Alternatives to CoCo View?

[Griffins]

Looking for a little advice- we'd had our heart set on a trip to Coco View next spring, but just found out it's booked solid for the period in March/April that we can go. Is there an suitable alternative?
A bit of background- the trip is for my wife, 14 year old son and I. All 3 of us are certified, my wife and son have about 75 dives each and are very active (as am I). We're typically good for 3-5 dives a day, and as this is going to be pretty much exclusively a dive trip don't require any alternative activities. Food can be included or not, either way we're fine and not picky, other than my wife being a vegetarian.
Our last few dive trips have been to Bora Bora, Costa Rica, Bonaire and the Channel Islands, in a variety of conditions. We'd prefer a place that has some sort of house reef/beach dive area in addition to boat dives (much like Buddy Dive in Bonaire ideally) if at all possible.
Cost isn't a big factor, within reason. We'd like it to be nice but are fine if it's rustic. Coco View seemed to be a good mix of nice and rustic.

Are there any similar places in Roatan, or should we just make this trip another time and go somewhere else next spring? We tend not to go to the same place twice so we'd rather make it memorable when we do go.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[scuba e]

I'm assuming you checked to see if the beach houses are available?

Fantasy Island in next door and has access to the house reef at coco with a short swim. From what I saw a few weeks ago they have alot of open rooms.

 

[Doc]

No, there is no place similar on Roatan. It is a mixture of the dive operation and the access to a close-in reef system that is unique in the Caribbean. Looking at your dive experience, you would likely appreciate this shallow, sunlit environment. This zone of the South side is not for everybody.

There are a few other resorts that lie along the Southern Shore, and although CCV is in the middle of this zone, none of the others can be described as a "dive resort"... above all else. Media Luna looks promising, but there is no extant dive op, at least not portrayed on their website. It will likely come.

The economy has been hard on Roatan, certainly not helped by the insanely high airfares. Resorts that were really headed in the right direction have had some wobbly times, including Reef House Resort (a dive resort) and Fantasy Island. Also operational is Barefoot Key which runs a respectable dive op. It is not the same atmosphere as CCV and comparatively, the diving would be limited. This same limitation applies literally to every other operation on Roatan. Again- I say "comparatively".

It is hard to find the 5x a day access from CCV, certainly not using any schedule that makes it easy to get that 28 dives in a week.

Do they have any openings at the Beach Houses? They are not far of a walk, they have bicycles, and they can always put you on a "wait list" if you would rather be in-close using a Cabana or Bungalow.

The solid bookings might be for dive clubs... likely Roatan Charter can put you in touch with one of them, they might peel off a reservation for you from their on-hold rooms.

And no, we rarely go back to the same place twice, but CCV? We have been there a total of about 52 weeks, now. Most prior guests refer to it as "going home".

 

[Shawnda]

Anthony's Key Resort dives both sides of the island and runs a top notch resort.

 

[RTBDiver]

Anthony's Key Resort dives both sides of the island and runs a top notch resort.

AKR Offers gret trip but the OP was looking for something like CCV with 4-5 dives a day DOH!!!

 

[scuba e]

CoCo is known as a land based liveaboard because of the easy 4-6 dives a day. That said, you will pay more $2500 but the new Aggressor boat looks really nice and hits the Sea mounts, the major West/southwest sites and Utila. We saw the boat at Mary's Place on our last trip. It looks like a nice layout (from the water). Our favorite Dm at CoCo used to work on the old Aggressor says it offers the best diving in the area. He also said his cousin is one of the captains and has had really good response to the new boat.

 

[georoc01]

3 boat dives are doable at quite a few places. Otherwise other than a liveaboard, I would consider returning to Bonaire or maybe its neighbor in Curacao.

 

[parrotheaddiver]

Are there any similar places in Roatan, or should we just make this trip another time and go somewhere else next spring? We tend not to go to the same place twice so we'd rather make it memorable when we do go.

Many thanks in advance!

since you do not visit the same place twice....I would suggest going somewhere else this spring...rather than substituting another resort on Roatan, and make your plans to visit CoCo View at another time we just booked our trip for June 2012 last month and it was almost full at that time too....

 

[BDSC]

You should look into the Reef House Resort. I have been to both CocoView and the RHR and if I were going back I'd go back to the RHR. I'd give the nod to CocoView as far as the rooms go but the food was better at the RHR and the sites they take you for diving was much better than the sites visited by Cocoview. To me that part wasn't even close. They also have a nice shore dive so you can do the three boat dives a day and then do all the shore dives you want.

I really don't think you would be disappointed with RHR. If you read all their reviews you'll see why I say that.

 

[Griffins]

Thank you to everyone for all the replies, both on this thread and via pm's. I'll check out all the places named here and hopefully come up with something.

Scuba E, my son and I really want to book a liveaboard somewhere (perhaps Chuuk and/or Palau or Bay Islands) but my wife thinks it doesn't make sense unless we're all doing 5 dives a day, every day. May end up being a boys trip at some point.