Utila - What is your favorite place to stay and dive?

[Doctorfish]

I don't have a problem with being in town or diving from town. I just prefer Laguna because of the grounds, the beach, the pool and a good dive op that you can walk to from your cabin.. I'm sure that all the other places mentioned are good as well. It all depends on what you want and your price point. No matter where you stay, once you are out in a boat, the diving is going to be comparable.

 

[KentFromPGH]

I appreciate each point of view. My wife and I decided on Laguna and will be there May 25 through June 1.

 

[Thook]

Deep Blue.... Eat....Sleep.....Dive..... Deep Blue Utila - swim with whale sharks at our all inclusive resort. Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras

 

[ElGaucho]

I hate resorts, of any kind. I like freedom, I like to know different stuff. For people like myself, I would recommend staying at The Lighthouse (a nice hotel, at the end of the road where the bridge is) very close to downtown (but still secluded from noise), and very close to many dive centers. You could dive with Deep Blue, Alton´s, UDC (that would be my choice), and many others. So there goes another choice.

 

[Oldbear]

I stayed at the Lighthouse for nearly a month and dived with Utila Dive Center. Both operations were fantastic and we would go back with friends and family. My GF and I really enjoyed watching the tarpon and eagle rays every day from our balcony. From what I seen Utila Dive Center's guides were all instructor rated and long time employees...not the summer temp looking for something to do before going to college.

 

[MissCay]

Laguna Beach is a fine choice. In my opinion, the Utila Cays and South Shore is where things are moving. There is a reason that they have the #1 hotel property, the #1 restaurant and the #1 activity (Utila Cays Diving) on TripAdvisor! Utila Cays Diving alone has 27, 5-STAR reviews! In business for 20 years - no, but I'm sure we can all agree, that longevity, does not denote current quality of diving! All the shops in Utila say they'll go to the North Side of the island where the visibility is best, corral is impressive and fish PLENTIFUL...but do you know how many ACTUALLY go? I live on this side of the island, and I can count the boats that pass here for the north side on one hand...on a BUSY day...

Utila Cays Diving is small - absolutely! The boat capacity is 10 people and the ratio of INSTRUCTOR-to-diver is at MOST 1:5! Boat picks up right at your dock, and when the dives are finished drops you off at your doorstep. Gear set-up, washing and putting away is done for you!

As to the long boat ride into town? Well the boat goes every afternoon...and is COMPLETELY covered...so not sure why you would be getting wet en route...

For me, when I look for QUALITY, I look at TripAdvisor...the most recent reviews of guests...THOSE numbers and words speak volumes.

 

[laurenceh]

"there are too few people on this dive boat"

"this dive op has no historic significance"

"i hate it when the dive boat picks me up from my private beach each morning"

said no diver ever!

 

[handben]

For what it is worth, I think there is a value in being on the mainland of Utila. I have only visited the island once but stayed for 2 weeks in July of 2011. We rented a large house about 1 mile outside of town (Las Brisas on VRBO). We dove with the Bay Island College of Diving while there. We were a group of 7 with other groups coming and going on the dive boat. One group we dove with for most of a week was staying down on the south coast - at a rented house. They weren't too pleased with the arrangements in that part of the package was a trip into and back from town daily. They came in to do their dives and then sort of had to decide how long to stay around before going back to their lodging as they would be stuck there the rest of the time (or pay a pretty hefty price for a ride back to town). I think the first day or 2 they were pretty content but then got kind of bored after this. This was a couple in their early 60s and a couple in the mid 30s.

We on the other hand were on the main road about 1 1/2 miles from our dive shop. At that time I was not aware of any shops who would pick up their customers. We would have probably switched over to them if we had known as it was a bit tricky getting 3 teenagers to town by 7 AM. That said it was nice to have a scooter and the freedom to explore the island at will (4 was the most I ever got on the scooter at one time). We also rented a motorcycle one day which gave us more freedom. As compared to other places where we travel (especially Bonaire), I found it tough to do much cooking in our rental. The groceries available on island were pretty limiting. For this reason we ate out most of our meals.

Unlike some of the other posters, I don't have a dog in the hunt so to speak but if I were to go to Utila again I would rent a house just outside of town. There are a couple just past the bridge heading out that look quite nice and are situated on a good dive site. We were a bit too far outside of town to easily walk in and we were not able to arrange any shore diving in Paradise Cove which I had really hoped for. From what I could gather, shore diving is not something that the dive shops cater to in Utila. This is something that I would try to iron out better before returning so that I could get in more dives at my leisure. For any other readers though who haven't visited Utila and are considering it, I would also add that the dive culture on Utila seems to tend toward heavy "hand holding" in my opinion. I guess there are so many folks who go there for basic open water certification that this is the mindset that they run the boats with (at least with the operator we dove with). For most of our dives we had a very seasoned instructor who acted as our "guide". She did show us a lot of macro stuff that we likely would have missed otherwise (pipefish, crabs, etc); but on one dive I got stuck with a new instructor who was guiding her first dive. It was one of my more frustrating dives to be herded with a dozen or so other divers with fins kicking all over the place and silt galor. I would not do another dive under those circumstances - however I guess if you are a brand new diver then this is sort of how it goes. It is a little frustrating to be told how to dive by someone who has been diving for probably 1/25th as long as you with probably less than 1/5 the number of dives. If you are an experienced diver be careful who you go out with in Utila if you want to dive at all independently.

 

[sebach]

My favorite place was definitively Captain Morgans, when they used to put theirs divers on Hotel Kayla, on the Cays, and dive very often on the north side.
I'm not sure whether they still really dive there often, but now they are completely based on Utila town.

It looks like Utila Cays Diving is doing more or less what Captain Morgan used to offer (Hotel Kayla on the Cays, lots of north side dives,a former Captain Morgan Instructor), unfortunately for a much higher price tag (roughly twice the price it used to be 2 years ago).

 

[MissCay]

Utila Cays diving is at the same property that CM used to be at... There are a couple important differences... Once again, capping the number of divers to 10 at MOST...vs what CM had which was 20+ on a boat that was smaller than the Utila Cays Diving boat. They set-up, wash and put away all of the gear saving guests their vacation time. The instructors have 1000+ dives in the Utila Cays alone. You pay for the experience...

And the price difference? Well, CM charges $35/dive (according to their website) and UCD charges $45-$31 (depending on how many people are on the boat). A PRIVATE boat will cost $45/dive. A boat with 5 people will cost you $35/dive. SAME price as CM - with LOADS more value Oh yeah...and the shore diving is FANTASTIC!