Just back from Laguna Beach Resort in Utila, and thought I'd share my experience briefly.
Flew from Newark, NJ via Continental to San Pedro Sula without incident. Once in SAP, we flew Atlantic Airways directly to Utila. The plane was small, but the flight was pleasant and we landed in Utila about 30 minutes later. The airport in Utila was a suprise.
Pretty much a strip of runway and a cleared out portion of "field" that they use to board and unload passengers. The is no tower, no security, just a bench. Mattias from Laguna Beach Resort was waiting to greet us and advised he had "taxies" waiting. We were a group of 28 people traveling together, and so it took a few trips and two or three cars to get us all to the resort. My particular "taxi" was an old rusty pickup truck which I thought was intended for luggage and gear. Much to my surprise, they loaded 10 or 12 of us standing in the back of the pickup for the trip to LBR. One person rode in the cab with the driver and was the designated slow hanging branch watchman. Her job was to yell "duck" to the folks standing in the back. It was unconventional, and probably not even safe, but we had a lot of laughs and no one seemed very put off by it at all.
Once we arrived at the dock, we boarded LBR's dive boats and were whisked off to the resort, which, is only accessable by boat. The trip only took a matter of minutes. Our luggage traveled behind us and was brought to our doorsteps shortly after check in.
Once we arrived at LBR, we were warmly and enthusiastically greeted by Matias' co-manager Leila. We were assigned cabins, lockers to keep our gear, and bar tabs since much of the bar activity is on the honor system.
The cabins were spacious, clean, sparsely furnished and well air conditioned. Beds were comfortable, towels fluffy. water pressure decent and lots of hot water. A couple of notes here so be prepared. First, bring your own shampoo and soap. The only thing provided by the resort of this nature is a "SoftSoap" pump dispenser. he next thing, bring a cheap battery operated alarm clock. You won't need a hair dryer, they've got one in every cabin. there is also a safe which is funny because if someone really wanted to get your valuables, they could simply pick up the safe and walk away with it. It weighs about ten pounds and just sits on the shelf in your closet!
From there on, your days will go something like this:
6:30 coffee's on in the dining room, 7AM breakfast
9AM the boats leave for the North side of the island. Your first dive each morning will be the furthest away from the resort (also ususally the best!)
10AM first dive followed by a surface interval of 1 hour while your boat captain heads in the direction of the resort and scopes out whale sharks. Cookies, cake and water are there to snack on. 11AM second dive followed by return to LBR for lunch at 1PM. 3PM you leave for your afternoon dive, and then you chill until dinner time which is usually around 7. Two night dives available during the week, lights provided. Now enough of the schedule, here's the review.
Diving- Very similar to Cozumel, lots of walls, average depth of about 80 feet, minimal current. Lots of cracks and swim throughs. We started with 3mil shorties but switched to 3mil full wetsuits the second day. Dive sites on the North side of the island are the most vibrant and visibilty seems to be much better there. Hint- try not to miss the first dive of the morning. The 3PM dive was nice too, but disappointing after seeing the North Side. The captain and dive master were awesom. We had John and Maya and they were wonderful. They take care of your gear, you never drag tanks or BCD's or Regs, they rinse them each day and hang them in your locker space to dry. They are already set up for you when you hit the boat in the morning. The other boat Captains Wagner and Carry are wonderful as well. Whicheverf boat captain and group you are assigned to will be the same for the entire week. It's nice because is you've got a good group you get close and have some laughs. Our group saw Morays, Eagle Rays, Turtles, Grouper, Lobsters, Parrotfish, and go slow, the small stuff is incredible!
The Food- Three squares a day served buffet style. Meals range from passable to tasty but nothing to write home about. Some people complained that there wasn't enough variety or the food wasn't exciting enough but I disagree. First of all, all meals were served hot, fresh, and were healthy. Fruit and salad were always available at every meal. The food was plentiful and although not gourmet, I can tell you that not one person in our group had even mild indigestion. We all felt fine. The resort uses only purified water to wash the salad and cook the rice and make the ice cubes, etc.
You SHOULD NOT drink from the tap in your bathroom sink. In fact, there is botted water in every cabin and we even used it to brush our teeth. And third, remember this is a DIVE trip. One person in our group stated that she would have enjoyed "dressing up for a nice fancy meal". That's nice too, but this is the wrong trip for you if that's a priority.
The Resort- Clean, safe, quiet, and the bugs were not a problem. There were no bugs in the rooms at all but outside I understand they can be a problem at times when there is no wind. We were windy, never even reached for my DEET.
Bring a light windbreaker or sweatshirt, it can be cooler in the early morning or late at night if the wind kicks up. The reaort has laudry service available for $5. a bag and also offer internet access on their computer for $10 weekly. The gift shop is limited, more trinkets and trash than necessities so bring your own toiletries. There is a game room above the dive shop where you can watch TV, shoot pool and borrow books from their donation library.
Get off the resort at least one afternoon and head into town. It's vibrant and funky and totally safe. Leila and Mattias will take you across the lagoon by motorboat at just about any time and will pick you up when you specify. Once you cross, they can radio a taxi to pick you up or you can borrow bicycles and ride to town. We took the bikes but keep in mind that the ride into town is a few miles of rough road and then once in town it can be tricky because of the other vehiclwe on their cvery narrow roads. I would refrain from taking children into town by bike as well as using bikes ther on the road after dark. Enough said.
Once in town, make sure you check out the Jade Seahorse with it's famed "Treetanic" Bar. We went during the day and just walked around for the longest time. The place is a maze of art created using broken glass, marbles, bottles and God only knows what else. Trust me, it's worth seeing.
Everyone we met in Utila spoke English. In addition, they were lovely, gentle people.
I did not once feel threatened or even anxious about being there. The folks who work at the resort will turn handstands to please you. Ask your dive captain to take you to Pidgeon Cay for lunch instead of going back to the resort one day. They will gladly take you to this tiny little fishing island of only 600 people and you will feast on "Fishburgers", LBR even picks up the tab.
Well this is my first trip report since joining the boards. I hope I haven't been too long winded. Thanks to Roatan Man, Steve at Deep Blue and my new friends Cudabait and Lacuda for all your sage pretrip advice. I hope this post will help someone else planning on traveling to Utila.
PS- Never once saw a whale shark because of the wind that week. I was originally disappointed but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Now I've GOTTA GO BACK!
And I will...............
Flew from Newark, NJ via Continental to San Pedro Sula without incident. Once in SAP, we flew Atlantic Airways directly to Utila. The plane was small, but the flight was pleasant and we landed in Utila about 30 minutes later. The airport in Utila was a suprise.
Pretty much a strip of runway and a cleared out portion of "field" that they use to board and unload passengers. The is no tower, no security, just a bench. Mattias from Laguna Beach Resort was waiting to greet us and advised he had "taxies" waiting. We were a group of 28 people traveling together, and so it took a few trips and two or three cars to get us all to the resort. My particular "taxi" was an old rusty pickup truck which I thought was intended for luggage and gear. Much to my surprise, they loaded 10 or 12 of us standing in the back of the pickup for the trip to LBR. One person rode in the cab with the driver and was the designated slow hanging branch watchman. Her job was to yell "duck" to the folks standing in the back. It was unconventional, and probably not even safe, but we had a lot of laughs and no one seemed very put off by it at all.
Once we arrived at the dock, we boarded LBR's dive boats and were whisked off to the resort, which, is only accessable by boat. The trip only took a matter of minutes. Our luggage traveled behind us and was brought to our doorsteps shortly after check in.
Once we arrived at LBR, we were warmly and enthusiastically greeted by Matias' co-manager Leila. We were assigned cabins, lockers to keep our gear, and bar tabs since much of the bar activity is on the honor system.
The cabins were spacious, clean, sparsely furnished and well air conditioned. Beds were comfortable, towels fluffy. water pressure decent and lots of hot water. A couple of notes here so be prepared. First, bring your own shampoo and soap. The only thing provided by the resort of this nature is a "SoftSoap" pump dispenser. he next thing, bring a cheap battery operated alarm clock. You won't need a hair dryer, they've got one in every cabin. there is also a safe which is funny because if someone really wanted to get your valuables, they could simply pick up the safe and walk away with it. It weighs about ten pounds and just sits on the shelf in your closet!
From there on, your days will go something like this:
6:30 coffee's on in the dining room, 7AM breakfast
9AM the boats leave for the North side of the island. Your first dive each morning will be the furthest away from the resort (also ususally the best!)
10AM first dive followed by a surface interval of 1 hour while your boat captain heads in the direction of the resort and scopes out whale sharks. Cookies, cake and water are there to snack on. 11AM second dive followed by return to LBR for lunch at 1PM. 3PM you leave for your afternoon dive, and then you chill until dinner time which is usually around 7. Two night dives available during the week, lights provided. Now enough of the schedule, here's the review.
Diving- Very similar to Cozumel, lots of walls, average depth of about 80 feet, minimal current. Lots of cracks and swim throughs. We started with 3mil shorties but switched to 3mil full wetsuits the second day. Dive sites on the North side of the island are the most vibrant and visibilty seems to be much better there. Hint- try not to miss the first dive of the morning. The 3PM dive was nice too, but disappointing after seeing the North Side. The captain and dive master were awesom. We had John and Maya and they were wonderful. They take care of your gear, you never drag tanks or BCD's or Regs, they rinse them each day and hang them in your locker space to dry. They are already set up for you when you hit the boat in the morning. The other boat Captains Wagner and Carry are wonderful as well. Whicheverf boat captain and group you are assigned to will be the same for the entire week. It's nice because is you've got a good group you get close and have some laughs. Our group saw Morays, Eagle Rays, Turtles, Grouper, Lobsters, Parrotfish, and go slow, the small stuff is incredible!
The Food- Three squares a day served buffet style. Meals range from passable to tasty but nothing to write home about. Some people complained that there wasn't enough variety or the food wasn't exciting enough but I disagree. First of all, all meals were served hot, fresh, and were healthy. Fruit and salad were always available at every meal. The food was plentiful and although not gourmet, I can tell you that not one person in our group had even mild indigestion. We all felt fine. The resort uses only purified water to wash the salad and cook the rice and make the ice cubes, etc.
You SHOULD NOT drink from the tap in your bathroom sink. In fact, there is botted water in every cabin and we even used it to brush our teeth. And third, remember this is a DIVE trip. One person in our group stated that she would have enjoyed "dressing up for a nice fancy meal". That's nice too, but this is the wrong trip for you if that's a priority.
The Resort- Clean, safe, quiet, and the bugs were not a problem. There were no bugs in the rooms at all but outside I understand they can be a problem at times when there is no wind. We were windy, never even reached for my DEET.
Bring a light windbreaker or sweatshirt, it can be cooler in the early morning or late at night if the wind kicks up. The reaort has laudry service available for $5. a bag and also offer internet access on their computer for $10 weekly. The gift shop is limited, more trinkets and trash than necessities so bring your own toiletries. There is a game room above the dive shop where you can watch TV, shoot pool and borrow books from their donation library.
Get off the resort at least one afternoon and head into town. It's vibrant and funky and totally safe. Leila and Mattias will take you across the lagoon by motorboat at just about any time and will pick you up when you specify. Once you cross, they can radio a taxi to pick you up or you can borrow bicycles and ride to town. We took the bikes but keep in mind that the ride into town is a few miles of rough road and then once in town it can be tricky because of the other vehiclwe on their cvery narrow roads. I would refrain from taking children into town by bike as well as using bikes ther on the road after dark. Enough said.
Once in town, make sure you check out the Jade Seahorse with it's famed "Treetanic" Bar. We went during the day and just walked around for the longest time. The place is a maze of art created using broken glass, marbles, bottles and God only knows what else. Trust me, it's worth seeing.
Everyone we met in Utila spoke English. In addition, they were lovely, gentle people.
I did not once feel threatened or even anxious about being there. The folks who work at the resort will turn handstands to please you. Ask your dive captain to take you to Pidgeon Cay for lunch instead of going back to the resort one day. They will gladly take you to this tiny little fishing island of only 600 people and you will feast on "Fishburgers", LBR even picks up the tab.
Well this is my first trip report since joining the boards. I hope I haven't been too long winded. Thanks to Roatan Man, Steve at Deep Blue and my new friends Cudabait and Lacuda for all your sage pretrip advice. I hope this post will help someone else planning on traveling to Utila.
PS- Never once saw a whale shark because of the wind that week. I was originally disappointed but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Now I've GOTTA GO BACK!
And I will...............
