Sirto
Contributor
Fantasy Island Resort , Roatan Aug 1 15, 2009
Went in early August due to special pricing $749 +16% tax for lodging, meals, 3 boat dives / day plus unlimited shore diving. Drinks and nitrox were included. This was our third visit in the last six years.
Flew with Delta from Newark via Atlanta. $537 /pp.
Resort
The resort could use some tidying up - painting and regrouting(earthquake damage?). The pool was replaced since our last visit and is much nicer than before.
We got a room on 2nd floor of main building since these have a high ceiling and feel roomier. The rooms were quite comfortable, clean and spacious(as hotel rooms go). Each room had a small porch facing the beach. Ours was only 50 feet from the water.
This resort as well as most others in Honduras are hurting due to the current political situation. Visitors from the US are down and those from Europe are nonexistent. In order to fill the rooms they have been offering special rates to the neighboring countries (kids stay for free). This made for large crowds with many small children on the weekends. The beaches were much more crowded than usual and there were lines at meals along with kids running around everywhere. This situation is likely to continue until the political issues are resolved so if you dont want to have a lot of kids around you might want to go elsewhere for a while. During the week there were still more kids than we experienced before but it wasnt too bad.
Beaches
There are two beaches, one for snorkeling and one for swimming. The swimming beach was in a cove and had lots of shade available from palm trees and palapas. The sand was white and was raked daily. There is a sandy bottom so the entry was nice. There was some grass in the water but not until it got too deep to stand. This was a great beach for sunning as well as swimming.
The snorkeling beach was best accessed via the gazebo. You have a choice of staying close to shore and snorkeling in 4 5 feet of water or swimming out about 100 feet to a section of coral that was between FI and CocoView resort. Both areas offered nice snorkeling though the Cocoview reef was nicer. We snorkeled the reef one night with our dive lights and found lots of interesting creatures including crabs, two types of lobster, porcupine fish, Nasau Grouper, conch, tarpon, an octopus, brittle stars and red shrimp hiding in the coral. We also saw squid and several interesting juveniles between this reef and Cocoview though we did not find much in the grassy areas.
The gazebo next to the snorkeling beach is the starting point for shore dives. From here you can explore the wreck of the Prince Albert, CocoView and Neumans wall as well as the aforementioned reef in front of Cocoview. You can request to be dropped on top of these sites and save yourself the swim. To do a shore dive you just go to the dive shop and ask them for tanks and take a small boat to the dive site. When your dive is complete you drop your tanks at the gazebo and walk your gear back to the dive lockers or your room. The phone that was used to call for the boat to pick you up at the gazebo was no longer in place.
Bugs
We saw very few bugs but they sure were around even though they are now spraying te sand in the morning. Be sure to bring bug repelant and use it regularly. Be aware that high DEET content can dissolve rubber and neoprene.
Dive Facilities
There are five dive boats each of which can handle up to 20 people. We used three boats with 8 12 divers on each. The boats handle up to 15 pretty comfortably but any more would get cramped. You are assigned a boat and stay with it for the whole week.
There is a locker room with about 90 wooden lockers each of which is about 2 feet by 7 feet with one shelf which is fine for one person though probably a little tight for two. You can leave your equipment here all week. The room is locked up at night.
There are jet skis available for rental though thankfully none were in use during our stay. There are two small planes which offer island sightseeing tours.
The ride to the dive sites was between 5 minutes and 20 minutes. The weather for these two weeks was very good raining only a couple of times and that mostly at night. The wind was high on a couple of days and that resulted in large waves but for most days we had maximum seas of 1 2 feet.
Food
Breakfast and dinner were served in the main dining room and lunch was served in the outdoor restaurant except when there were too many people in which case it was served in the main restaurant.
We thought that the food was not as good nor as varied as it was on our previous visits. They have eliminated the lobster night that they used to have cost cutting by the new owners. For breakfast there were omelets made to order as well as the other typical breakfast stuff. They have a very good banana ice cream made in Roatan as well as an excellent flan (grab a piece when you see it because it may be gone by the time youre ready for dessert).
Lunch and dinner usually included a chicken dish, a pork dish, fish, and beef dishes. Usually there was one dish that was prepared on the grill or carved.
Diving
The visibility was not great (40 - 50 ft) which was somewhat worse than during previous trips. There were few moray eels to be seen (4 green and two others) over the two weeks and no rays. There were, however, quite a few seahorses, grouper and lobster. One group on our boat saw a large manta ray but, of course, we missed it. The wall at Ankas Place collapsed during the earthquake and it is a 100 yard long bare patch with just one type of purplish coral starting to grow. Quite amazing.
Medical issues
We unfortunately got to check out three of the four medical facilities on the island. The first trip to the clinic in French Harbor was due to an allergic reaction to a wasp sting on my wifes lip. After a couple of hours her lip swelled to three times normal even after taking antihistamine pills. She was given an injection of antihistamines and corticosteroid. The swelling started to go down in a couple of hours and her lip was back to normal by the next day. Trip two to the same clinic was caused when I developed an ear infection (I wasnt rinsing out my ears after diving need to be sure to do that in the future).
My wife later developed a case of diarrhea which resulted in dehydration and fever. Several others on the boat got mild cases but hers was more severe and she was admitted to the Woods Medical Center in Coxen Hole where she received 6 bags of Ringers Lactate over the next 24 hours along with other meds. After reviewing the literature we think that the steroids (which affect the immune system) made a simple case if diarrhea into something more serious.
The last trip to a local clinic suggested by the manager of the resort was to treat nausea and cramping which followed the other intestinal problems. All in all we lost three days of diving. Carolyns pretty much recovered now so all is well. Were not sure what specifically caused her problems but food poisoning and/or water borne parasites are high on my list. While the resort fills pitchers with bottled water we saw the maid wash out the pitcher with water from the tap!
The resort manager was very solicitous and had the chef prepare chicken soups for Carolyn to eat and he also drove us to the last doctor.
Went in early August due to special pricing $749 +16% tax for lodging, meals, 3 boat dives / day plus unlimited shore diving. Drinks and nitrox were included. This was our third visit in the last six years.
Flew with Delta from Newark via Atlanta. $537 /pp.
Resort
The resort could use some tidying up - painting and regrouting(earthquake damage?). The pool was replaced since our last visit and is much nicer than before.
We got a room on 2nd floor of main building since these have a high ceiling and feel roomier. The rooms were quite comfortable, clean and spacious(as hotel rooms go). Each room had a small porch facing the beach. Ours was only 50 feet from the water.
This resort as well as most others in Honduras are hurting due to the current political situation. Visitors from the US are down and those from Europe are nonexistent. In order to fill the rooms they have been offering special rates to the neighboring countries (kids stay for free). This made for large crowds with many small children on the weekends. The beaches were much more crowded than usual and there were lines at meals along with kids running around everywhere. This situation is likely to continue until the political issues are resolved so if you dont want to have a lot of kids around you might want to go elsewhere for a while. During the week there were still more kids than we experienced before but it wasnt too bad.
Beaches
There are two beaches, one for snorkeling and one for swimming. The swimming beach was in a cove and had lots of shade available from palm trees and palapas. The sand was white and was raked daily. There is a sandy bottom so the entry was nice. There was some grass in the water but not until it got too deep to stand. This was a great beach for sunning as well as swimming.
The snorkeling beach was best accessed via the gazebo. You have a choice of staying close to shore and snorkeling in 4 5 feet of water or swimming out about 100 feet to a section of coral that was between FI and CocoView resort. Both areas offered nice snorkeling though the Cocoview reef was nicer. We snorkeled the reef one night with our dive lights and found lots of interesting creatures including crabs, two types of lobster, porcupine fish, Nasau Grouper, conch, tarpon, an octopus, brittle stars and red shrimp hiding in the coral. We also saw squid and several interesting juveniles between this reef and Cocoview though we did not find much in the grassy areas.
The gazebo next to the snorkeling beach is the starting point for shore dives. From here you can explore the wreck of the Prince Albert, CocoView and Neumans wall as well as the aforementioned reef in front of Cocoview. You can request to be dropped on top of these sites and save yourself the swim. To do a shore dive you just go to the dive shop and ask them for tanks and take a small boat to the dive site. When your dive is complete you drop your tanks at the gazebo and walk your gear back to the dive lockers or your room. The phone that was used to call for the boat to pick you up at the gazebo was no longer in place.
Bugs
We saw very few bugs but they sure were around even though they are now spraying te sand in the morning. Be sure to bring bug repelant and use it regularly. Be aware that high DEET content can dissolve rubber and neoprene.
Dive Facilities
There are five dive boats each of which can handle up to 20 people. We used three boats with 8 12 divers on each. The boats handle up to 15 pretty comfortably but any more would get cramped. You are assigned a boat and stay with it for the whole week.
There is a locker room with about 90 wooden lockers each of which is about 2 feet by 7 feet with one shelf which is fine for one person though probably a little tight for two. You can leave your equipment here all week. The room is locked up at night.
There are jet skis available for rental though thankfully none were in use during our stay. There are two small planes which offer island sightseeing tours.
The ride to the dive sites was between 5 minutes and 20 minutes. The weather for these two weeks was very good raining only a couple of times and that mostly at night. The wind was high on a couple of days and that resulted in large waves but for most days we had maximum seas of 1 2 feet.
Food
Breakfast and dinner were served in the main dining room and lunch was served in the outdoor restaurant except when there were too many people in which case it was served in the main restaurant.
We thought that the food was not as good nor as varied as it was on our previous visits. They have eliminated the lobster night that they used to have cost cutting by the new owners. For breakfast there were omelets made to order as well as the other typical breakfast stuff. They have a very good banana ice cream made in Roatan as well as an excellent flan (grab a piece when you see it because it may be gone by the time youre ready for dessert).
Lunch and dinner usually included a chicken dish, a pork dish, fish, and beef dishes. Usually there was one dish that was prepared on the grill or carved.
Diving
The visibility was not great (40 - 50 ft) which was somewhat worse than during previous trips. There were few moray eels to be seen (4 green and two others) over the two weeks and no rays. There were, however, quite a few seahorses, grouper and lobster. One group on our boat saw a large manta ray but, of course, we missed it. The wall at Ankas Place collapsed during the earthquake and it is a 100 yard long bare patch with just one type of purplish coral starting to grow. Quite amazing.
Medical issues
We unfortunately got to check out three of the four medical facilities on the island. The first trip to the clinic in French Harbor was due to an allergic reaction to a wasp sting on my wifes lip. After a couple of hours her lip swelled to three times normal even after taking antihistamine pills. She was given an injection of antihistamines and corticosteroid. The swelling started to go down in a couple of hours and her lip was back to normal by the next day. Trip two to the same clinic was caused when I developed an ear infection (I wasnt rinsing out my ears after diving need to be sure to do that in the future).
My wife later developed a case of diarrhea which resulted in dehydration and fever. Several others on the boat got mild cases but hers was more severe and she was admitted to the Woods Medical Center in Coxen Hole where she received 6 bags of Ringers Lactate over the next 24 hours along with other meds. After reviewing the literature we think that the steroids (which affect the immune system) made a simple case if diarrhea into something more serious.
The last trip to a local clinic suggested by the manager of the resort was to treat nausea and cramping which followed the other intestinal problems. All in all we lost three days of diving. Carolyns pretty much recovered now so all is well. Were not sure what specifically caused her problems but food poisoning and/or water borne parasites are high on my list. While the resort fills pitchers with bottled water we saw the maid wash out the pitcher with water from the tap!
The resort manager was very solicitous and had the chef prepare chicken soups for Carolyn to eat and he also drove us to the last doctor.
