My wife and I traveled to Roatan last week. May 22-29. We stayed at Fantasy Island. First, I must thank all of you who responded to my specific questions and posted in other threads which helped us out greatly. THE TRIP:
Resort: We enjoyed the ambience of the resort. My wife and I only get to take one vacation a year and we like it to be somewhat romantic. There were the usual sand fleas that everyone talks about. We had a breeze most of the week and it did not seem too bad. The food at the reort was Ok. It will not be given awards, but seafood night had grilled lobster and it was very good. We were not disappointed nor excited by the food. The room was nice. You had to leave your credit card to get a remote to the tv. We watched a little bit of tv just to catch up on daily scores and other events. The beds were hard as almost all are in the tropics. We had fresh towels and flowers everyday. We tipped the maid a few dollars each day. We had one problem. $60 dollars went missing from our room. We had it well hidden and someone had to go thrugh a lot to get it. We reported this to the manager who began an investigation and replaced our money within seconds. I do not like the fact that we were robbed, but I will give the manager a good bit of credit for acting quickly. We were not offered nor did we see safes.
Dive operation: We enjoyed almost every dive. The one problem we had was that we were there Sunday to Sunday and our last dive on Saurday morning was with 21 people and one dm because it was our boat captain and dms day off. 3 people on the dive laid on the reef to take pictures. One guy took a picture of a beautiful soft coral then turned and swam off kicking the beautiful coral he had just photograhed and breaking a major piece off. The dm could not babysit everyone. That being said, our dm and boat captain all week were knowledgable and respected the reef. The people we were diving with were experienced and good divers. We became friends with each diver on the boat. Too my knowledge no one on our boat laid on the reef to get a picture but was extremely careful not to disturb anything if possible. We were treated well by the dive shop supervisor and he was extremely helpful if we had questions. One gentleman on our boat wanted to push the dive and fly rule and he would not let him. I appreciated that even though he was taken some heat from an experienced diver. Each boat had oxygen and proper first aid equipment. We wanted to make shore dives and each time they were eager to drive the skiff to the dive site to drop us off and came and picked us up at the gazebo. We found that if we were willing to ask they accomadated every request to do shore dives.
Diving: We logged 21 dives. I will only mention a few dives by names. We dove Mary's place and it was beautiful. The amount of fish we saw on that dive was excellent. As others have mentioned we did have dives where we felt that the fish were not as plentiful as Coz. Most of our dives we saw as many or maybe even more life. The coral and sponges are in pretty good shape. We saw several eagle rays, eels, lobster crabs, pipefish, sea horses, spotted drums(on one dive we found a pocket of five baby spotted drums), garden eels, porcupine fish, flounders, and some smaller things that I am working to determine what in the world they were. I appreciate the advice to slow down and look hard. I had never seen many things and will work hard to identify every fish that I saw. We dove the Mr Bud, The Prince Albert, and the plane. There were so many beautiful corals and sponges. The day we went to do the shark dive our boat did the safety stop with a pod of dolphins which led them all the way into the bay at Fantasy island. The shark dive was a wonderful experience. The orientation was good and the boat seemed reliable although it is just a skiff with no water. The dive site was as beautiful as the reef closer to shore. we had between 15 and 18 reef sharks with an eel and two nice size grouper to show up. I would recommend going on the early dives because evidently more show up. I believe they book several througout the day. We had a total dive time of 44 minutes which included a 3minute safety stop. We were sat on the bottom in a sandy area for about 12 minutes then were allowed to swim the rest of the dive. Some would bump us and the sharks were extremely curious. My wife was a little skiddish but relaxed and absolutely came away with a wonderful picture of the beauty, strength, and prowess of the sharks. The purpose of the dive is to allow everyone to learn these things, I believe. Our dm outlined each dive and we were expected to execute on our own. We were allowed as much time under water as we wanted. Each dive ended when you determined it was time. You could run at your own pace as long as you followed the basic plan. A typical dive included out along the wall and back on top of the reef. Our dm, Nelson, was helpful in pointing out unique fish life. He also did not show us every little blenny, lobster or crab, but allowed us to dive and expore. We were pleased with our trip and especially with the dive operation. As many of you answered my questions, I will be glad to answer anything that can help someone else.
Resort: We enjoyed the ambience of the resort. My wife and I only get to take one vacation a year and we like it to be somewhat romantic. There were the usual sand fleas that everyone talks about. We had a breeze most of the week and it did not seem too bad. The food at the reort was Ok. It will not be given awards, but seafood night had grilled lobster and it was very good. We were not disappointed nor excited by the food. The room was nice. You had to leave your credit card to get a remote to the tv. We watched a little bit of tv just to catch up on daily scores and other events. The beds were hard as almost all are in the tropics. We had fresh towels and flowers everyday. We tipped the maid a few dollars each day. We had one problem. $60 dollars went missing from our room. We had it well hidden and someone had to go thrugh a lot to get it. We reported this to the manager who began an investigation and replaced our money within seconds. I do not like the fact that we were robbed, but I will give the manager a good bit of credit for acting quickly. We were not offered nor did we see safes.
Dive operation: We enjoyed almost every dive. The one problem we had was that we were there Sunday to Sunday and our last dive on Saurday morning was with 21 people and one dm because it was our boat captain and dms day off. 3 people on the dive laid on the reef to take pictures. One guy took a picture of a beautiful soft coral then turned and swam off kicking the beautiful coral he had just photograhed and breaking a major piece off. The dm could not babysit everyone. That being said, our dm and boat captain all week were knowledgable and respected the reef. The people we were diving with were experienced and good divers. We became friends with each diver on the boat. Too my knowledge no one on our boat laid on the reef to get a picture but was extremely careful not to disturb anything if possible. We were treated well by the dive shop supervisor and he was extremely helpful if we had questions. One gentleman on our boat wanted to push the dive and fly rule and he would not let him. I appreciated that even though he was taken some heat from an experienced diver. Each boat had oxygen and proper first aid equipment. We wanted to make shore dives and each time they were eager to drive the skiff to the dive site to drop us off and came and picked us up at the gazebo. We found that if we were willing to ask they accomadated every request to do shore dives.
Diving: We logged 21 dives. I will only mention a few dives by names. We dove Mary's place and it was beautiful. The amount of fish we saw on that dive was excellent. As others have mentioned we did have dives where we felt that the fish were not as plentiful as Coz. Most of our dives we saw as many or maybe even more life. The coral and sponges are in pretty good shape. We saw several eagle rays, eels, lobster crabs, pipefish, sea horses, spotted drums(on one dive we found a pocket of five baby spotted drums), garden eels, porcupine fish, flounders, and some smaller things that I am working to determine what in the world they were. I appreciate the advice to slow down and look hard. I had never seen many things and will work hard to identify every fish that I saw. We dove the Mr Bud, The Prince Albert, and the plane. There were so many beautiful corals and sponges. The day we went to do the shark dive our boat did the safety stop with a pod of dolphins which led them all the way into the bay at Fantasy island. The shark dive was a wonderful experience. The orientation was good and the boat seemed reliable although it is just a skiff with no water. The dive site was as beautiful as the reef closer to shore. we had between 15 and 18 reef sharks with an eel and two nice size grouper to show up. I would recommend going on the early dives because evidently more show up. I believe they book several througout the day. We had a total dive time of 44 minutes which included a 3minute safety stop. We were sat on the bottom in a sandy area for about 12 minutes then were allowed to swim the rest of the dive. Some would bump us and the sharks were extremely curious. My wife was a little skiddish but relaxed and absolutely came away with a wonderful picture of the beauty, strength, and prowess of the sharks. The purpose of the dive is to allow everyone to learn these things, I believe. Our dm outlined each dive and we were expected to execute on our own. We were allowed as much time under water as we wanted. Each dive ended when you determined it was time. You could run at your own pace as long as you followed the basic plan. A typical dive included out along the wall and back on top of the reef. Our dm, Nelson, was helpful in pointing out unique fish life. He also did not show us every little blenny, lobster or crab, but allowed us to dive and expore. We were pleased with our trip and especially with the dive operation. As many of you answered my questions, I will be glad to answer anything that can help someone else.
