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Maybe yes, maybe no.
Like I said, it all comes down to apples and oranges... value that is.
How much is your vacation time worth? I mean, if you really want "bargain diving", the clear choice would be FI, but good luck on that choice. People do still go to FI, the survivors still post awful reports, but most of them finish up with something about "great price". (after you sort through the obvious 5* phonies) Again- how much is your vacation time worth?
AKR is a world class dive operation and a good resort hotel. They get the bulk of their income from Cruise Ship day divers and Dolphin Pesters. They look at the week-long guests as a way to keep the staff busy in the evenings. Years ago, the week long guests were all divers- not so much anymore, their marketing has expanded beyond the divenuts crowd. It works for them, and they really don't care about discounting for 1/2 price- they are awash in cruise ship & dolphin money, there is a constant flow of locals passing through- it is part of a street to a village. Their dive op is top shelf, their DMs do a nice job, their boats are glossy, they have sit-down meal service and a pool. They steadfastly claim a limited hours "shore dive" but it exists in name only. It is a short cab ride away from West End, and that is a huge selling point. (One which makes no sense to me, though. As in: I've chosen this place because it's easy to get away from). It offers a little something for the non-diver. My dive-centric friends who use AKR get 17 dives in a week. We shall see glowing reports from the SB Invasion. Alcohol, free stuff, and limbo dancing will be involved.
CCV is a dive resort, plain and simple. Go there expecting a well oiled dive machine. You will be in the water 5x a day without breaking a sweat. We're doing 27 in a week. Your room is made to appear Robinson Crusoe rustic, it sits on posts over the live reef. Meals are cafeteria style, nobody looses weight, eat whatever and all you want. Shore diving, which is absolutely remarkable, is available 24 hours a day. No one is there that isn't an employee or guest. Sitting on its own private 10 acre key, security is such that you can leave cameras, computers and whatever lying on the dining room tables for days. There has been no real thought to ever build a pool, there's a salt pool literally at your doorsteps. It is almost ADA accessible, the two stair steps in the resort also have a ramp. Biggest downside: If you aren't at least a snorkeler, you should start drinking furiously upon arrival. Entire groups of snorkelers arrive and never go much further than the "Front Yard" dive site.
Two similar properties? Close? Kinda, maybe, maybe not. It's still a real decision making process to figure out what will work best for you, harder still with a "group". Like I intimated above, a group tour leader has to decide if they're offering a dive vacation or a vacation with diving.
An even greater disparity on Roatan can be seen with the further split- not between 'dive resorts', but further afield to West End day dive ops. They give you the true Margaritaville option, drink all night, find a meal, dive once, drink again. This schedule would be a poor utilization of the pre-paid cost structure at any AI such as AKR or CCV. But- the West End hosts 90% of the island visitors who dive- if but at least once. AI's here make sense only if you want more than 2 dives a day. The converse is true- day dive ops will cost you in several ways if you want more than 2 a day. Plain math.
These days, the market has changed in dive travel. Gone are the days when dive travelers demanded classical dive resorts. You can leave any property and go zip lining, golf, or any number of other non-SCUBA activities, but the days of SCUBA resorts per-se are dwindling because of the new customer model. The vacationers today simply want more of a catered resort feel, hence the explosion in popularity of SCUBA diving while on a Cruise Ship, or the water sports inclusions at Sandals and Club Dread.
When I speak or write about how customer desires have changed, when I mention the quantitative decline in requested dive excursions, many listeners misperceive this as my challenging their manhood. I don't care how much stuff other than diving that you want in your 2017 vacation, I can only speak to the dive crowd. They may be dwindling, the lure of a bar over a night dive- I see that, but I'll stick with the nitrogen junkies.
What's your vacation time worth? A complicated equation.
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You have to climb up and down multitudes of stairs to get anywhere...
