cayman or roatan?

[warmH20girl]

Its time for my big dive trip of the year. I'm trying to decide between the Sunset House in Grand Cayman or Anthony's Key Resort in Honduras. Any suggestions or past experiences welcome!

[dkktsunami]

I have been to Roatan (CoCo View) and had a great time and good diving. If you go to Cayman I would look into Little Cayman Island Beach Resort, the best diving that I have found (take your night life with you).

[merxlin]

I have been to Roatan (CoCo View) and had a great time and good diving. If you go to Cayman I would look into Little Cayman Island Beach Resort, the best diving that I have found (take your night life with you).

+1 for this. Roatan was a bit repetitive to me. Little Cayman was spectacular. But also as stated, the only nightlife is at the LCBR bar.

[diver 85]

Roatan's north side if you're talking about Grand Cayman....Little Cayman over Roatan(& I've been to Roatan 25+ times---LC once, '07).....Bloody Bay Wall(LC) is 2nd to NONE.....

[Doc]

On Grand Cayman's Sunset House, you will find an ideal place for a vacation with some diving. Lots to see and do, many restaurants, acceptably scooter safe (right hand drive/wrong way) roads, available medical facilities, superb beaches, it is truly a theme park for divers. You can walk into town, but 7 Mile Beach is a bit further and still walkable. It is one of the few original (70's) resorts that remain on Cayman that are biased heavily towards diving.

Sunset & Cayman Island, generally, On a Caribbean scale: Beaches (a long walk) 9; Cost 7; Island Prices 10; Topside Diversions 8.5; Dive Services 10; Reef Health 3.5; Critters 3; Lodging 8.5 (motel-ish); The House Reef 1

Roatan's AKR is an established AI Resort with a well run dive operation, not much to do within walking distance other than dive. (This applies to almost any other resort option on the island, you're cabbing it to night life). It's a good place for a Dive Vacation, unfortunately the sand flies are rife on the Bay Islands and the roads really suck. Driving is ill advised.

This (Northside) Resort and nearby Roatan, On a Caribbean scale: Beaches (cab ride) 1.5; Island Prices 1; Resort Cost 3; Topside Diversions 1.5; Dive Services 10; Reef Health 7; Critters 7; Lodging 6>7 (modern jungle cabanas); Shore dive (house reef) is really a non-starter 0

You can learn a lot more about AKR/Roatan or Sunset House with a simple and a bit of reading in the specific forum.

[divenski]

We were in Roatan last August - stayed at CoCo View on the south side. Advantage to that (I think) is that you are very close to south side dive sites. Did 4 dives a day - second dive in morning and afternoon was being dropped off along the wall that fed back into the resort.

Diving - we were concerned about reef health. I am a biologist, and the amount of algae was discouraging. It appears to be a long-term issue of degradation from the nutrients from on-shore development and a lack of sea urchins.

Anyway, Roatan had huge diversity of species - lots and lots of different kinds of critters, though not great abundance - not a lot of anything. Interesting diving along and on top of walls, with a few swim-throughs. Dive op was great - very, very good at pointing out and finding things to see.

Have not been to LC. Other Caribbean site was Bonaire, which had healthier reefs from years of protection (though we heard they were anticipating a boom in shore development - hopefully they will adequately control that to protect the reef).