krukster86
Contributor
Wife and I just came back from a stay at CoCo View Resort over the Thanksgiving week. Immigration/processing was a breeze however we were just a bit taken aback when a luggage "helper" literally demanded a tip. We had a friendly transportation driver take us to the resort who gave us a quick tour of the island along the way and bought us some local fruit!
We discovered that the hotel has a weekly "program" of events designed for guests that come in Saturday and stay a week and depart the following Saturday. Since we arrived on Friday (cheaper airfare), our first night at the hotel was a big "going away party" for the rest of the guests. Unfortunately we did not arrive in time for the orientation with a divemaster for "drop off dives", so our first night consisted of unpacking, eating and resting (we had no sleep the night before due to a 4AM flight).
The resort food is really good in comparison to other foods that I had at other dive resorts. I wished there would be some local options but the food was pretty much "American" style. Heck, we even had a Thanksgiving dinner November 26! The foodstaff is great, always smiling and love to crack jokes with us.
Hotel rooms were very nice. We stayed at an oceanfront room and were happy with it. There were 6 outlets which was OK and taught us to ration our electronics/chargers/etc. Although our rooms were lockable (and we had a lockbox in our rooms), I was not worried about security/theft. We only had one instance where the power went out for 5-10 minutes or so.
The resort has a few interesting animals. There are some parrots in an enclosure in the dining area, rabbits in a little enclosure outside, hummingbirds which come for the feeders set up outside, some bats at night, lizards, and of course the resort dogs which love bellyrubs!
The dive operation is top notch. We were set up with unlimited nitrox for $125 a person. Dive boats were well maintained and we received fruit during our surface intervals. We were assigned to the Blue Boat (Capt Reuben) with Divemaster Jessie. We had a lot of early risers on our boat, so when everyone was on the boat we left well ahead of the other boats.
The diving in Roatan was very relaxing. There was pretty much zero current at the dive sites so it was very favorable for stopping to observe a sea creature for a few minutes without finning. Corals were beautiful and in great shape. The focus on sea life here was on the macro side of things. The only large animals we encountered were large groupers, sea turtles, and moray eels. While on the subject of moray eels, they tend to be rather "friendly" in that they come up to divers. We were told that this is because in the past divemasters would coax them out of hiding with squid, so now the moray eels come out to divers expecting a free meal...kind of sad. After the dive, there are many tubs available for rinsing gear and racks for hanging up boots, wetsuits, and other gear.
After each boat dive, there is an option to go on a drop off dive at the two "house" walls: CoCo View Wall or Newman Wall. This consists of self navigated tour back to the resort along the wall (with an option to check out the "house wreck"!). After you get to the shallow reef, there is a system of submerged buoys to lead you to shore.
We took advantage of the night dive option almost every night. It was brilliant to see coral polyps emerge, octopus, eels, porcupine fish, lobsters on the march, and other nocturnal life. It wasn't as good of a night dive (in terms of multitude of life) as in Cozumel, but it is hard to beat a zero current self guided dive at your own pace.
Now for the gripes: we were told there was some sort of Seahorse Festival going on, but no one really explained what it was. There were definitely two distinct groups of guests: one group consists of all the older generation guests who have gone there many many times and the new guests crowd. There were times when we would arrive at the common/dining area and there would be some event going on that only the repeat guests knew about. I wish that stuff was better communicated to new guests.
Lessons learned:
1. We brought way too many clothes. You are pretty much on the resort island the whole time and you are either eating, sleeping, or diving. No need to dress to impress.
2. Bring a LOT of bugspray. Our can ran out very quickly. The island has "no see ums" which are tiny little insects that leave bite marks as large and itchy as mosquito bites but you don't hear them or see them (hence the name). I ended up wearing my fin socks outside to spare my ankles.
3. Plan tip money well in advance, and then some extra. I underestimated how much to bring so I feel like we stiffed the resort staff a bit in lieu of the dive masters and boat captains.
4. Plan for a Saturday to Saturday trip next time to align with their program of events.
We discovered that the hotel has a weekly "program" of events designed for guests that come in Saturday and stay a week and depart the following Saturday. Since we arrived on Friday (cheaper airfare), our first night at the hotel was a big "going away party" for the rest of the guests. Unfortunately we did not arrive in time for the orientation with a divemaster for "drop off dives", so our first night consisted of unpacking, eating and resting (we had no sleep the night before due to a 4AM flight).
The resort food is really good in comparison to other foods that I had at other dive resorts. I wished there would be some local options but the food was pretty much "American" style. Heck, we even had a Thanksgiving dinner November 26! The foodstaff is great, always smiling and love to crack jokes with us.
Hotel rooms were very nice. We stayed at an oceanfront room and were happy with it. There were 6 outlets which was OK and taught us to ration our electronics/chargers/etc. Although our rooms were lockable (and we had a lockbox in our rooms), I was not worried about security/theft. We only had one instance where the power went out for 5-10 minutes or so.
The resort has a few interesting animals. There are some parrots in an enclosure in the dining area, rabbits in a little enclosure outside, hummingbirds which come for the feeders set up outside, some bats at night, lizards, and of course the resort dogs which love bellyrubs!
The dive operation is top notch. We were set up with unlimited nitrox for $125 a person. Dive boats were well maintained and we received fruit during our surface intervals. We were assigned to the Blue Boat (Capt Reuben) with Divemaster Jessie. We had a lot of early risers on our boat, so when everyone was on the boat we left well ahead of the other boats.
The diving in Roatan was very relaxing. There was pretty much zero current at the dive sites so it was very favorable for stopping to observe a sea creature for a few minutes without finning. Corals were beautiful and in great shape. The focus on sea life here was on the macro side of things. The only large animals we encountered were large groupers, sea turtles, and moray eels. While on the subject of moray eels, they tend to be rather "friendly" in that they come up to divers. We were told that this is because in the past divemasters would coax them out of hiding with squid, so now the moray eels come out to divers expecting a free meal...kind of sad. After the dive, there are many tubs available for rinsing gear and racks for hanging up boots, wetsuits, and other gear.
After each boat dive, there is an option to go on a drop off dive at the two "house" walls: CoCo View Wall or Newman Wall. This consists of self navigated tour back to the resort along the wall (with an option to check out the "house wreck"!). After you get to the shallow reef, there is a system of submerged buoys to lead you to shore.
We took advantage of the night dive option almost every night. It was brilliant to see coral polyps emerge, octopus, eels, porcupine fish, lobsters on the march, and other nocturnal life. It wasn't as good of a night dive (in terms of multitude of life) as in Cozumel, but it is hard to beat a zero current self guided dive at your own pace.
Now for the gripes: we were told there was some sort of Seahorse Festival going on, but no one really explained what it was. There were definitely two distinct groups of guests: one group consists of all the older generation guests who have gone there many many times and the new guests crowd. There were times when we would arrive at the common/dining area and there would be some event going on that only the repeat guests knew about. I wish that stuff was better communicated to new guests.
Lessons learned:
1. We brought way too many clothes. You are pretty much on the resort island the whole time and you are either eating, sleeping, or diving. No need to dress to impress.
2. Bring a LOT of bugspray. Our can ran out very quickly. The island has "no see ums" which are tiny little insects that leave bite marks as large and itchy as mosquito bites but you don't hear them or see them (hence the name). I ended up wearing my fin socks outside to spare my ankles.
3. Plan tip money well in advance, and then some extra. I underestimated how much to bring so I feel like we stiffed the resort staff a bit in lieu of the dive masters and boat captains.
4. Plan for a Saturday to Saturday trip next time to align with their program of events.
