Where to stay in Roatan (in July) for experienced Divemasters

[Alexandra]

I am planning a week-10 day trip to Roatan the first week of July and am trying to figure out where we should stay. I have read some great reviews but a lot of them seem to be from beginner divers/OW. We are both DMs and have hundreds of dives so I want to make sure we stay somewhere where we won't constantly be following a group of folks with a dozen dives.

I also plan on doing a good 4 dives a day (and a few night dives).

The options seem to be:
1 Anthony's Key - are the accommodations really that barebone if you staying a room with AC?
2 Coco View - good reviews although not sure about 50% of the dives being drop offs at the hotel reef (can't you do that dive from shore?)
3 Barefoot Cay - don't get why they only include 10 dives with their 7 day package -- less than 2 dives a day?!
4 Cocolobo - highly rated on tripadvisor but only offers breakfast so does that mean hunting down lunch and dinner and paying for that is going to be a pain

Also, is it possible and worth it to go to Utila for a day?

thanks for your advise and feedback.

Alexandra

 

[Midge907]

2 Coco View - good reviews although not sure about 50% of the dives being drop offs at the hotel reef (can't you do that dive from shore?)

Alexandra

You will find that CCV is the dive, dive, dive resort, with lots of divemasters and instructors there on vacation. As for the drop off locations on to CCV and Newmans wall, after being there for a day you will understand why no guests complain much about it. It gives you the choice if you dont want to do the dive, but it also makes the dive go much smoother. Its also one of the best dives on the south side of Roatan, with other operators doing dives there. Its also easy to group yourself with expierience level that work for you. You can search and search, but all searching leads back to CCV for me

 

[philmayer]

I'm a DM with several hundred dives at CCV. I'm spending two weeks there at the beginning of July with our shop. There will be 3-4 instructors and 2-3 divemasters from our group there.

Having the dropoff dives and the house reef out front mean you don't have to dive with new divers. Or any divers. Many of our divers make 6 or more dives a day.

CCV is the most relaxed dive resort I've ever been to. Shore diving is more convenient than anywhere else. The boats are the best I've ever found - with 3 exits we can empty a boat of 12 divers in about 1 minute. The boat captains and DMs are fantastic. The entire staff at the resort does a fantastic job.

I've never made the trek over to Utila. There's not much point in June/July/August, the whale sharks have already left.

There's a reason why CCV is the most re-visited resort in the Caribbean. :thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up:

 

[Doc]

With your criteria, I'll throw in another vote for CCV.

If you are looking for what truly makes Roatan's diving unique in the Caribbean, Coco View is located right in the middle of this very special zone. It runs about 6 miles wide along the Southern shore. What makes it unique is that is is a vertical wall that runs from 5' to 90 deep to a sand ledge. Because of Roatan's SW>NE position, these shallow walls are bathed in Sunlight all day long. Many, many critters hide in the lush, florid walls.

As far as the 50% question... you have the option of dropping off on either Coco View Wall or Newman's Wall- they both bring you to a convergence at The Prince Albert Wreck- a 140' tanker sitting upright in 35fsw, just 3 minutes from the shore exit. So, yes, 50% of the boat dives are spread between two reefs, that amounts to 5 dives on each. Boring? Maybe for those who can only see rocks and reef architecture, but for a diver with advanced observational skills, it should be a treasure trove of possibilities. It also ensures that an advanced diver can do bottom times of as long as they are able... I often do 1:45 BTs on the drop-offs- dive #2 and #4 of each day.

CoCo View rewards the diver with advanced skills in many ways. It is also great for beginners as the shore entry and the boats are as easy as it gets. The "intermediate" diver might find it rather boring- not many larger critters to spot, but that refers to people who are still keyed-up over seeing Lobsters and such. This is where you go for Sea Horses on every dive, their cousins- the Pipefish, and many colorful macro Crabs hiding in plain sight. Tough for the beginner to fully enjoy, a party for the advanced.

If you really want 4 a day, plus night dive access every night, this is the only place.

 

[diversteve]

AKR does 3 boat dives per day as they return to the resort between dives.

4 dives/day will be tough anywhere that doesn't have a house reef.

Cocolobo is under 10mins. walking from the West End. Restaurants in all price ranges are there. Some options: Restaurants on Roatan

If you stay at Cocolobo, Native Sons or Coconut Tree Divers are closer than Reef Gliders or West End Divers - not by much though. We rented a house about 100 yds. west of Cocolobo and walked our gear to CTD the first day. This map will give you some idea. Native Sons is co-located with Chilles - CTD is slightly further down the street. Reef Gliders and West End are just south of Half Moon Bay - near Mariposa Lodge IIRC. Makes a difference when you're walking.

What the picture doesn't show is the road off West End Road that goes to Cocolobo. If you see the small white roof on the point SW of Cocolobo, that's the house I rented. There's a road from there to the West End that parallels the shore and goes by Half Moon Bay Cabins til it meets up with West End Road. There's a cut-through to Cocolobo on that same road.

I walked over to Cocolobo one afternoon - looked as nice as they claim. If I go back it's high on my list of places to stay. Due to the ironshore cliffs there there's virtually no water access there. You can get in at Seagrape nearby and get out in Half Moon Bay - read about it here: http://shorediving.com/Earth/Caribbean/Roatan/Sea_Grape/index.htm

 

[Doc]

You know, diversteve, you really got to go dive at at Coco View (and a lot of other places on Roatan) some day. Really fills out a basis for comparing all other options on the big, long island of Roatan. I find it to be among the few resorts that I use as a standard to measure all other dive resorts. Without having stayed at Coco View and other places, like Hotel Atlantis in Sabang Philippines, I would have never known what I was missing elsewhere.

I think the rest of us just jumped past what diversteve offered as a good response to some of the specifics asked in the OP. After you consider the stated requirements, it really narrows it down to one place on Roatan. (the quantity of diving, access to more than 1 night dive in a week, distance from other divers- noobs or not)

We all have still left out the OP question about Barefoot Cay... as in: why they only offer a ten dive package? They are positioning themselves as a more boutique offering- a resort with diving. I don't think Roatan is ready for boutique It is a good access to South shore diving, it's dive op is well done, but it is simply just a resort that offers diving.

There are many options of Roatan, even if you stay at one, likely you'll have no idea what the one next door is all about. Roatan seems to be unique in that. There are many levels of service and quality... I only speak as a diver~ to others wanting specifically a dive vacation... not a vacation with some diving. I've been to AKR and Cocolobo's neighborhood dive ops- the OP was looking to stay wet, not drink on the beach.

Again, the main reason to see Roatan now- it is to visit and dive the unique South side before it disappears like all of our other underwater treasures. The North and West's allure (as described by diversteve above) will endure long past the inevitable demise of the South side. Soon enough, the South side will decay and Roatan will look pretty much-so the same all the way around. For now, the South can still utilize its geographical advantage- Sunlight all day long.

 

[diversteve]

Doc,

I'm just not an AI person, we like to get out more, eat other places, see the sights etc. I don't go to dive destinations to stay at the resort day and night. And we also like to dive as much as possible - during the day I'll forego other activities to dive. I would find being picked up at the airport by Cocoview, doing all the diving at Cocoview, eating/drinking at Cocoview a singularly insulating experience. I prefer to get a sense of the local culture (granted that's not especially the West End either...lol) on trips.

So I'll pass on Cocoview indefinitely. We looked at it, FIBR, and AKR before settling on the West End - actually originally we were seriously considering a house at Luna Beach also. It just seemed too removed for what we do during non-dive hours.

It is possible to do 4 dives/day outside of Cocoview. I did it 2 days of our trip. 3 dives per day with CTD and two night dives. Sure it's not 4 dives per day but I don't like to repeat dive sites. So for me falling off the boat inbound to CCV daily wouldn't be optimal after I'd done it 3-4 times. We probably could have done more 4 dive days except we also did the shark dive, the dolphin dive and actually wanted to be tourists one afternoon. CTD would have done a 4th dive other 2 days if asked - my group was most of their business that week. However it just didn't work out that way.

As you know there's actually 2 shore dives off the West End also so with a little planning 3 dives plus one of them could be a 4 dive day also. Technically there's actually 3 dives - CTD offered to drop us on the reef outside Half Moon Bay one afternoon if we wanted to swim in. Or there's the two AKR shore dives - I've seen you mention their lagoon night dive favorably here.

apologies for the thread hijack...

 

[laurenceh]

you really can't pop over to utila for a day, unless you charter a plane and even then you'd have to leave utila before sunset (5pm ish). two or three days would be my minimum recommendation but contrary to one of the posts, whale sharks can be seen any month of the year in utilian waters, if you're lucky.

 

[Cudabait]

AKR does 3 boat dives per day as they return to the resort between dives.

4 dives/day will be tough anywhere that doesn't have a house reef.

Cocolobo is under 10mins. walking from the West End. Restaurants in all price ranges are there. Some options: Restaurants on Roatan

If you stay at Cocolobo, Native Sons or Coconut Tree Divers are closer than Reef Gliders or West End Divers - not by much though. We rented a house about 100 yds. west of Cocolobo and walked our gear to CTD the first day. This map will give you some idea. Native Sons is co-located with Chilles - CTD is slightly further down the street. Reef Gliders and West End are just south of Half Moon Bay - near Mariposa Lodge IIRC. Makes a difference when you're walking.

What the picture doesn't show is the road off West End Road that goes to Cocolobo. If you see the small white roof on the point SW of Cocolobo, that's the house I rented. There's a road from there to the West End that parallels the shore and goes by Half Moon Bay Cabins til it meets up with West End Road. There's a cut-through to Cocolobo on that same road.

I walked over to Cocolobo one afternoon - looked as nice as they claim. If I go back it's high on my list of places to stay. Due to the ironshore cliffs there there's virtually no water access there. You can get in at Seagrape nearby and get out in Half Moon Bay - read about it here: Scuba Shore Diving Site Page for: Sea Grape of Honduras, Roatan, Caribbean

hi, Diversteve,

I reveiwed your link above. Was curious when you last saw and dove with Tulio, the instructor shown in the photo. I may have him confused with another instructor/dive master. I noticed the comments appeared to be dated. Thanks.......

 

[diversteve]

I just posted the link so that the original poster would have a better idea of what's nearby. I've never met him. I have seen the entry though. Some parts of Shorediving.com don't seem to be updated regularly - some like the Hawaii part are more recent.