On Jul 18th 2015, My wife, myself and 29 other folks went on a weeklong trip to the island of Roatan, Honduras. The trip was organized through our local dive shop and owners of the shop were also on the trip. (Disclaimer, I am an Assistant Instructor and my wife is a Divemaster for the dive shop that put this trip together. We received no pay, discounts or other compensation on or for this trip.) We stayed at Turquoise Bay Dive & Beach Resort, Ill refer to it as Turquoise Bay.
Once we arrived in Roatan we had to go through the process that all international travelers do, customs/immigration, baggage claim, which went about as well as one can expect such a process to go. Passports were stamped, questions answered, forms filled out, turned in, pictures taken, and finger prints taken. Baggage was reclaimed, and all was found to be delivered and undamaged. The people from Turquoise Bay were ready and waiting for us even as we made our way through immigration, they were searching for our group. They had people and transportation there to take care us, and our baggage, which was considerable. Once everything was loaded our little caravan of a van, a bus, and a flatbed truck started the forty five minute drive to what was to our vacation destination, Turquoise Bay located at Milton Bight on the north shore. Located about half way up the island from to the west from the airport, Turquoise Bay is away from the tourist area of the islands West End.
The road to Turquoise Bay is hilly and curvy with a few potholes thrown in here and there. We arrived at Turquoise Bay, uneventfully. The resort staff was ready and waiting for us. Rooms were assigned, luggage was taken to our rooms for us, and we were given a quick orientation of the resort. Dining at the restaurant was scheduled, breakfast from 7am to 9am, lunch from noon to 2pm, and dinner from 7pm till 9pm. Even though it was after three oclock, the kitchen staff had lunch ready for us. The bar was open for nonalcoholic drinks from 7am till 10pm, alcoholic drinks were available from 11am to 10pm.
At four oclock we had a meeting at the on-site dive shop. Subway Watersports is the name of the on-site dive shop. The manager, Darren, met us and gave us our orientation of the dive shop, safety first, hours of operation,(8am to 4pm everyday) storage areas for our gear, the diving schedule, and the dive boats. He and his staff were very helpful and accommodating. As we had a large group, 31 divers in all, we were divided up between 3 boats. My wife & I were put in charge of one of the boats. (Basically we were the dive shops representative, to keep an eye on less experienced divers, keep the group organized and take care of any minor issues that may come up.) Our boat had ten divers, including ourselves. We were welcomed to store our gear then or wait until the next day after our dives. 32% Nitrox was available $10 per dive, or $119 for the week, , plus the19% tax rate. We purchased nitrox for the week. We ended up doing 15 dives with Subway so nitrox ran us about $9.44 a dive. We never had a tank that was less than 32% all week, and I think we only had 1 tank that was filled to a bit less than 2900 psig. After all our folks taken care of in the dive shop, we got an extra tour of the facility to look at the fill station and compressors, all of which were in good condition and up to date service records.
After spending the week at Turquoise Bay and diving with Subway Watersports, here are my thoughts and comments. Overall the resort was very nice. It was clean, the food was good. The staff was incredibly helpful. I do not know the history of the resort but I would think that was a bit older. (Not a bad thing.) WiFi was available just about everywhere at the resort. If forced to rate the resort on a star system I would rate them as 3+ or 3S (European Hotelstars Union system). Most of our group enjoyed being away from the tourist areas. A few of the younger ones wished that they were closer to party areas. The beach was nice and well maintained.
Most of the diving is done close to the resort which allows for the boats to come back after every dive or at least for lunch before doing an afternoon dive. The boats were clean and seemed to be well maintained. Of the three boats that our group dove off of, two were older, and one looked to be new. We were told that they had a second new boat on order and were waiting for it to be delivered. The diving was very good. I had never seen so many soft corals and sea fans. The hard corals were heathy and plentiful. I had not seen so much elkhorn coral before. The water visibility good, over 50 60 feet, with plankton was the factor affecting the visibility. The water was literally alive. Water temperatures were around 82 . The manager for Subway Watersports, Darren, was friendly, safety and service oriented. The boat captains were friendly and professional. Most of the Divemasters were also friendly and professional, though we did have one that was just not quite up at the same level of the others, he wasnt bad, just not as good as the others. We had several Divemaster candidates working on the boats, with the captains and DMs, about half of them seemed to be really on the ball, while some of the others seemed to think that they too were on vacation. (Young people these day Well back when I was their age I was working in a dynamite factory.) The dive shop was always open during normal hours, 8am to 4pm, and usually opened early and late. I dont think I ever saw another operators boat over in our part of the island.
Would I go back? Absolutely!
On Roatan? C'mon, now.
