Chi-Diver
Registered
My sister and I just returned from a week at the Reef House Resort (www.reefhouseresort.com) in Roatan, Honduras. The trip exceeded my expectations. I must caution -- this is not the West End. The resort is located on a small key (cay?) that is only accessible by boat. The focus of trips here are basically Eat, Sleep, Dive (not necessarily in that order). Partying/nightlife is not one of the purposes.
Getting There:
Convenient! Fly into Roatan (usually Saturday or Sunday from the US). Someone is there to meet you at the airport and help collect your bags. Transportation to/from the airport is included.
Accommodations:
Comfortable! There are only 12 or so rooms, each has two queen-sized beds, a flat screen TV with cable, A/C, hot private shower, and all the fresh drinking water you can consume. You can also refill your bottles with drinking water from a cooler in the main lodge. Free wi-fi is available in the rooms and lodge area.
Food:
Incredible! Three home-cooked meals, served on individual plates (no buffet). Each meal had home-made bread or tortillas and dinner included dessert (also home-made). After the third dive, fresh cookies or sweet rolls were available. Everything was fresh, wonderful, filling, and just downright DELICIOUS!
Juice and Iced Tea are provided with every meal. Alcohol and soft drinks are not included in the price (beer $2, sodas $1). The bar is an on-your-honor system. You can also bring your own alcohol or drinks.
Diving:
Amazing! The dive masters (Davit and Robert) are wonderful at spotting small stuff we saw pipefish, flounder, eels, shrimp, and seahorses just to name a few. The coral is healthy and the marine life abundant. We were the only dive boat at every site, every day.
Our boat was large and could accommodate 12 divers although the most we had our week was 7. The Reef House has an equipment room where you can store your gear at night and a huge rinse tank within steps of where the boats are docked. Each morning our BCDs and regulators were on the boat. The boat had two separate fresh-water tubs for cameras and masks. Ice water and cookies or fruit were provided each morning for the two-tank dives.
The dives were varied and we never did the same spot twice. Your dive package includes 3 dives per day two morning and one afternoon. One day each week, they do a night dive the day will be picked based on the conditions. You can also do an optional shark dive (which I would highly recommend) for an additional $95.
You assemble all your own gear for each dive, although the boat guy (Choco) was extremely helpful when we were switching tanks and for getting us in and out of the water.
For each dive, you can follow the DM (if you want to see the macro stuff he finds) or dive your own profile. You are entirely responsible for yourself and your buddy no check of air, safety stop, no deco time, etc. The DM gets you back to the boat and then you can stay in the shallows as long as you had air (you are only reqd. to be back on the boat with no less than 500 psi). My sis and I were recording dives well over an hour! We also saw lots of cool stuff right under the boat an octopus on two different dives.
The water temp was around 84 degrees F, although I was chilled on most dives with a 3mm shortie. I would also suggest bringing along a lightweight long wetsuit because (although rare) the night divers encountered a swarm of jellyfish when surfacing.
Other:
There is a shallow, enclosed lagoon in front of the property, great for snorkeling. My sis did a night snorkel there and saw a baby barracuda, lots of sleeping parrotfish, a huge horse conch, other regular conches, spotted moray, huge green moray, sand crab, urchins, fuzzy chitons, brittle stars, and an octopus.
Also note, there is no beach per se. This is a huge advantage as there are significantly fewer sand fleas/flies. We saw people at the airport with serious bites all over their legs, while we had no more than a few all week.
Getting Home:
Here is a tip have one person in your party get in line immediately to pay the departure tax ($37.80 at the time of this writing CASH ONLY!) and one person wait in line to check-in for the flight. We arrived at the airport around 10am and just ahead of the groups coming from Anthonys Key and CocoView. The line to pay the departure tax took about 40 minutes for us others that first checked-in *then* paid the tax said it was closer to 1 hour.
All in all a fantastic trip and a value that cant be beat. We are researching other places to go for next year and are having a difficult time finding anything that compares price-wise, convenience, and amenities.
Getting There:
Convenient! Fly into Roatan (usually Saturday or Sunday from the US). Someone is there to meet you at the airport and help collect your bags. Transportation to/from the airport is included.
Accommodations:
Comfortable! There are only 12 or so rooms, each has two queen-sized beds, a flat screen TV with cable, A/C, hot private shower, and all the fresh drinking water you can consume. You can also refill your bottles with drinking water from a cooler in the main lodge. Free wi-fi is available in the rooms and lodge area.
Food:
Incredible! Three home-cooked meals, served on individual plates (no buffet). Each meal had home-made bread or tortillas and dinner included dessert (also home-made). After the third dive, fresh cookies or sweet rolls were available. Everything was fresh, wonderful, filling, and just downright DELICIOUS!
Juice and Iced Tea are provided with every meal. Alcohol and soft drinks are not included in the price (beer $2, sodas $1). The bar is an on-your-honor system. You can also bring your own alcohol or drinks.
Diving:
Amazing! The dive masters (Davit and Robert) are wonderful at spotting small stuff we saw pipefish, flounder, eels, shrimp, and seahorses just to name a few. The coral is healthy and the marine life abundant. We were the only dive boat at every site, every day.
Our boat was large and could accommodate 12 divers although the most we had our week was 7. The Reef House has an equipment room where you can store your gear at night and a huge rinse tank within steps of where the boats are docked. Each morning our BCDs and regulators were on the boat. The boat had two separate fresh-water tubs for cameras and masks. Ice water and cookies or fruit were provided each morning for the two-tank dives.
The dives were varied and we never did the same spot twice. Your dive package includes 3 dives per day two morning and one afternoon. One day each week, they do a night dive the day will be picked based on the conditions. You can also do an optional shark dive (which I would highly recommend) for an additional $95.
You assemble all your own gear for each dive, although the boat guy (Choco) was extremely helpful when we were switching tanks and for getting us in and out of the water.
For each dive, you can follow the DM (if you want to see the macro stuff he finds) or dive your own profile. You are entirely responsible for yourself and your buddy no check of air, safety stop, no deco time, etc. The DM gets you back to the boat and then you can stay in the shallows as long as you had air (you are only reqd. to be back on the boat with no less than 500 psi). My sis and I were recording dives well over an hour! We also saw lots of cool stuff right under the boat an octopus on two different dives.
The water temp was around 84 degrees F, although I was chilled on most dives with a 3mm shortie. I would also suggest bringing along a lightweight long wetsuit because (although rare) the night divers encountered a swarm of jellyfish when surfacing.
Other:
There is a shallow, enclosed lagoon in front of the property, great for snorkeling. My sis did a night snorkel there and saw a baby barracuda, lots of sleeping parrotfish, a huge horse conch, other regular conches, spotted moray, huge green moray, sand crab, urchins, fuzzy chitons, brittle stars, and an octopus.
Also note, there is no beach per se. This is a huge advantage as there are significantly fewer sand fleas/flies. We saw people at the airport with serious bites all over their legs, while we had no more than a few all week.
Getting Home:
Here is a tip have one person in your party get in line immediately to pay the departure tax ($37.80 at the time of this writing CASH ONLY!) and one person wait in line to check-in for the flight. We arrived at the airport around 10am and just ahead of the groups coming from Anthonys Key and CocoView. The line to pay the departure tax took about 40 minutes for us others that first checked-in *then* paid the tax said it was closer to 1 hour.
All in all a fantastic trip and a value that cant be beat. We are researching other places to go for next year and are having a difficult time finding anything that compares price-wise, convenience, and amenities.
