Help me decide Roatan West Bay or Cozumel?

[cb5150]

We like both locations.

Cozumel is more city living. Tons of restaurants, dive shops, hotels of varied types easy wifi access, souvenir shops. late night dances in the square with great street food. fantastic drift diving. fun fast drifts where you pass the world by seeing great walls. slow drifts where you can tuck in behind a coral head/finger and have a closer look.

Roatan is better for when we want to drop off the earth. wifi is spotty and we can just put down the iphones and laptops because it just doesn't seem important anymore. food isn't great and becomes a low priority.
we just lay in hammocks drinking rum and reading between dives. little drift in the dives and you can hang by a coral head and search for the tiny worms and shrimp.

This ^

 

[Mike]

One looks like Gilligan's Island the other looks like a desert.

The diving community is huge on one compared to the other.

One is safer at night than the other.

One is more expensive than the other to fly to.

One has Mexican food the other thankfully doesn't.

One has rum one has tequila.

One has one of the nicest beaches you'll see, the other one hardly has any at all

One gets 10 times the cruise ship passengers than the other one

 

[capper]

Been to both....2012 Cozumel, and 2013 Roatan Westend. I went by myself as a single female. I haven't done mega dives like many people on here, I'm a vacation diver. But I loved the diving in both places. The drift dives were interesting in Cozumel and there seemed to be more fish there. I went in August to both places. That time of year in Cozumel there is a huge amount of South American's vacationing....I was surrounded by people who spoke only spanish, and most of the night clubs were spanish speaking people. It was difficult to meet others even to sit and have a beer with .

But Westend Roatan? omg...what a fun place to be ! its definitely not as fancy as Cozumel but the social scene is really great....I met Canadians and Americans from all over as well as some Europeans. Everyone spoke english. It was super fun. And the dive trips were highly enjoyable. Food and drink and accommodation in Westend very cheap. Sand flies though were a problem, and no fun to lie on the beach...that was a significant downer. But i never once felt unsafe in Roatan...and I was always out at night.

As you can see I'm into a holiday where i can dive comfortably and meet others and have a happy holiday.

 

[Carl_F]

Been to both. My preference for diving is Roatan. The resorts I saw are bigger at Coz and likely better food at the resorts than Roatan resorts. But Roatan has some great places to eat. On West Bay, Beachers has the best coconut shrimp. The Thai place next to the West Bay Mall (small strip mall with a deli, a small grocery, realtor, gift shop, jewelry shop, coffee shop ... So small) is great as is the sushi place across the road.

Roatan diving is also a heck of a lot cheaper.

Carl

 

[chillyinCanada]

I've been to both. Love Roatan, been back many times, I've forgotten how many. Yes, bugs can be problematic. For some reason, that seemed not to be too serious a consideration though always planned for. That said, I haven't been back lately because on thevlast three trips my body decided to start having a verrry bad reaction to the bites. Damn!!