Bay Island Beach Resort BIBR

[Blueskys4ever]

Has anyone been there recently? I am planning a trip for mid June. Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[driftwood]

My LDS just moved their trips from BIBR to Fantasy Island. They sited maintenance issues and the condition of the house reef as the reason for the change.

 

[Blueskys4ever]

My LDS just moved their trips from BIBR to Fantasy Island. They sited maintenance issues and the condition of the house reef as the reason for the change.

Would the maintenance issues be the condition of their boats? I have read here, that they are not kept up well. Some have said that they recently replaced some of the their boats with better units.

 

[HowieDean]

They have a couple new boats and Spooky Channel is one of my favorite dives...
This is Roatan so all the the operations have a wart or two.......
I would bet that the reason for the switch mentioned above was more about money then anything else.....
BIBR is a pretty layed back place and has a much more home-y feel then FI....
The dive operation at BIBR is very good and they tend to range around a varity of dive sites - think they run over to the South Side from time to time... So you will most likely get an idea of the difference between North side and South... and there is a pretty big difference.... I'm not going to get into a fight about which is better as both sides are great....

So over all I think you have made a good choice......

 

[daniel f aleman]

I'll second BIBR; they're a NAUI Tec operation as well (Trimix, rebreathers, etc.)

 

[Sloeber]

I stayed at BIBR a few months ago. The boats were in OK condition. Not great, but plenty good for me. The resort is comfortable and well taken care of, the food was OK. Nothing great on the food. You'd be better served to eat elsewhere unless its a purely conveniece thing. The freshly squeezed juice was out of this world, though. The house reef is in awful shape, however. Yeah, the Spooky Chennel gets a lot of publicity, but if I never dive it again I'm OK with that. ZERO coral life, barely any fish life, and rather poor visibilty. I can dive rock walls and canyons with murky water and no fish in Illinois easy enough, I travel to Roatan for the colorful corals and fish. The snorkeling off shore is also really bad, but hey at least I was wet. If the big draw to BIBR is shore diving (it was for me), you'll be sorely disappointed. The dive operation runs so-so. when we were there the owners fired the DM because he took my father, a newly certified diver, INTO the current on a drift dive and left him unattended. We didn't complain, but someone else on our boat did, which resulted in termination of the DM I believe. The owners deeply care that you enjoy yourself and the resort is run up to par, but in doing so I think they treat their help with less than the level of respect I'd expect from my employer.

My trip report from BIBR -

Salty Endeavors

HTH

 

[driftwood]

They (the LDS) did not mention anything about the boats, it was poor shore diving (the term used was "war zone"), so so food, and general property maintenance problems. They also mentioned that FI was much more of a Motel 6 then BIBR.

It also could very well be a money issue as well. Unless FI increased their 07 rates by 50%, I can get the exact package the shop offers for 23% less by doing the booking myself. Someone did not do their homework on pricing the trip.

 

[Sherpa_fab]

regarding LDS-booked trips to BIBR, our local LDS trip offered in "off-peak" was about

3-400 more than our privately-book trip for each diver. and to add, their trip cost

was for double occupancy too.... (about 160 bucks for the week savings).

so, all together, we saved the 350 and got single occupancy rooms.....

--Trip is for Feb 9-16, so I'll do a post-trip writeup when we return................

--Sherpa

 

[Bay Island Diver]

BIBR doesn't have any resident Tec instructors and do not offer a TRIMIX figure service regularly.

You would need Coconut Tree Divers for that, they are the only full time tec operation on the island.

 

[diver 85]

They (the LDS) did not mention anything about the boats, it was poor shore diving (the term used was "war zone"), so so food, and general property maintenance problems. They also mentioned that FI was much more of a Motel 6 then BIBR.

It also could very well be a money issue as well. Unless FI increased their 07 rates by 50%, I can get the exact package the shop offers for 23% less by doing the booking myself. Someone did not do their homework on pricing the trip.

June, huh......be ready for some big seas(on the south side).I bought a house just east of BIBR in '94 for that exact reason ie better diving(most of the time)---Mary's Place & Cara a Cara IMO are the only 2 places worth diving on the 'other' side......W.E. & the North Side are the places to go(85% of the time--Jan & Feb can be rougher north vs south)........btw, Cam, Ted & Bob are very interested in how 'good of a time' you have @ their place......good luck.......