To the OP question....
I don't give great credence to outside reviews, but when they are almost universal in agreement (one way or the other), then- you gotta believe.
Some history: Fantasy (FI) was never ever conceived or molded as a
dive resort, it was always intended to be a resort that offered many things, including diving. It has/had at one time or the other: tennis courts, pool, day-spa, man-made beaches with the obvious reef-killing run-off, Jet ski rentals, Hobi cats, Yacht Basin and harbourage, less sand fleas because they spray the place with chemicals, a zoo, a weekend watering hole & music venue for hip locals, a tie-in for a dubious liveaboard, the list goes on and on.
The biggest mistake they ever made was not capitalizing on their most unoriginal name and gotten serious by hiring a little person ina white linen suit to shout... well, you know.
CocoView (CCV) was always a dive resort, never anything else. The first year at the current location, they had a one year long liveaboard project, but that was quickly abandoned and they focused on one thing: diving. That's all they still do.
FI has gone through so many management and ownership changes, I have long ago lost count. Years ago, i sat on the veranda of that tropical mansion that stands above FI on the hill. A guy named Albert was telling me what his plans were for the resort. He went on for twenty minutes and never really talked about diving (which was already in operation). It got leased, it got sold, it got foreclosed, it got rented out, it was called Bini Beach, it was owned by Italians, it got huge influxes of squandered money, it got strangled by neglect. It got so overgrown and full of bats, it almost disappeared. Dive boats sank, or more often stalled out and wound up on top of Newman's Wall. Their new fiberglass dive boat was uninsured and not certified as of a year ago. Their gear rooms have always been dark, dank, and slippery.
This all may have changed in the last year, but nobody has come here to tell us.
The FI dive crew and their amazing skills with the guests kept this nightmare alive through the worst of its years. The boats, wooden and rough, would chug out on a Eur-Asian dive schedule 3x a day. Amazingly, resort management took it out on the DMs when a 50 gallon Rubbermaid garbage can shimmied off the back in the wave action- taking with it 5 Nikonos & SLR rigs down in 3000 feet of water. They were very hard on their best asset.
Many people were attracted to FI and were profound in their love for FI here on SCUBABoard. When the house of ponzi cards finally collapsed- the booking agent squabble with ownership- the truth of this affinity was finally filtered out.
Apparently, people will put up with an awful lot if the rates are cheap and the liquor is free.
That brings me to the point to which this thread has evolved: a discussion of trip costs.
I look at vacation time as
a valuable commodity. I like to go on dive trips. I don't like to vacation and maybe do a dive or two. I don't want to drink alcohol... I can do that at the local gin-mill down the street. I came to dive. Feed me decent food without waiting for Caribbean-time waitstaff, give me a clean room, give me a nice gear room, give me nice boats, lots of tanks, an easy access shore dive. I'm good.
My vacations are worth money to me. I want what I want. You can't pay me to go to a resort selection that offers less tan the best available. Depends on what you want.
If you want to carry all that camera gear you spent thousands of dollars on, feel free to hand carry it on the plane, but do not bitch about $75 for a second checked bag. It's your hard earned vacation. The best costs money. Are you worth it?
The OP is concerned with a major point. Yes, AKR does have
rooms on stilts over water in an inshore tidal basin. They are nice, except at low tide. Kinda' stinky. The CCV rooms are on the ocean side front and are over an active changing tidal reef.
Reef House Resort (RHR) is the only other real shore dive operational on Roatan. As a resort, it doesn't fill my needs as CCV does, but I recommend it highly if you understand what they offer. Their shore dive should be a nightly affair. If it is rough (and they are exposed to wind and wave) you can easily stay in the shadow of their jetty and have a world class muck dive. Not to be missed or skipped!
But that isn't the topic of this thread.
To say that FI has the same shore dive access as CCV is a statement by somebody who has simply not done both from each resort. The shore dive from CCV is a very easy walk from the gear room and you're diving in an aquarium, following an anchor chain to the Prince Albert. The dive from FI starts (after a 1/8 mile schlepp from the dive lockers) in an 18' deep entry, follow an aircraft cable through the murk- feel the DC-3 wreck and then... there's the Prince Albert.
I mean, really. A picture is worth a thousand words:
CoCoView Explained in Pictures Photos by Doc_Adelman | Photobucket
Fantasy Island Roatan Photos by Doc_Adelman | Photobucket
I have searched for all types of analogies for years, but all I could ever think of is stuff like Taos:Crested Butte; Nikon
entax; Butter:Margarine; Formula 1: Dirt Track; 12 Meter: Day Sailer; Ball: Casio; Strider: Buck; H&K : Taurus... never found the right one that was universal, maybe there isn't one.
I hope that Fantasy has come back from years of unreliable and uncertainty within this last 18 months. We will have to filter out glowing reports (as seen on any operation) that have very little basis for comparative experience by the poster. The sooner it comes back as viable- the better. This being booked solid a year in advance at CCV is problematic. We need more rooms available on the unique South side of Roatan.
This specific highly localized zone for diving is absolutely unique in the Caribbean. Shallow vertical walls that are bathed in Sunlight most of the day. An entirely different experience for the observant and those who have good buoyancy.
And, just 'cause I like RHR, here's some I shot there:
Reef House Resort Roatan Photos by Doc_Adelman | Photobucket
