I'm going crazy looking for a place to go to

[scubabob5698]

without question, best diving and value is ROATAN off the coast of honduras. Inn of Last Resort is a terrific lodge with great meals, sound dive boats and comfortable a/c rooms that are modern. nice family owns it. they dive 4x a day and one night dive. they also can set you up with a shark dive. i did it and really enjoyed it. a week trip is about $700 per person plus airfare. easy flights. if you want to extend your trip, hop into belize (turneffe atoll) which is only about a 30 minute flight from Roatan. Roatan and Belize have excellent reefs, walls, corals, small and large fish, plus alot of eels, turtles, octopus, and large colonies of squid. great place for photography. all dive sites are close by and you go back to the lodge between dives, so you can rest, snack, hit a hammock for a nap, and use your rooms bathroom faciilities. good luck.

 

[craracer]

Oh man did I miss a bunch of replies! I've been studying for boards.

Thanks so very much for all of the replies! I will be checking out each and every place tonight!

 

[Cacia]

...say, that is not a Ducati is it?

We are trying to go to the Isle of Man for the races.

 

[red_barbarian]

If you really want great/good diving ,a great beach, and a high end place to stay. Take a look at the Maldives. Do a search on high end resorts there. Be prepared to spend a lot.($800-1200/day) I stayed here: Komandoo Maldives Island Resort
I'd give it 4 stars for the high end rooms, the food was varied and the service was quite good. I think it ran me about $600/day for a couple of week stay.
Bali has a lot of very nice places to stay, but the great part of Bali is inland around Ubud. If you decide you want something arty thrown in try this place:
Alam Shanti
Costs were around $150/day for a few weeks, but you have to drive into town for diving.
Tahiti and some of the other S Pac islands also offer what you seem to be inquiring about. Sorry Thailand/Honduras in my experience are well below the standard you seem to be looking for. I haven't been there but the Seychelles are also supposed to be quite good.
The highest marine life density for diving I have ever found was around Sulawasi Indonesia, and I think there are some high end ops there as well. I see your from Minn, I think NW is having an asian fare sale right now.

 

[mahjadive]

I've been searching for a place for my wife and I to go to in September (our 2 year anniversary) and I'm going nuts.

This is my criteria: 4-5 star, all-inclusive, not more than 300 rooms, more than 2 dives/day, on the beach, prefer the dive shop to be at the resort but not set in stone, great food, relatively quiet, preferably no kids.

Not to: Jamaica or Mexico.

To give you an idea of where I've stayed at: Rui Palace/Riu Tequila, and Riu Playacar (Playa del Carmen, Mexico), Riu ClubHotel and Riu Tropical Bay, Couples Swept Away, and Point Village (a dump) (Negril, Jamaica), Occidental Grand (Cozumel).

Some of the places I've been looking at: Roatan, Curacao, Turks & Caicos, and Bonaire.

Roatan is awesome!!!! it looks like Mahahual Costa Maya Mexico.. but it more developed.. if you are looking for shore diving, you might want to check out BonAir.. it is beatiful there....

 

[craracer]

Thanks folks! I've added those to my list!

..say, that is not a Ducati is it?

We are trying to go to the Isle of Man for the races.

It's actually a superbiked SV650 with 999 bodywork. However, I do own a absolutely gorgeous yellow 748

I've watched videos of the Isle of Man and I can only imagine what it's like to see it in real life. One of the guys I race with raced in the Isle of Man for several years. He's a joy to watch on the track.

 

[mahjadive]

Have you thought about going to Spain? there is great hotels and awesome diving. I was certified on the Red sea..

 

[prettyprincess]

Singapore is a nice place to go!!



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[craracer]

We are planning a trip to Asia for next year. It will probably be one of those "do it once in a lifetime" experiences due to the cost of travel and the time consumption.

On this trip we are trying to keep the flight times down because we only have 8 days off.

The Red Sea is definitely one of the places at the top of our list to dive! I hear that it's the gold standard for diving.

Spain is a great suggestion as we have a friend, who has family there and are more than welcome to stay at their place.

I looked at Anse: Air and 7 nights all-inclusive is $7856 and $4594 for non-all-inclusive for the two of us. That's pretty spendy, especially when you factor in diving. Darn nice place though.
I looked into The Occidental Grand and Allegro in Costa Rica:
Round trip air and 7 nights for 2 at the Occidnetal Grand is $3495
The Allegro is $2921.

The Sandals Royal Bahamian is $4908 for two with a single connection flight.

I'm still working on the other suggestions.

Thanks again to everyone! I really appreciate your suggestions and advice!

 

[Doc]

The Red Sea is definitely one of the places at the top of our list to dive! I hear that it's the gold standard for diving.

Your search and the thread it spawned is indicative of the internet. Kind of like a shotgun going off and you're playing "catch the golden BB".

In but one example, and there were many posted before, you hit on the Red Sea. It is a holy grail for many divers. It is in exotic land, it offers many side rtrips, the diving is, what? Legendary? Okay, in a way it is.

To continue along on this point, the Red Sea's North End (Sharm) which is where North Americans most likely will venture, is 98% wrecks. Some quite spectacular with cargo remnants to marvel over... some quite subdued and mystical- antiquities of wooden bones cast on a shoal.

The "regulars" here, the Brits... they are so bored with seeing the wrecks that they swim off into the blue in search of Sharks. Maybe I just hadn't seen those same wrecks as much as they had- I'm still interested.... or maybe I had seen a lot of sharks in my past. Results may vary, as they say!


What constitutes a "Gold Standard" might be as elusive as your original quest, a 4-5 Star resort in the Caribbean with great diving.

As was shown in this thread, there are all sorts of undersea wonders available, some are well known, others are just very hard for us or anyone to get to. Impossible to get to? Los Roques, Swan, and others. Any number of Caribbean islands can not show you the best they have because of island geography versus population center location. Grenada is a perfect example.

It's a whole big dive world out there, but if your travel time limits you to the Caribbean, don't despair~ there's lots to see right in our own back yard. On a world scale, after you have seen everything that the Mar Caribe has to offer, it holds no candle to the critters in the SoPac, and our wrecks are no big draw... in comparison.

But it takes a lot of diving and travel right in our own back yard to draw all or most of what this local zone has to offer. Just as I smile when somebody bubbles over with "Gee, I just had the bestest diving ever at Club Dread", but no bigger smile than I get when I hear someone tick through their five Caribbean visits and then say they were now officially bored and want to see some real diving.

There's a lot to see in the Caribbean, it might not be on someone's Gold Standard list, but there's a lot to recommend it for the first thousand dives or so.