This report is long and includes information on a lot of aspects of our trip not only diving. If you have specific questions about anything here or items that I might not have touched on, please feel free to send me a message or reply to this post.
We just returned from a great 2 weeks on Roatan. This was our second trip there. Five years ago my wife and I stayed at Fosters in West Bay.
West End vs. West Bay
We chose to stay in West End this time over West Bay for a couple of reasons. The last time there were only two of us, but this time we were going with 5 people (Mom, Dad, Grandma, and two three year olds) and wanted a two bedroom place as well as proximity to restaurants and groceries. We found a place called the Views. It is a 6 condo complex with its own small pool at the top of the hill after you go through Sunset Villas. We chose the place because it had two bedrooms, A/C, a kitchen, and a pool. The price was right at $900 / week. After taxes it was $2088 for the two weeks. The condo was great; large kitchen with granite countertops, two bathrooms, TV, balcony with hammock. I located the place through VRBO.com. (Roatan Rental - Condominium or Vacation Rentals .com - Roatan/Bay Islands Caribbean Brand New Caribbean View Island Condo - West End) The owner then connected me with Roatan Life who managed the property for him.
Arriving
Roatan Life met us at the airport. If you have a small group (1-2) the employee will take you to the condo in their personal vehicle. For larger groups like ours (5) they arranged for a driver with a minivan to take us and our luggage to the condo. They also provided a cell phone for our use while we were on the island. As long as you don’t use it excessively, the use of the cell phone for local calls is included in the price of the rental. I thought this was a nice added touch. We did use the phone a few times.
Our condo had an electronic key pad lock. An initial code was given to us, but we were able to change the code with ease. I really liked not having to worry about losing keys.
The only drawback to the condo was the hill that you had to walk up to get to it...but what do you expect, it is called the Views. (The views were very good. See pictures below)
Diving
We dove with Coconut Tree Divers (Coconut Tree Divers - Roatan, Honduras). I did 17 dives over two weeks and my wife did 6. The diving was excellent, although since I am a vacation diver who only gets to dive once or twice a year, there are not many dives that I do not think are excellent. We did repeat some of the same dive sites over the two weeks, but that didn’t’ really both me as I saw new things on every dive.
Coconut Tree Divers offered two tank morning dives leaving at 9am and returning around 12:30 pm. In the afternoon there were also two dives: one at 1pm with the boat returning in time to get additional tanks for a 2:30 dive. The morning dives were generally reserved for advanced divers as the first dive was deeper. The groups for the morning dives ranged in size from two divers with a dive master to about 10 divers. During the afternoon there were more people on the boat as they used the afternoon dives for their classes. While you might have 15 divers on the boat, one or two groups of 2-4 were taking classes and the remaining divers were doing fun dives around 50-60 ft. Their boat, Wish You Were Here, was the largest I saw of any of the West End / West Bay dive operations. The dive masters gave good dive briefings and let those with computers dive their own profiles once they were comfortable with your skill level. Everyone at the shop was very friendly and eager to help. As an example of their friendliness, the day before I was leaving I stopped by to pick up my gear and one of the owners offered to give me a ride back to my condo so I wouldn’t have to carry the gear back up the aforementioned hill. They are a very efficient and safety conscious operation. I will dive with them again when I return to Roatan.
Zip Line
One of the days that I didn’t dive our family went to Gumbalimba Park and did a zip line tour. I know there are several zip lines on the island. I am not sure which one is the best, but we picked Gumbalimba because it also had the park with birds/monkeys, a pool, and a beach. These additional items appealed to us because of the kids.
Yes, Gumbalimba is the zip line that the cruise ships utilize. On cruise days, the people at the park stated that they could have 200 people or more do the zip line and another 200 or more in the park. On those days, the zip line stages two guides at each platform and “feeds” the people down the 18 zip lines. We specifically chose a non-cruise ship day. If you call the park, they will tell you when cruise ships will be docking, but I think generally there are not cruise ships on Saturdays and Sundays. On our non-cruise ship day we saw one other group start the zip line about 15 minutes before us and did not see any other people on the line or in the park. We had the whole thing to ourselves the whole day…no one else at the pool, no one else with the monkeys or birds, no one else at the beach. One of the best parts though was that we had our own personal guides and photographer for the zip line. We had 5 people in our group and taking us down the zip line were 3 guides and a photographer. The reason that we had so many guides was that my twin three year olds (will be 4 in March) did the zip line. For the most part, they went down the zip line attached to a guide. They had a blast. There were also 2-3 lines that were slow enough that they were able to go without being attached to a guide (The lines were slow enough that the kids could be caught by a guide at the other end without the kids having to slow themselves down.)
Because we were one of the only groups there, we had the photographer to ourselves. He took 75 pictures. We could buy one print for $10 or he would download all 75 pictures to a CD for $40. We opted for the latter. Unfortunately he was out of CD’s, but we were able to load all the pictures on a memory card from my digital camera.
The cost for entry into the park and the zip line canopy tour was $55 / person. They did give us a break and let the kids in for $35 each. This price included transportation to and from the doorstep of our condo.
One word of warning…if you eat at Gumbalimba Park it is expensive and the prices are stated in dollars. Not only do they charge you $11 for a hot dog and fries for the kids, but if you pay in Lempira, they give you a horrible exchange rate.
Dolphin Encounter
My wife and kids did the dolphin encounter at Anthony’s Key. It cost $45 per person. The kids enjoyed it. The encounter is done at a more remote part of the facility and they would not let you take the boat ride if you were just going to watch. However, once my wife and kids got on the boat my mother in law and I walked and down the road into a residential area of Sandy Bay towards the area where the encounter was taking place. We were able to walk out on the beach at that point and were close enough to see pretty well.
ATM
I used two ATM’s while on the island. One was just outside the Coconut Tree convenience store. It was the first one I tried to use and the buttons seemed to stick. I then tried the one at the Dolphin (about 30 yards away) and it worked fine so I used it the rest of the time I was there. The max it would let you take out per day was 5000 lps or about $265. The ATM did not charge me a fee, but my bank charged a 2% fee for an international ATM transaction; not that big of a deal for the convenience it allowed me. I had heard stories of ATM machines running out of money, not dispensing money, or not returning your card, but I had no issues. If you take out a large amount of money, the machine dispenses 500 lps (just over $25) bills. This is not an issue if you are spending a lot of money somewhere, but if you try to use a 500 lps bill to pay for something that costs less than 100 lps then the person might not have change.
Food
For about half of our meals we ate out at restaurants and the other half we cooked for ourselves. Our favorite restaurants were Rudy’s (breakfast, lunch, and smoothies), the rotisserie chicken place, Mavis & Dixies, and Fosters. I don’t think we had a bad meal on the island.
The largest grocery store in West End is Woodys. We did our initial grocery shopping at Warrens in Coxen Hole and supplemented what we ran out of the next two weeks with shopping at Woody’s, Jacksons and various other small grocery stores in West End. For fruits and vegetables, we bought them out of the back of pick up trucks driving around West End. We also bought fresh fish from a black pick up that was usually parked next to Jackson’s store (by the white church at the edge of half moon bay)
Spanish
While it is not necessary to know Spanish to survive in West End, it is a very large advantage to know some spanish. I am not fluent in Spanish, but know enough to be able to ask how much things cost, say were I need to go etc. I thought it was very useful in dealing with some of the vendors that did not speak English as well as negotiating taxi rates.
Cost
I have listed the cost of some items so that you have a frame of reference for what I paid for some things. I am not saying these are good deals or bad, but a least it will provide one point of reference for you.
Two Bedroom / two bath condo in West End $900 / wk
Zip line tour with admission to Gumbalimba park - $55 / adult & $35 / child
Dolphin Encounter at Anthony’s Key - $45 / person
Taxi from West End to Coxen Hole – 30 lps / person (about $1.50)
Minibus from West end to Coxen Hole -18lps / person (about $1.00)
Water Taxi from West End to West Bay – 40 lps / person (just over $2.00)
Car taxi from West end to West bay = $10 (no matter the number of passengers)
Car taxi from West End to Anthony’s key for 3 adults and 2 children - $6.00
Diet Coke (people must not drink diet soda on the island as sometimes it was hard to find and you cannot get it in 2 or 3 liter bottles in West End) The best price in West End was at Jackson’s market. A 500ml bottle was 13 lps. Be aware that most grocery stores charge the same for a single can (350 ml) as for a 500 ml plastic bottle.
Pineapple from back of truck – 30lps (about $1.50)
Loaf of break – 30 lps ($1.50)
400g of spaghetti (local brand) 7 lps ($0.37)
Half gallon of orange juice – 38 lps ($2.00)
Fresh Shrimp bought on street in West End - $4 / lb
Fresh Whole red snapper bought on street in West End - $4/lb
We just returned from a great 2 weeks on Roatan. This was our second trip there. Five years ago my wife and I stayed at Fosters in West Bay.
West End vs. West Bay
We chose to stay in West End this time over West Bay for a couple of reasons. The last time there were only two of us, but this time we were going with 5 people (Mom, Dad, Grandma, and two three year olds) and wanted a two bedroom place as well as proximity to restaurants and groceries. We found a place called the Views. It is a 6 condo complex with its own small pool at the top of the hill after you go through Sunset Villas. We chose the place because it had two bedrooms, A/C, a kitchen, and a pool. The price was right at $900 / week. After taxes it was $2088 for the two weeks. The condo was great; large kitchen with granite countertops, two bathrooms, TV, balcony with hammock. I located the place through VRBO.com. (Roatan Rental - Condominium or Vacation Rentals .com - Roatan/Bay Islands Caribbean Brand New Caribbean View Island Condo - West End) The owner then connected me with Roatan Life who managed the property for him.
Arriving
Roatan Life met us at the airport. If you have a small group (1-2) the employee will take you to the condo in their personal vehicle. For larger groups like ours (5) they arranged for a driver with a minivan to take us and our luggage to the condo. They also provided a cell phone for our use while we were on the island. As long as you don’t use it excessively, the use of the cell phone for local calls is included in the price of the rental. I thought this was a nice added touch. We did use the phone a few times.
Our condo had an electronic key pad lock. An initial code was given to us, but we were able to change the code with ease. I really liked not having to worry about losing keys.
The only drawback to the condo was the hill that you had to walk up to get to it...but what do you expect, it is called the Views. (The views were very good. See pictures below)
Diving
We dove with Coconut Tree Divers (Coconut Tree Divers - Roatan, Honduras). I did 17 dives over two weeks and my wife did 6. The diving was excellent, although since I am a vacation diver who only gets to dive once or twice a year, there are not many dives that I do not think are excellent. We did repeat some of the same dive sites over the two weeks, but that didn’t’ really both me as I saw new things on every dive.
Coconut Tree Divers offered two tank morning dives leaving at 9am and returning around 12:30 pm. In the afternoon there were also two dives: one at 1pm with the boat returning in time to get additional tanks for a 2:30 dive. The morning dives were generally reserved for advanced divers as the first dive was deeper. The groups for the morning dives ranged in size from two divers with a dive master to about 10 divers. During the afternoon there were more people on the boat as they used the afternoon dives for their classes. While you might have 15 divers on the boat, one or two groups of 2-4 were taking classes and the remaining divers were doing fun dives around 50-60 ft. Their boat, Wish You Were Here, was the largest I saw of any of the West End / West Bay dive operations. The dive masters gave good dive briefings and let those with computers dive their own profiles once they were comfortable with your skill level. Everyone at the shop was very friendly and eager to help. As an example of their friendliness, the day before I was leaving I stopped by to pick up my gear and one of the owners offered to give me a ride back to my condo so I wouldn’t have to carry the gear back up the aforementioned hill. They are a very efficient and safety conscious operation. I will dive with them again when I return to Roatan.
Zip Line
One of the days that I didn’t dive our family went to Gumbalimba Park and did a zip line tour. I know there are several zip lines on the island. I am not sure which one is the best, but we picked Gumbalimba because it also had the park with birds/monkeys, a pool, and a beach. These additional items appealed to us because of the kids.
Yes, Gumbalimba is the zip line that the cruise ships utilize. On cruise days, the people at the park stated that they could have 200 people or more do the zip line and another 200 or more in the park. On those days, the zip line stages two guides at each platform and “feeds” the people down the 18 zip lines. We specifically chose a non-cruise ship day. If you call the park, they will tell you when cruise ships will be docking, but I think generally there are not cruise ships on Saturdays and Sundays. On our non-cruise ship day we saw one other group start the zip line about 15 minutes before us and did not see any other people on the line or in the park. We had the whole thing to ourselves the whole day…no one else at the pool, no one else with the monkeys or birds, no one else at the beach. One of the best parts though was that we had our own personal guides and photographer for the zip line. We had 5 people in our group and taking us down the zip line were 3 guides and a photographer. The reason that we had so many guides was that my twin three year olds (will be 4 in March) did the zip line. For the most part, they went down the zip line attached to a guide. They had a blast. There were also 2-3 lines that were slow enough that they were able to go without being attached to a guide (The lines were slow enough that the kids could be caught by a guide at the other end without the kids having to slow themselves down.)
Because we were one of the only groups there, we had the photographer to ourselves. He took 75 pictures. We could buy one print for $10 or he would download all 75 pictures to a CD for $40. We opted for the latter. Unfortunately he was out of CD’s, but we were able to load all the pictures on a memory card from my digital camera.
The cost for entry into the park and the zip line canopy tour was $55 / person. They did give us a break and let the kids in for $35 each. This price included transportation to and from the doorstep of our condo.
One word of warning…if you eat at Gumbalimba Park it is expensive and the prices are stated in dollars. Not only do they charge you $11 for a hot dog and fries for the kids, but if you pay in Lempira, they give you a horrible exchange rate.
Dolphin Encounter
My wife and kids did the dolphin encounter at Anthony’s Key. It cost $45 per person. The kids enjoyed it. The encounter is done at a more remote part of the facility and they would not let you take the boat ride if you were just going to watch. However, once my wife and kids got on the boat my mother in law and I walked and down the road into a residential area of Sandy Bay towards the area where the encounter was taking place. We were able to walk out on the beach at that point and were close enough to see pretty well.
ATM
I used two ATM’s while on the island. One was just outside the Coconut Tree convenience store. It was the first one I tried to use and the buttons seemed to stick. I then tried the one at the Dolphin (about 30 yards away) and it worked fine so I used it the rest of the time I was there. The max it would let you take out per day was 5000 lps or about $265. The ATM did not charge me a fee, but my bank charged a 2% fee for an international ATM transaction; not that big of a deal for the convenience it allowed me. I had heard stories of ATM machines running out of money, not dispensing money, or not returning your card, but I had no issues. If you take out a large amount of money, the machine dispenses 500 lps (just over $25) bills. This is not an issue if you are spending a lot of money somewhere, but if you try to use a 500 lps bill to pay for something that costs less than 100 lps then the person might not have change.
Food
For about half of our meals we ate out at restaurants and the other half we cooked for ourselves. Our favorite restaurants were Rudy’s (breakfast, lunch, and smoothies), the rotisserie chicken place, Mavis & Dixies, and Fosters. I don’t think we had a bad meal on the island.
The largest grocery store in West End is Woodys. We did our initial grocery shopping at Warrens in Coxen Hole and supplemented what we ran out of the next two weeks with shopping at Woody’s, Jacksons and various other small grocery stores in West End. For fruits and vegetables, we bought them out of the back of pick up trucks driving around West End. We also bought fresh fish from a black pick up that was usually parked next to Jackson’s store (by the white church at the edge of half moon bay)
Spanish
While it is not necessary to know Spanish to survive in West End, it is a very large advantage to know some spanish. I am not fluent in Spanish, but know enough to be able to ask how much things cost, say were I need to go etc. I thought it was very useful in dealing with some of the vendors that did not speak English as well as negotiating taxi rates.
Cost
I have listed the cost of some items so that you have a frame of reference for what I paid for some things. I am not saying these are good deals or bad, but a least it will provide one point of reference for you.
Two Bedroom / two bath condo in West End $900 / wk
Zip line tour with admission to Gumbalimba park - $55 / adult & $35 / child
Dolphin Encounter at Anthony’s Key - $45 / person
Taxi from West End to Coxen Hole – 30 lps / person (about $1.50)
Minibus from West end to Coxen Hole -18lps / person (about $1.00)
Water Taxi from West End to West Bay – 40 lps / person (just over $2.00)
Car taxi from West end to West bay = $10 (no matter the number of passengers)
Car taxi from West End to Anthony’s key for 3 adults and 2 children - $6.00
Diet Coke (people must not drink diet soda on the island as sometimes it was hard to find and you cannot get it in 2 or 3 liter bottles in West End) The best price in West End was at Jackson’s market. A 500ml bottle was 13 lps. Be aware that most grocery stores charge the same for a single can (350 ml) as for a 500 ml plastic bottle.
Pineapple from back of truck – 30lps (about $1.50)
Loaf of break – 30 lps ($1.50)
400g of spaghetti (local brand) 7 lps ($0.37)
Half gallon of orange juice – 38 lps ($2.00)
Fresh Shrimp bought on street in West End - $4 / lb
Fresh Whole red snapper bought on street in West End - $4/lb
