantastic
Woodys beach grill (shows up as Keith's bbq) across street from woodys grocery. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING FOOD must eat here when he's open. We caught 2 tuna on a fishing charter and needed someone to cook it for us, he did an amazing job with breading and sides. They have some fruit that they make into French fry type things and they are pretty good.
Juniors patio pizza. Good pizza at good price.
Real China palace (main floor of our hotel) this is a unique one. If you want to feed an army for cheap go here. Smallest dish size for most item says feeds 2-3 people and family size feeds 3-5. They aren't joking, we got sweet sour chicken small and a small fried rice. We got 2 heaping giant serving plates of food, 3 bottles of soda and something else I don't remember for $35.
Airport
The worst part of the entire trip. Flying in wasnt too terrible. Flying out was a nightmare. Get there minimum of 2 hours early, IF you have a choice in flights, pick the earliest fly out time you can. It was Butt to Nut packed and +90*F in the terminal. Even finding a place to stand was a challenge.
3/3-3/10
Hotel
Los Corales Hotel, 2 bedroom $50/night
Decent rooms for the price, we had 3 adults one 5yr old. It got crowded with luggage but manageable. If there were only 3 people you should be fine. Room only had the super short mini fridge and hair dryer and AC that worked great. You have to ask for new/dry towels, and they do make the bed every other day but don’t seem to sweep up the sand off the floor or replace toilet paper. However, if you ask the desk they gladly get you what you need. They do offer airport transport for $30 thru the taxi service. This hotel is on the 3rd floor of the sea turtle building, which has its pros/cons. No one comes up there unless they are staying in the rooms, the whole week we were there I think we seen maybe 6 different people on that floor. We left our shoes and swimsuits outside to dry and nothing was ever touched.
There is a good size gas station mini mart that is well stocked next to the hotel. There are 24hr security guards that monitor the area, not because it’s a bad area but to prevent it from becoming bad. It does have an ATM but it didn’t work when we were there. There is a pharmacy in the other direction a couple hundred feet.
You are 6-7 min walk from the beach on west end. Its not far, and by being away from the beach you have less craziness going on.
Dive shop
I went thru Jackson dive center, mainly because it’s an SSI shop and I did Advanced Adventurer thru them. Matt was the instructor, and I don’t have any issues with how he did the training. I would recommend him for training.
For disclosure, I use Ocean Reef Neptune FFM, and no one at the shop has ever had anyone come thru with FFM or knew what to do/how to help for OOA (this isn’t a complaint but for context later). Reason I use ffm is salt water burns the crap out of my eyes and makes me drool like a St Bernard. FFM is definitely my go to reg/mask for everything now.
IMPORTANT NOTE: DIN is virtually nonexistent on the island. Bring your adapter and orings. The shop tank valves are rode hard put away wet, 3 tanks I needed a new oring, I'm not talking a tiny stream of bubbles either. I mean hissing like a cat. Someone tell me why yoke is still a thing?
I did wreck, buoyancy, nav on day 1. Deep, night on day 2. Also did family snorkeling and 2 more dives that week with them.
The shop had 3 regular Divemaster’s Tony Blair, Matt, and one other guy that seemed to be either training to be a DM or only part time.
Matt (from Ohio) awesome, did everything that I would expect an instructor to do for advanced, helped the other guy in the class that was struggling, let me know he was going to work more with the other guy and I could swim around or hang out.
Blair (from Vancouver) nice guy, you get a bit of California surfer personality. Not annoying but you notice it. He was DM on one of the dives and at the end of the dive we were at 30 feet under the boat waiting for everyone to finish burning off their air. I was done with safety stop and had like 500 psi left so I wrote on my slate “OOA Drill to my reg” he asked what he needs to do (FFM OOA is more a involved drill). All I said was hang on to me if I start drifting. It was more of drill for me to know what to expect from other people that don’t know the system and how they react to me so I can know ahead of time how I need to present my issue to them quickly. For the Drill I did my thing and swapped over, no issue. Then told him I’m switching back to ffm. It took a bit longer to switch back and purge, I had full lungs of air and started to rapidly accent while I was busy, which Blair tried to help by grabbing me and keep me down (lesson for future). After we got back on the boat and talking about it, he was very understanding and going over different ideas to a unique setup.
Tony (from Roatan) he was on every dive I was on. He was saying that he has over 25000 dives which I can believe 3+ a day every day for over 25 years. Now with that I have a neutral opinion. He seemed to be in hurry to get back to boat/shore especially if it was the 2pm dive. On the dives he would lead with a fairly brisk pace and seem to be in his own world, not really pointing to anything or interacting with other divers.
Family snorkeling: they have some snorkeling gear but they aren’t really setup for it. Its more of, if they have room for you on the boat. Which is fair, $25 per for snorkeler vs $40 for diver. For snorkeling you go out with the dive group above them. You get a DSMB to clip on to you so boats hopefully don’t run over you.
Shop recap. I would potentially dive again with them. Very laid-back place, safety seemed to be decent for 3rd world. They did cave fill my tanks because I use enough air. Nothing came up that I was ever concerned about or felt could have been handled better.
Diving
First dive was the wreck i think 109ft. Had a divevolk knock off iphone case that imploded at 30 feet so no pic/vid of the entire trip. Intresting dive but ridiculously busy at that site. I had to come up 5 min early for low air and all I could see was bubbles everywhere as far as you could see from all the divers there. If you have the choice don't do this as 1st dive because of how many divers are there at 8am.
All other dives were right out of west end bay. Dixie, lighthouse and so on so 3 min boat ride.
Only seen 2 lionfish during the 7 dives. 1 lobster, about a gillion blue fish, a ton of parrot fish, a huge green eel. Didn't really see any big fish. Did run into jellyfish on several dives. They look like a potato with no tentacles. Didn’t know what they were until I got one in the neck and it felt weird not really painful. There were hundreds right where we dropped off the boat, swing my arm around in a circle I’d probably hit 5-6 of them.
One of the dives they had 2 tanks that didn't get filled from the last dive so both DM, Matt and Tony only had 1200psi to do a 30-45 min dive. Impressed that they conserved there air to last 80% of the dive. We were told ahead of time that they would do the loop and when we got back to the mooring line they would surface but we could stay down for 10 more min. It was only 30ft depth and forever visibility so not much safety concern, and everyone on the dive was on there 2nd dive for the day with them so it wasn't new people per sae.
Food
Silverside meh, very expensive. Food wasn't bad but not worth the price
Yahongreh awesome food. Breakfast lunch only. We at there several times over the week
Sandy buns awesome food
Gingers food was decent
Sundowners decent food but very busy took at least an hour to get food around 2pm
Argentina grill, grilled shrimp was fantastic
Woodys beach grill (shows up as Keith's bbq) across street from woodys grocery. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING FOOD must eat here when he's open. We caught 2 tuna on a fishing charter and needed someone to cook it for us, he did an amazing job with breading and sides. They have some fruit that they make into French fry type things and they are pretty good.
Juniors patio pizza. Good pizza at good price.
Real China palace (main floor of our hotel) this is a unique one. If you want to feed an army for cheap go here. Smallest dish size for most item says feeds 2-3 people and family size feeds 3-5. They aren't joking, we got sweet sour chicken small and a small fried rice. We got 2 heaping giant serving plates of food, 3 bottles of soda and something else I don't remember for $35.
Airport
The worst part of the entire trip. Flying in wasnt too terrible. Flying out was a nightmare. Get there minimum of 2 hours early, IF you have a choice in flights, pick the earliest fly out time you can. It was Butt to Nut packed and +90*F in the terminal. Even finding a place to stand was a challenge.
