I would like to note a few things prior to the report... This was my first time to Deep Blue Resort Utila, however I have been to Utila several times previously. Additionally, for comparison sake, I have previously stayed at Scuba Club Cozumel, Buddy Dive Bonaire, Fantasy Island Roatan, Bay Island Beach Resort Roatan, and several smaller known places as well.
I'll forgo the deep detaisl of the resort as you can find that most anywhere including the Deep Blue Resort website, but the place offers considerable more isolation than anywhere I have visited previously. There is a benefit to this given the way the town of Utila has grown in loud motorbike population as of lately. For my week of off-season stay it was just me and one other diver for 5 of the days, and we were joined on another two days by one other person. I must say it was quite nice having essentially an entire resort to myself!
I arrived on the evening ferry just in time for a nice sunset cruise to the resort.
Edin (sp?) is your taxi driver/boat captain for the times you need a ride back to town. I used his services several times but tried to do it when it was already shuttling staff to/from town. On particular time I asked him to pick me up later in the evening so that I may visit old friends and have a few drinks. He was accomodating, waiting for me at the dock of a seaside bar. I do not believe I was charged for this, but I certainly gave Edin something on the spot to hopefulyl make it worth his time. When I arrived in Utila he assisted with loading my bags off the dock, and when it came time leave he showed good boat skills. There was quite a surf kicking in town and he managed the smaller skiff very well considering the conditions.
When you pull into Deep Blue, this is your entrance:
Thier dock is the long one facing us, with the skiff that takes you to town and back tied up at the far side. On the right side of the dock is the gear locker and dunk tanks. The neoprene dunk tank was pink with sterilized water.
To the left is more dunk tanks, a mechnicals room, and the dive log board which was updated daily.
A small path leads you away from the dock unto the official welcome of the resort. This path unfortunately has the only flowers of the resort. I have difficulty finding things to criticize Deep Blue Resort about, but this is one area. Call me old fashioned, but when I leave the dead of winter of the midwest for the Caribbean I want to see beautiful tropical flowers scatttered everywhere. I will give them a nod for palm trees and general landscape attention. The grounds were maticulously maintained and packed with both old growth and new growth palm trees. I just wish they had more flowers.
The pathway was raked daily, as were all the grounds.
Eventually the pathway opens up to the ocean.
The view was magnificient. Each rooom was awarded the same priceless view of an open ocean constantly gentlely cresting upon the rocks right below your balcony. On clear days you were also given the moutains of Honduras as a backdrop to the ocean sunrise and clear evening you saw the lights from La Cieba.
The view, from the waterfront, looking back onto my room.
The rooms were comfortable. My AC unit kept my room cool when I choose to run it, hot water was available anytime I needed it to be, and we only lost power briefly once but Deep Blue has its own generator for back-up purposes so we were back online within minutes. I saw no insects of any sort, but that was likely as a result to the little lizards in my bathroom. Keep up the good work guys! LOL.
And a view of the resort from the water.
I made a video that starts from the welcome sign and shows the pathway walk to the waterfront. You can view the youtube view right here.
Just off the dining area/bar/lounge/internet area is an outdoor patio. It was the ideal location to enjoy a fantastic view with a few beers and friends. The wireless internet worked out here as well.
The food was above average. Susan and the kitchen staff made great efforts to provide you with a great meal. They are limited only by the fact they are on Utila. Breakfast was simple but filling... eggs, muffins, bacon, juice, coffee, etc. I'm not a huge breakfast eater but it was nice to eat some fresh fruit each morning with a couple big glasses of juice. During breakfast a dinner menu was provided. It was small, but I was always interested in something on it, if not multiple items. Lunch was varied from tacos to burgers and chicken sandwiches. I never left lunch hungry.Come dinner time I was ready to chow and it never disappointed. It was on par with a well done home cooked meal. At no time did I feel I was eating "resort food." You could tell Susan took good care in providing quality meals and she was always looking for feedback. On the first night I removed the tomatoes from my salad. The following morning she asked me if I didn't want tomatoes on future salads. I was impressed. I should note I have been in the restaurant and bar service industry for the past 19 years so I am not easily impressed.
The evenings were spent on the porch admiring the hummingbords at sunset.
On most evenings the other guests would gather here as well as Steve the owner and Susan his girlfriend/kitchen manager. Steve was always good for conversation and I enjoyed picking his brains about scuba in general and more focused questions like the Utila whalesharks. More often than not I stayed up longer than I expected due to good conversation from Steve and Susan.
After sunset it was the fruit bats turn.
Swin (sp?) was our Captain and Marlo was the DM for our week. They performed their jobs very well. Only once during the week did Marlo miss the buoy on first attempt, but I blame Swin for the mishap. But given the conditions for most the week both did very well in rough waters. I have a herniated disc in my back so Marlo assisted me from the rack each dive and upon exit of the water either Swin or Marlo would lift my gear aboard piece by piece as I removed all gear in the water. I appreciated thier assistance in this matter. Marlo was never lost underwater and always had us back to the anchor line at roughly the 40-45 minute mark of the dive. At that time she exited the water, but we were left to swim around underneath the boat to burn the rest of our air tanks for an extended safety stop. On one surface interval I asked if we could go into the Utila Keys instead of bounce around in the ocean so Swin brought us into port so I could walk around and photograph the islands.
You may think Utila is isolated... Until you visit it's satellite island population. Wow. It is mostly fisherman which live here. If they were ever going to film "Deliverance 2" these two islands would deserve consideration. You could swap out garbage can drums for the banjos and a fishing pole for the bow n arrow. "He sure looks good in neoprene, don't he?" OK, I'm just joking around. It really is an adorable little civilization worthy of the visit. I'm just saying the genetics on the island are not producing the next Caribbean Olympic sprinter, if you catch my drift.
OK, back to Deep Blue. Overall, this is a resort that delivers on the peaceful scuba vacation. For non divers there really ins't much to do, but that could be said about all of Utila, not just Deep Blue. But Deep Blue goes above and beyond putting you into nice accomodations, feeding you good meals, and dropping you onto beautiful reefs. In that regard I'm not sure how any resort could provide a more well-rounded and personal experience.
I'll forgo the deep detaisl of the resort as you can find that most anywhere including the Deep Blue Resort website, but the place offers considerable more isolation than anywhere I have visited previously. There is a benefit to this given the way the town of Utila has grown in loud motorbike population as of lately. For my week of off-season stay it was just me and one other diver for 5 of the days, and we were joined on another two days by one other person. I must say it was quite nice having essentially an entire resort to myself!
I arrived on the evening ferry just in time for a nice sunset cruise to the resort.
Edin (sp?) is your taxi driver/boat captain for the times you need a ride back to town. I used his services several times but tried to do it when it was already shuttling staff to/from town. On particular time I asked him to pick me up later in the evening so that I may visit old friends and have a few drinks. He was accomodating, waiting for me at the dock of a seaside bar. I do not believe I was charged for this, but I certainly gave Edin something on the spot to hopefulyl make it worth his time. When I arrived in Utila he assisted with loading my bags off the dock, and when it came time leave he showed good boat skills. There was quite a surf kicking in town and he managed the smaller skiff very well considering the conditions.
When you pull into Deep Blue, this is your entrance:
Thier dock is the long one facing us, with the skiff that takes you to town and back tied up at the far side. On the right side of the dock is the gear locker and dunk tanks. The neoprene dunk tank was pink with sterilized water.
To the left is more dunk tanks, a mechnicals room, and the dive log board which was updated daily.
A small path leads you away from the dock unto the official welcome of the resort. This path unfortunately has the only flowers of the resort. I have difficulty finding things to criticize Deep Blue Resort about, but this is one area. Call me old fashioned, but when I leave the dead of winter of the midwest for the Caribbean I want to see beautiful tropical flowers scatttered everywhere. I will give them a nod for palm trees and general landscape attention. The grounds were maticulously maintained and packed with both old growth and new growth palm trees. I just wish they had more flowers.
The pathway was raked daily, as were all the grounds.
Eventually the pathway opens up to the ocean.
The view was magnificient. Each rooom was awarded the same priceless view of an open ocean constantly gentlely cresting upon the rocks right below your balcony. On clear days you were also given the moutains of Honduras as a backdrop to the ocean sunrise and clear evening you saw the lights from La Cieba.
The view, from the waterfront, looking back onto my room.
The rooms were comfortable. My AC unit kept my room cool when I choose to run it, hot water was available anytime I needed it to be, and we only lost power briefly once but Deep Blue has its own generator for back-up purposes so we were back online within minutes. I saw no insects of any sort, but that was likely as a result to the little lizards in my bathroom. Keep up the good work guys! LOL.
And a view of the resort from the water.
I made a video that starts from the welcome sign and shows the pathway walk to the waterfront. You can view the youtube view right here.
Just off the dining area/bar/lounge/internet area is an outdoor patio. It was the ideal location to enjoy a fantastic view with a few beers and friends. The wireless internet worked out here as well.
The food was above average. Susan and the kitchen staff made great efforts to provide you with a great meal. They are limited only by the fact they are on Utila. Breakfast was simple but filling... eggs, muffins, bacon, juice, coffee, etc. I'm not a huge breakfast eater but it was nice to eat some fresh fruit each morning with a couple big glasses of juice. During breakfast a dinner menu was provided. It was small, but I was always interested in something on it, if not multiple items. Lunch was varied from tacos to burgers and chicken sandwiches. I never left lunch hungry.Come dinner time I was ready to chow and it never disappointed. It was on par with a well done home cooked meal. At no time did I feel I was eating "resort food." You could tell Susan took good care in providing quality meals and she was always looking for feedback. On the first night I removed the tomatoes from my salad. The following morning she asked me if I didn't want tomatoes on future salads. I was impressed. I should note I have been in the restaurant and bar service industry for the past 19 years so I am not easily impressed.
The evenings were spent on the porch admiring the hummingbords at sunset.
On most evenings the other guests would gather here as well as Steve the owner and Susan his girlfriend/kitchen manager. Steve was always good for conversation and I enjoyed picking his brains about scuba in general and more focused questions like the Utila whalesharks. More often than not I stayed up longer than I expected due to good conversation from Steve and Susan.
After sunset it was the fruit bats turn.
Swin (sp?) was our Captain and Marlo was the DM for our week. They performed their jobs very well. Only once during the week did Marlo miss the buoy on first attempt, but I blame Swin for the mishap. But given the conditions for most the week both did very well in rough waters. I have a herniated disc in my back so Marlo assisted me from the rack each dive and upon exit of the water either Swin or Marlo would lift my gear aboard piece by piece as I removed all gear in the water. I appreciated thier assistance in this matter. Marlo was never lost underwater and always had us back to the anchor line at roughly the 40-45 minute mark of the dive. At that time she exited the water, but we were left to swim around underneath the boat to burn the rest of our air tanks for an extended safety stop. On one surface interval I asked if we could go into the Utila Keys instead of bounce around in the ocean so Swin brought us into port so I could walk around and photograph the islands.
You may think Utila is isolated... Until you visit it's satellite island population. Wow. It is mostly fisherman which live here. If they were ever going to film "Deliverance 2" these two islands would deserve consideration. You could swap out garbage can drums for the banjos and a fishing pole for the bow n arrow. "He sure looks good in neoprene, don't he?" OK, I'm just joking around. It really is an adorable little civilization worthy of the visit. I'm just saying the genetics on the island are not producing the next Caribbean Olympic sprinter, if you catch my drift.
OK, back to Deep Blue. Overall, this is a resort that delivers on the peaceful scuba vacation. For non divers there really ins't much to do, but that could be said about all of Utila, not just Deep Blue. But Deep Blue goes above and beyond putting you into nice accomodations, feeding you good meals, and dropping you onto beautiful reefs. In that regard I'm not sure how any resort could provide a more well-rounded and personal experience.
