I left behind the snow of Illinois for the tropics of Roatan and Utila.
Brrrr.
Ahhh, much better.
My father and I stayed one week at Fantasy Island Beach Resort. We booked our package through an offer I located on ScubaBoard which ultimately was booked through PADI Travel if I'm not mistaken. It was the first time I've done something like that and overall it worked out very well. I was able to dive with some very experienced divers and a fairly tightly knit group versus the traditional cattle boat with 6 or 8 pairs of people who didn't know each other and have varying skill levels.
Travel to FIBR went smoothly. We flew out of Chicago, through Houston, and onto Roatan. I had never been in Texas before but without even leaving the airport it was obvious we weren't in the Midwest any longer. Flights were smooth sailing.
Even though FIBR was suppose to have somebody at the airport to get us they never showed. I waited 20 minutes after collecting my bags for the FIBR van but finally succumbed to the persistent cab drivers. Halfway to FIBR their van passed us headed to the airport. Upon getting to FIBR we learn they lost our reservation. I present my travel vouchers and they magically find our reservation. They didn't, however, have a room for us. We get stuck in a spare room unfit for guests.
The broken window was only half the story. We were supposed to also have a beachfront room with ocean view. The only window, the broken one pictured above, yielded this view.
Cold water showers, trampolines for mattresses, etc. We complain to the management and we are told they can't help us. We make mention of this to our tour group leader and they offer him a new room immediately. Great. Only problem is our new room is right next door to our old room (read: same view, beds, etc) and this one doesn't have any electricity. I'm not even joking. I'm not talking one bad light bulb, or an outlet that doesn't work. The entire room was void of electrical power. We complain again and finally the following day we get moved into a room suitable for habitation. Our ocean view is exactly that.
It should be noted until we got moved to this final room we did not have a safe deposit box available to us. All our cash and valuables were left in our room. Now is a good time to note our rooms also didn't lock. Well, they did lock I guess, but the door could be opened regardless because there was no latch for the lock to catch.
Finally in the new room, the room itself was clean and open, but oddly nothing fit. Doors didn't close on closets, bathrooms, or patios. Is this because of the earthquake? In either case the maid service did a nice job keeping our room clean and towels fresh. The A/C worked well but was noisy so the breeze off the ocean was preferred most evenings. There was no screen door on the patio, however, so you slept with insect repellent on. The showers had hot water roughly half the time. The last evening we stayed the resort lost water throughout the resort. We left at noon the following day and water had not yet been restored. I'm not referring to hot water, I'm referring to ANY water. We couldn't even flush toilets.
The food at the resort is borderline awful. It is college cafeteria quality at best, but with no selection. Breakfast was ok purely because they had an omelets station that I utilized each morning. Without that I would have been really unhappy. They did have fresh fruit available so that is a bonus for some people. Juices are made from powdered mix. They tasted fine, possibly a little too sweet, I was just disappointed they weren't freshly squeezed as is popular on the islands. Lunch and dinner had very little variation. A pasta of some sort with choice of 2 sauces, a type of broth they called soup, either chicken or pork on the griddle, a fish or Spanish casserole and either fish filet or chicken legs, plus refried beans. I don't eat salads but there was a salad bar present. You certainly will not go hungry during your stay unless you evoke your own hunger strike, but just getting off the resort twice for dinner will go a long way.
The resort grounds themselves were well kept for the most part. The beaches were well kept, empty beer bottles scattered from the night before were picked up each morning, etc. (Side rant: I don't know why but it seemed as if the guests at FIBR were the biggest slobs I've ever seen. It's as if they were not capable of tossing a beer bottle into the garbage or bringing their glassware back to the bar) Anyway I was pleased by the way the resort stayed on top of the messy clients. The pool was closed for a portion of our stay. I'm not sure why as we didn't use it I just happened to see it taped off with yellow caution tape for several days.
The resort had a large selection of animals present. Most were friendly.
We did our diving with Fantasy Island for the week. I've dove with Scuba Club in Cozumel, Plaza Resort in Bonaire, UDC in Utila, BIBR in Roatan, and various other outfits in the Keys, etc. FIBR is second to none of them as far as scuba is concerned. Darry was our DiveMaster
He did an excellent job on pre-dive briefings, allowing us to dive our own profile, and finding us critters. He has 9 years experience on those reefs and it showed. Pre-dive he would tell us what he was going to show us. Yellow seahorse, then toadfish, then pipefish, green moray, huge lobster, then a brown seahorse... etc. When we went down he would take us directly to everything he just named. Not only did he tell us what we were going to see he told us the order in which we would see it. Truly amazing work Darry. Pedro was our Captain and a fine Captain he was. On drift dives he was always there to pick you up in short order, he assisted with getting you in the boat, and he always had fresh fruit chopped upon our return to the boat. The fresh pineapple minutes after climbing onboard was a welcome return and it completely spoiled me. Pedro and Darry are the finest crew I have ever had the pleasure of diving under.
If I had to find complaint somewhere it would be on the shore diving. The location is excellent having the Prince Albert wreck and Newman’s Wall so close. The only complaint I could make is it was almost a hassle to shore dive. In comparisons to places like Scuba Club or Plaza Resort, the shore diving at FIBR took a fair amount of effort and time. Don't get me wrong I'm being nitpicky here because it is excellent shore diving and I'm thankful the option is even there, but I would like FIBR to find a way of streamlining the process to make it easier.
You can find a full database of scuba images at this link or you can view most of them on the ScubaBoard thread I started right here l.
Overall I will return to FIBR. The price is very hard to beat for a scuba diver that is going on a dive vacation. I will factor costs of dining out for dinner multiple times during the week in the costs on my return, however. I will also be better prepared for the hassles associated with FIBR (like getting a quality room, lack of hot water, etc). FIBR provides us with great diving at a rather inexpensive cost, but they make up savings around the rest of the resort where they can.
We took an afternoon off of diving to visit the East End of Roatan. This was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. We took a taxi from FIBR to the dock for Hole in the Wall bar/restaurant, where we boarded a small dinghy and motored across the bay to the bar. It was appropriately named.
After eating a very tasty blue cheese burger and grilled lobster lunch we went for the mangrove swamp tour.
It was a great way to spend a few hours but I'd recommend getting a taxi driver that speaks English. If ours did we would have requested a longer tour but since ours didn't we were stuck with our original plans.
Brrrr.
Ahhh, much better.
My father and I stayed one week at Fantasy Island Beach Resort. We booked our package through an offer I located on ScubaBoard which ultimately was booked through PADI Travel if I'm not mistaken. It was the first time I've done something like that and overall it worked out very well. I was able to dive with some very experienced divers and a fairly tightly knit group versus the traditional cattle boat with 6 or 8 pairs of people who didn't know each other and have varying skill levels.
Travel to FIBR went smoothly. We flew out of Chicago, through Houston, and onto Roatan. I had never been in Texas before but without even leaving the airport it was obvious we weren't in the Midwest any longer. Flights were smooth sailing.
Even though FIBR was suppose to have somebody at the airport to get us they never showed. I waited 20 minutes after collecting my bags for the FIBR van but finally succumbed to the persistent cab drivers. Halfway to FIBR their van passed us headed to the airport. Upon getting to FIBR we learn they lost our reservation. I present my travel vouchers and they magically find our reservation. They didn't, however, have a room for us. We get stuck in a spare room unfit for guests.
The broken window was only half the story. We were supposed to also have a beachfront room with ocean view. The only window, the broken one pictured above, yielded this view.
Cold water showers, trampolines for mattresses, etc. We complain to the management and we are told they can't help us. We make mention of this to our tour group leader and they offer him a new room immediately. Great. Only problem is our new room is right next door to our old room (read: same view, beds, etc) and this one doesn't have any electricity. I'm not even joking. I'm not talking one bad light bulb, or an outlet that doesn't work. The entire room was void of electrical power. We complain again and finally the following day we get moved into a room suitable for habitation. Our ocean view is exactly that.
It should be noted until we got moved to this final room we did not have a safe deposit box available to us. All our cash and valuables were left in our room. Now is a good time to note our rooms also didn't lock. Well, they did lock I guess, but the door could be opened regardless because there was no latch for the lock to catch.
Finally in the new room, the room itself was clean and open, but oddly nothing fit. Doors didn't close on closets, bathrooms, or patios. Is this because of the earthquake? In either case the maid service did a nice job keeping our room clean and towels fresh. The A/C worked well but was noisy so the breeze off the ocean was preferred most evenings. There was no screen door on the patio, however, so you slept with insect repellent on. The showers had hot water roughly half the time. The last evening we stayed the resort lost water throughout the resort. We left at noon the following day and water had not yet been restored. I'm not referring to hot water, I'm referring to ANY water. We couldn't even flush toilets.
The food at the resort is borderline awful. It is college cafeteria quality at best, but with no selection. Breakfast was ok purely because they had an omelets station that I utilized each morning. Without that I would have been really unhappy. They did have fresh fruit available so that is a bonus for some people. Juices are made from powdered mix. They tasted fine, possibly a little too sweet, I was just disappointed they weren't freshly squeezed as is popular on the islands. Lunch and dinner had very little variation. A pasta of some sort with choice of 2 sauces, a type of broth they called soup, either chicken or pork on the griddle, a fish or Spanish casserole and either fish filet or chicken legs, plus refried beans. I don't eat salads but there was a salad bar present. You certainly will not go hungry during your stay unless you evoke your own hunger strike, but just getting off the resort twice for dinner will go a long way.
The resort grounds themselves were well kept for the most part. The beaches were well kept, empty beer bottles scattered from the night before were picked up each morning, etc. (Side rant: I don't know why but it seemed as if the guests at FIBR were the biggest slobs I've ever seen. It's as if they were not capable of tossing a beer bottle into the garbage or bringing their glassware back to the bar) Anyway I was pleased by the way the resort stayed on top of the messy clients. The pool was closed for a portion of our stay. I'm not sure why as we didn't use it I just happened to see it taped off with yellow caution tape for several days.
The resort had a large selection of animals present. Most were friendly.
We did our diving with Fantasy Island for the week. I've dove with Scuba Club in Cozumel, Plaza Resort in Bonaire, UDC in Utila, BIBR in Roatan, and various other outfits in the Keys, etc. FIBR is second to none of them as far as scuba is concerned. Darry was our DiveMaster
He did an excellent job on pre-dive briefings, allowing us to dive our own profile, and finding us critters. He has 9 years experience on those reefs and it showed. Pre-dive he would tell us what he was going to show us. Yellow seahorse, then toadfish, then pipefish, green moray, huge lobster, then a brown seahorse... etc. When we went down he would take us directly to everything he just named. Not only did he tell us what we were going to see he told us the order in which we would see it. Truly amazing work Darry. Pedro was our Captain and a fine Captain he was. On drift dives he was always there to pick you up in short order, he assisted with getting you in the boat, and he always had fresh fruit chopped upon our return to the boat. The fresh pineapple minutes after climbing onboard was a welcome return and it completely spoiled me. Pedro and Darry are the finest crew I have ever had the pleasure of diving under.
If I had to find complaint somewhere it would be on the shore diving. The location is excellent having the Prince Albert wreck and Newman’s Wall so close. The only complaint I could make is it was almost a hassle to shore dive. In comparisons to places like Scuba Club or Plaza Resort, the shore diving at FIBR took a fair amount of effort and time. Don't get me wrong I'm being nitpicky here because it is excellent shore diving and I'm thankful the option is even there, but I would like FIBR to find a way of streamlining the process to make it easier.
You can find a full database of scuba images at this link or you can view most of them on the ScubaBoard thread I started right here l.
Overall I will return to FIBR. The price is very hard to beat for a scuba diver that is going on a dive vacation. I will factor costs of dining out for dinner multiple times during the week in the costs on my return, however. I will also be better prepared for the hassles associated with FIBR (like getting a quality room, lack of hot water, etc). FIBR provides us with great diving at a rather inexpensive cost, but they make up savings around the rest of the resort where they can.
We took an afternoon off of diving to visit the East End of Roatan. This was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. We took a taxi from FIBR to the dock for Hole in the Wall bar/restaurant, where we boarded a small dinghy and motored across the bay to the bar. It was appropriately named.
After eating a very tasty blue cheese burger and grilled lobster lunch we went for the mangrove swamp tour.
It was a great way to spend a few hours but I'd recommend getting a taxi driver that speaks English. If ours did we would have requested a longer tour but since ours didn't we were stuck with our original plans.
