Utila or Roatan?

[laurenceh]

flying between roatan and utila takes 10 minutes and costs about $160 roundtrip. or you can take a boat (there are several utilians doing this service) for $110 roundtrip and it takes about an hour and a half.
taking the ferry makes no sense and would take too much time, no one uses that route between the islands.
diving with utila cays diving is around $40 a tank and they do a two tank trip to the north side every morning, they usually dive the cays and/or south shore in the afternoon. their hotel costs $10 a night so all in all its a pretty inexpensive choice.
there are tons of budget diving and accommodation choices on utila, utila cays diving is one of many.
seeing whale sharks is always a crap shoot so don't go to utila specifically just for that. this year we saw them ten days straight in january which was completely unexpected and then we didn't see them again for several weeks. sometimes they only hang around with snorkelers for a few seconds and other times they hang around for 5-10 minutes, they refuse to cooperate with divers schedules or expectations.

 

[diversteve]

no one uses that route between the islands.

Edit: We did but evidently not any longer - see below:

only have one week, limited budget.

$50 buys several days in a hostel. (difference between flying/ferrying) I did it for convenience. For us it's actually shorter/more convenient to fly to Roatan and ferry/fly over. We were on Roatan at 12:10 (6AM departure thru IAH) and on the ferry by 2. Thru San Pedro Sula, we would've flown to Utila the next morning after overnighting in SPS - couldn't get there much before 4PM. It was some weird connection thru Newark also - I'm in Phx.

or you can take a boat (there are several utilians doing this service) for $110 roundtrip

Who's reliably doing that since Vern's demise? Please post website links/contact info. Because for the same $$ that makes more sense. Are they out of the West End dock? Add in the cab ride difference and it's probably a wash - just slightly shorter. We left Dixon Cove at 2 and were on Utila at 5:15ish. How are they doing it faster than Vern? Powerboat?

fwiw, OP's going to Roatan. Already booked Chillies/Native Sons - different thread.

 

[Stout]

Diversteve.....is that ferry still running ? It wasn't in Jan/Feb of this year so either that link is old and out of date or the ferry has been reinstated. I find flying into Utila is easier when you book your dates based on day of the week. I like CM airlines ( they did me a favour once ) so I go on saturdays. I don't know SOSA's schedule but it's my understanding they're day of the week based too but the flights usually leave SPS at around 3pm so there's no need to overnight in SPS.

The skinny on Utila for future reference, from someone who's no stranger to hunting around for deals.

A night in a reasonable hotel, eg Margaritaville, Rubi's Inn $20-25/night
A night in an expensive hotel, eg, Mango Inn, Lighthouse $60-70/night.
A night in a scary hotel........under 10 bucks with the accommodation being offered by the dive shops being the better option than the scary hotel.
Eating decent food...$10-15/day however you can easily eat for under $10/day and not die.
Beer...buck fifty, big bottle of rum, 10 bucks. local stuff, it's good.
Diving works out to $25 a tank. Pretty much everybody goes to the north side but the south and east sides are just as interesting. in fact, the only sites that sucked this year were Spotted Bay and Stingray Point.
Want to spend some time on the island. A nice apartment, furnished, for under $500 a month. Proper clean, not Utila clean.
Taxi...1 or 2 dollars with most places being walkable.

Nobody hassling you, trying to sell you stuff, friendly locals who aren't jaded to tourists ( at least not obviously ) Don't let the backpacker/party schtick fool you, that's only part of the draw, there's lots of experienced divers doing their thing there and loving it.

 

[diversteve]

Diversteve.....is that ferry still running ? It wasn't in Jan/Feb of this year so either that link is old and out of date or the ferry has been reinstated.

Which one - the Utila Princess? IDK, you've been there much more recently than I have.

 

[laurenceh]

"diversteve" i've lived on utila six months a year since 2007 and own rental properties, we transport an average of 10 people a week between roatan and utila. so regardless of what you find on the interweb, when i say no one takes the ferry between roatan and utila that is an accurate statement. the boats heading between utila and roatan take half as much time as vern did because they go much faster than he used to. many people are doing the trip including dennie bush (from bush' supermarket), mr. herman from the cays and several others, just post a request with dates on utila buy and sell on Facebook and you'll get plenty of offers. to arrange a charter flight contact alice hill at worldwide travel on utila, she has access to several private planes as well as being the agent for cm and sosa airlines.

 

[Stout]

Which one - the Utila Princess? IDK, you've been there much more recently than I have.

Yes, the Utila Princess. I worded it as a question due to the word "us" in your post and it leading to the assumption that you were somehow involved with Deep Blue. In February the UP wasn't running, it was up on blocks under the bridge with nobody speculating on when it might return to service.

Anyone advertising trips between Roatan and Utila had some sort of qualifier like having enough passengers to make the trip worth it and as a result weren't bookable in advance.

There's these guys

 

[diversteve]

I fixed, that - us was referring to how we got to Utila. I have no affiliation with Deep Blue other than being a satisfied customer.

the UP wasn't running, it was up on blocks under the bridge with nobody speculating on when it might return to service.

That's got to be hurting the backpacker business.

 

[Stout]

OK, gotcha...and there was always the Steve thing to consider too.

Most of the backpacker types I talked to were visiting Utila as part of a larger tour of the area so taking the regular ferry was just part and parcel of the whole Central American experience and unless the Utila Princess was extremely well marketed. marketed well enough to compete with the guide books it just seemed sort of "extra". Vern was already running a well known service between the islands.

Funny story re Vern. In 2012 I met a couple who traveled from the US and booked passage between Roatan and Utila with Vern. They asked him whether there was anything he needed from the US as they had space in their luggage and his request was or a stun gun, a tazer.

Utila seemed to be doing OK at the beginning of this year's high season with quite a few people falling into the Utila lifestyle of coming to get their OW and staying around to do their DM.

 

[cmneus]

Thank you laurenceh, good info!

 

[PeterNBiddle]

flying between roatan and utila takes 10 minutes and costs about $160 roundtrip.

Island Air will go lower than that if you book directly with them and pay cash. IIRC it cost us $125/ea for two people when we flew back and paid Angelo cash.