Could The World's Worst Airport Be In Roatan?

[chillyinCanada]

For the life of me, I can't recall the airport at Turks and Caicos, so can only conclude that my experience was not that bad (or is the dementia getting worse?)

 

[Doc]

Doc - no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig.... its still a pig.

I get the joke, but in no way was I applying lipstick. Pork is pork.

It's just so frustrating and they charge you $39.00 to experience an exquisite bout of proctalgia fugax.

I met an extremely nice guy at CCV named Harold. He spends alternating weeks at the resort for a total of 26 times a year at the airport. I can only imagine his pain.

He carries no personal luggage, whatever he is transporting as a "mule" will be dealt with by others when convenient. The immigration people know him pretty well and likely you won't be seeing him standing in line for very long. It's Honduras, your friends take care of you.

And on departure, we had no one from CCV shepherding us through at all, not sure what that is about.

If you didn't need it, you would not have seen it.

Nora stays at the airport until the last guest makes past passport and security, into the departure lounge. This is something they tell you when you leave the resort. Forget something at the resort? She makes it magically appear. In maybe 40 trips there since 1985, I've only needed her assistance once (due to mismatched paperwork for a GF), and altho she resolved this international crisis with 30 seconds of Spanish, smiling and a subtle threat, and altho it was not expected or required, I gave her a $100 tip and a big hug. (In retrospect, I shoulda' just left the GF there, everybody woulda' been happier in the long run)

On Friday night at CCV, you leave your bags outside your room before going to drink too much rum punch. The next time you see them, they will be arranged inside the airport's departure desk area. If you need assistance with the bags, Nora directs helpers to jump in. If you have check-in issues, Nora intervenes.

If you don't need it, you won't see it. If you haven't gone through it with other resorts, you would think it works the same way for everybody.

Yeah. Going in you can make it less painful if you go on the Honduran gov web site and do the pre-immigration paperwork. Then you can skip the tourist line and get into the resident line. Probably saves about 1½ hours. Leaving is still brutal. Never going to or through there again.

Kinda, maybe yes. If you are unfortunate enough to arrive at the "occasional" "unintended" simultaneous arrival of three jets, you're screwed no matter what. This actually occurs more often than not every Saturday. It affects arrivals much more since the passengers have to filter thru that immigration process. They then revert back to their standard bull**** process, pre-paperwork or not.

Back to the OP, though.... RTB sucks. If you can get beyond that , the 1.5 hours of total agony in-and-out per trip, is it really any worse than (as DLofting says above) any other airport in paradise?

In no particular order, from my very narrow experience:

Crappy Execution of Human Interaction and Cattle Herding:
Roatan, Heathrow, Quito, Los Roques (VZ), Nassau (arrival)

Dingy:
LAX

Luggage Circus:
Manilla, Istanbul

Crappy "paved" Runways/approaches:
Telluride, Tegucigalpa, Baltra (Galapagos), Courchevel, Lukla Nepal, Saba, Midway (Chicago), San Diego

Abusive Passport Control:
Houston, Heathrow

Surprisingly wonderful outcomes that were anticipated with trepidation:
Male (Maldives), Nassau (departure)

Just marvelous:
Jackson Hole, Aspen, Montrose (CO), Dubai

Oh yes, and we're going back through RTB in April just to recalibrate our "abuse-meter" consciousness.

 

[lthomas132]

Went with a group of 6 to Utila last October. Rather than ferry to La Ceiba from Roatan then to Utila, we flew Island Air which is more or less a charter. Thank God a couple of guys from Island Air recognized our carry on tags while we were in the immigration line and took us to a "special" booth that went quickly. We had already stood in line for over 1 hr. at this point. 3 planes had landed and the lines were outside by the tarmak. Of course we had to tip these two guys well, but jumped on a twin engine treetopper for a quick flight to Utila, which is a great place!

 

[seeker242]

I'm gonna go with "it looks 3rd world because it is 3rd world"! I'm staying outside the resorts and it's definitely a 3rd world country! It's still Honduras after all. It's just a $#\+hole that has good diving.

 

[CajunDiva]

It's still Honduras after all. It's just a $#\+hole that has good diving.

The diving is MOST excellent and certainly worth the effort. There are some pretty amazing people there too. You can choose to view Roatan as a "$#/+hole" or do your best to make it a better place for those around you.

 

[tridacna]

The diving is MOST excellent and certainly worth the effort. There are some pretty amazing people there too. You can choose to view Roatan as a "$#/+hole" or do your best to make it a better place for those around you.

I love CCV. Best diving resort in the Caribbean. I have a problem with the airport. What do you suggest that we do to improve that?

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Honduras is a developing nation that offers a fairly decent diving vacation at an extremely BUDGET rate. I can go there, stay and dive for a week for 500 USD, lodging and boat dives included. Food is good an plenty and people are friendly. You want a 5 star experience? Raise the rates to five times and you will have it.

 

[The Laconic]

For the life of me, I can't recall the airport at Turks and Caicos, so can only conclude that my experience was not that bad (or is the dementia getting worse?)

It's not just you. I've been through there at least twice, maybe three times, and I have no memory of it, except being outside it, and then being driven away. I also conclude that it wasn't that bad.

My two cents regarding my most-visited Caribbean airports:

Owen Roberts can be a zoo. The food sucks and is very, very overpriced. The bathroom queue for women can be bad. Last month was the worst I've seen it. They are expanding it, fortunately. And much of the awfulness of the experience was attributable to Cayman Air, really.

Cancun has been pretty reasonable every time I've been there. Except immigration. And even there, they do at least crank through people quickly so you feel you're making progress. And my flight never departs on time. It's about like an average US airport, I'd say.

 

[seeker242]

The diving is MOST excellent and certainly worth the effort. There are some pretty amazing people there too. You can choose to view Roatan as a "$#/+hole" or do your best to make it a better place for those around you.

I'm aware of this, I'm here right now. However, it doesn't change the fact that it's typical 3rd world. If it were not for the diving, there would be absolutely no reason to come here. Unless of course, you like looking at garbage and abandoned buildings!

 

[TulsaTime]

For the life of me, I can't recall the airport at Turks and Caicos, so can only conclude that my experience was not that bad (or is the dementia getting worse?)

It's not just you. I've been through there at least twice, maybe three times, and I have no memory of it, except being outside it, and then being driven away. I also conclude that it wasn't that bad.

Try the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Got there 3 hours before departure and STILL had to be escorted to the front of the security line in order to make our departure, as did the rest of the passengers from our and another flight. Was not a pleasant day.