DiveMaven
Contributor
We just got back from spending a week diving at Coco View and had a great time. It was our first visit to Roatan, and although I don't see us returning any time soon, it probably won't be our last visit.
The good: We stayed in a cabana over the water and absolutely adored the wall of windows overlooking the ocean and private lanai. We never closed our blinds and enjoyed the natural light all the windows provided. The resort was super clean, super well maintained, easy to get around, and super secure. There's a lockbox in the rooms, but we never bothered to use it and never had anything even touched in our room....we never even locked our door. There was plenty of hot water, plenty of room to put our stuff, and our room was very clean (no bugs at all!).
The food was very plentiful and very good IMO. It's basic home cooking type of food, with a veggie and salad bar always available at dinner. It isn't even close to gourmet so if you're a foodie, it won't likely excite you to eat there.
The dive operation is really second to none IMO. It is valet diving where you're taken care of from start to finish. Our DM was Eddie and our captain was Jorge, both excellent at what they do. If you're the type that likes to "tour" a reef, you likely wouldn't like the diving style at CCV. All the DMs go very slowly, looking for creatures and critters, giving photographers plenty of time to get their shots. Bottom time on all guided dives was 60 minutes, which was plenty of time given the short SI before being dropped off at either Newman's Wall or CCV Wall.
We spoke with repeaters as well as Mitch and Deb, the new managers. Nothing has changed at CCV with Liz's departure (except people missing Liz), and there aren't ANY plans to do so. Mitch was very clear that there is no reason to mess with the well oiled machine that is CCV, and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". However, he did say they were looking into offering more healthy choices at meals, so if you want to look at that as a "change", there might be one in the future.
During our week we had very few bugs...we were very lucky I guess. There were a few no-see-ums that we had a few bites from (less than 15 all week each), but we literally saw 3 mosquitos all week. We were very good about applying our bug spray, and our few no-see-um bites were clustered in spots we figure we didn't spray.
The bad: Although we loved the diving, and were very impressed with the abundance of hard coral, gorgonian coral, sea fans, and sponges, we were disappointed somewhat in the amount of sea life there was. We did see about 5 different Lionfish in various stages of growth (from 1" to 10"), but it was the absence of reef fish and macro creatures that really stunned us. Someone in our group who was there last year even remarked that there was a huge absence of crabs and lobsters as well, so we couldn't help but wonder if it was more about overfishing/harvesting than the Lionfish "invasion". We did see some HUGE crabs and lobsters, so it wasn't like there weren't any
We did see quite a few seahorses and pipefish, which was very cool, so although I titled this "the bad", it really wasn't "bad"....just not quite what we had hoped for.
The viz in the Front Yard was bad the entire week. Best days were 30', worst close to 10'. We didn't do any extra diving or night dives out front because of the viz.
On a surface interval we saw the old Bay Island Aggressor boat, which was in pathetic condition. It was sad to see a once majestic liveaboard sitting at a pier rusting away.
All in all, the good FAR outweighed the "bad", and the "bad" wasn't even bad in the grand scheme of things. Will we return? Absolutely we will return to CCV and Roatan!
I'll post a link to our photos once I finish editing them.
The good: We stayed in a cabana over the water and absolutely adored the wall of windows overlooking the ocean and private lanai. We never closed our blinds and enjoyed the natural light all the windows provided. The resort was super clean, super well maintained, easy to get around, and super secure. There's a lockbox in the rooms, but we never bothered to use it and never had anything even touched in our room....we never even locked our door. There was plenty of hot water, plenty of room to put our stuff, and our room was very clean (no bugs at all!).
The food was very plentiful and very good IMO. It's basic home cooking type of food, with a veggie and salad bar always available at dinner. It isn't even close to gourmet so if you're a foodie, it won't likely excite you to eat there.
The dive operation is really second to none IMO. It is valet diving where you're taken care of from start to finish. Our DM was Eddie and our captain was Jorge, both excellent at what they do. If you're the type that likes to "tour" a reef, you likely wouldn't like the diving style at CCV. All the DMs go very slowly, looking for creatures and critters, giving photographers plenty of time to get their shots. Bottom time on all guided dives was 60 minutes, which was plenty of time given the short SI before being dropped off at either Newman's Wall or CCV Wall.
We spoke with repeaters as well as Mitch and Deb, the new managers. Nothing has changed at CCV with Liz's departure (except people missing Liz), and there aren't ANY plans to do so. Mitch was very clear that there is no reason to mess with the well oiled machine that is CCV, and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". However, he did say they were looking into offering more healthy choices at meals, so if you want to look at that as a "change", there might be one in the future.
During our week we had very few bugs...we were very lucky I guess. There were a few no-see-ums that we had a few bites from (less than 15 all week each), but we literally saw 3 mosquitos all week. We were very good about applying our bug spray, and our few no-see-um bites were clustered in spots we figure we didn't spray.
The bad: Although we loved the diving, and were very impressed with the abundance of hard coral, gorgonian coral, sea fans, and sponges, we were disappointed somewhat in the amount of sea life there was. We did see about 5 different Lionfish in various stages of growth (from 1" to 10"), but it was the absence of reef fish and macro creatures that really stunned us. Someone in our group who was there last year even remarked that there was a huge absence of crabs and lobsters as well, so we couldn't help but wonder if it was more about overfishing/harvesting than the Lionfish "invasion". We did see some HUGE crabs and lobsters, so it wasn't like there weren't any
We did see quite a few seahorses and pipefish, which was very cool, so although I titled this "the bad", it really wasn't "bad"....just not quite what we had hoped for.
The viz in the Front Yard was bad the entire week. Best days were 30', worst close to 10'. We didn't do any extra diving or night dives out front because of the viz.
On a surface interval we saw the old Bay Island Aggressor boat, which was in pathetic condition. It was sad to see a once majestic liveaboard sitting at a pier rusting away.
All in all, the good FAR outweighed the "bad", and the "bad" wasn't even bad in the grand scheme of things. Will we return? Absolutely we will return to CCV and Roatan!
I'll post a link to our photos once I finish editing them.
