roatan/utila trip report

I just got back last night from Roatan and Utila. Here is a summary of our trip:
We arrived in roatan last saturday and stayed at Caribbean Seashore in Sandy Bay. This was by far the best hotel and the best area. Out of luck from a scheduling conflict we got their nicest house. There are three untis, 2 in one house and on house by itself that over the beach. There is a beautiful beach with what I think is the best snorkeling on the island (better than west bay) and beautifull gardens around the house. The best part about Sandy Bay is that there are no bugs! We didn't even use bug spray except for when we went into west end which was only about a dollar by cab. We dove with Native Sons before we went to Utila. They are a good dive op, but only took us out infront of west end.
We went to Utila after that and stayed at the Mango Inn and dove with Utila Dive Center. The hotel was not that great. Even though we had reservations they had rented out are room and were less than willing to help us get a room. We got a room but had to move to another room a day later. Utila Dive Center was excellent. As new divers they gave us a lot of attention but also gave us a lot of freedom. We also dove with Cross Creek one day but I liked UDC better. The groups were small and our dive masters were great and pointed out a lot of stuff to us. We dove with Steve and Marco and I would highly recommend them. Unfortunately there were no whale sharks while we were there. They saw one the day we arrived and the captian thought he saw one on one of our dives, but he went down and never re-surfaced.
After Utila we were supposed to hop a quick plane over to the mainland for a rainforest tour and then back to Roatan. Our plan was supposed to go directly to the mainland but first went to Roatan and we were over 2 hours late. The planes do NOT go by their schedules! We missed our hiking tour, but were able to do a zip line canopy tour with jungle river and they were very nice. On our way back to Roatan we were informed the airlines changed their schedule and our flight was canceled. Luckily we were able to get a flight with a different airline at the same time as our original flight.
Once back at Roatan we stayed at Foster's in West Bay. I would not recommend them. First of all they forgot to pick us up at the airport. We tried to call all 3 of their numbers and got their answering machines. The staff was OK and the rooms were OK too, but there is a big standing pool of water in a pond right next to our room and it seems like there are more bugs over by Foster's than anywhere else in West Bay. The bugs there were TERRIBLE. After staying in Sandy Bay where there were no bugs it was hard to adjust to all the bites and constant spraying. My boyfriend also got some sort of food poisening or bug after eating at their restaurant so we lost a day of diving. We were originally going to dive with bananarama because we heard on the forum that it was right behind Foster's. It is actually all the way down the beach from Foster's. We found that Las Rocas is actually almost right next to Foster's and a little cheaper than Bananarama so we dove with them. Most of our dives were OK, but our last dive was pretty crowded.
Overall we had a great time and the diving was excellent. It was our first time there and we will definately go back. My advice to anyone going would be to try to get in all the different dive sites on different parts of the island. Also stay in Sandy Bay, traveling to and from west end is much easier than to and from west end/ west bay, it is much less crowded on the beaches and in the water and best of all, there are no bugs!

Thanks for the report! I'm planning 2 weeks inland, then my husband will join me for about a week on Utila and 1-2 weeks on Roatán. We have reservations on the southern shore of Roatán (Mango Creek Lodge - a fishing place) and at the Caribbean Seashore in Sandy Bay, so it's great to hear a good review!

We loved the caribbean seashore in sandy bay. Dennis picked us up from the airport and his son drove us to the ferry at the end of our stay. Both were very nice. Dennis told us they didn't have any bugs in sandy bay and he was right. There were none. We snorkled for hours off the beach.

We liked the location of the caribbean seashore b/c it's a short and cheap taxi ride to west bay. The sunset is unfortunately just out of site as it sets over the land to your south, but the oceans break beautifully 100 yards off shore over the reef. we saw 3 starfish when swimming to the breaks for snorkeling. The minireef off the pier was a lot of fun to snorkel. The more we snorkeled it the more we saw...

the sea breeze is really nice. we stayed at three different places on our 10 day trip and unfortunately only 2 of them were here. we would've liked to have more...one word of warning if you are light sleepers...the island birds (they're shiny blackish blue) create quite a yelp....they kept me tossing and turning the first night as they yelled through the night. the second night brought storms so all was quiet, but I'd recommend a set of ear plugs if you think you'll need em. My gf's a good sleeper so she didn't have any problems, but said she did notice them come dawn. I am unfortunately a light sleeper so it caused me to be tired the next morning. The birds are everywhere on the island so there's a good chance you'll here them where ever you are, but I think a few of them call caribbean seashore home so thought I'd let you know. They are neat birds though.

Dennis told us we'd be suckers if we paid $1 each for a taxi to west end. the going rate seemed to be 15limps so we stuck w/ this. This was never a problem...a bit over 3 bucks round trip is cheap coming from chicago.

I'd recommend using the kitchen. the food in roatan left much to be desired. We joked that we became the fda's biggest fans this past week. We kept trying the beef (mostly burgers) thinkin that was safest, but it never really tasted and had the consistency of what we're used to.

Enjoy the fruit, their fruit is delicious. So juicy and fresh. I wish i had more while I was there. My gf was having fruit salads as meals by the end of our trip.

we liked the nostalgia of drinkin soda from the bottle so we drank a lot of it. it should really never be more than 24 limps for 2 sodas.

I don't know how we did on negotiating various prices. Since our culture doesn't embrace this and neither of us are fast talker salesmen we did our best, but it was always a bit frustrating feeling we were being taken advantage of. we just decided that things were going to cost us what they were going to cost us...we'd do our best to try to not over pay, but we didn't want to make things difficult for ourselves.

a trip to the iguana farm was talked down from 40 to 20. I felt good about that. the iguana farm isn't much of a farm, just a woman's home w/ tons of huge cool iguana's. we paid 10 bucks total to walk around hear property and look at caged birds, monkeys, a couple small sea turtles, some big fish, some cool lobsters that weren't hiding w/ the rest underneath shelter, and a caged squirrel...funny how we really felt bad for the squirrel...he was just staring at us from his 1 ft by 2 ft cage...so sad looking, not a life for a squirrel.

oh, allmost forgot, you should take 10 minutes to walk up the hill to the house dennis is building. you get a beautiful view of sandy bay...really a must do for the view.

If you think of it, tell Dennis the 20 somethin couple that stayed only a couple nights w/ the free upgraded unit loved their time there. we hope you do to. have a blast....

oops, double posted