ppatin
Contributor
First Impression: The first things I noticed when arriving were the boats. There are some VERY expensive yachts docked at the marina. I'm not much of an authority on powerboats but a friend of mine said there were several which were in the 5-8 million dollar price range. That kind of made me wonder what kind of a place we were staying at. The resort itself was relatively small but attractive. Everything looked clean and well maintained. There was one restaurant that had indoor and outdoor seating along with a covered outdoor bar area. A pretty nice pool was available as well, but sadly there was no beach on this side of the island.
Rooms: The accommodations here were gorgeous. I have no idea how our group got them for the price that we paid, I'm guessing that Valentine's couldn't fill all of their rooms at their regular rates so they unloaded a bunch through a wholesaler. Anyways, the suites were huge and luxurious but they had a few quirks. For some reason the safe in our room didn't always work correctly and would occasionally be impossible to lock or unlock. Also at certain points the microwave in the kitchen would make random beeping noises as if an invisible person was pressing buttons, and the room telephone did not work. I'm guessing that the safe and microwave might have been affected by the regular power fluctuations (the lights would dim or go dark for a few seconds from time to time) or just didn't handle the humidity very well.
A much more frustrating quirk (if you can call it that) was that on our third night there the electronic lock on our room door stopped working. We got back around 11 PM hoping to shower and go to sleep and the darn thing would not open. We went to the front desk where it took nearly half an hour for someone who could actually try to help to arrive. Once he figured out that the lock was somehow busted it took another 45 minutes or so for a maintenance person to get us in our room. I'm fine with somewhat laid back customer service but that was really unacceptable.
Diving: Unfortunately I can't give a great review of the dive sites that're accessible from Harbor Island because of the wind and rough seas during our stay. Because of all the chop in the open ocean we ended up staying in the area between Harbor Island and Eleuthera which seriously limited where we could go. The few sites that we did go to were mostly very shallow and didn't impress me all that much. I enjoyed the dives and conditions weren't bad, but there was nothing really memorable in terms of features or coral. I got lucky and saw a couple of turtles as well as a huge stingray that cruised right by us on the last dive of the trip. That made my day. The water was also quite warm so I ditched my wetsuit after the first day & just dived in a bathing suit & a shirt that served as a pseudo-rash guard. That was a huge positive.
I was very happy to see that the people running the dive center seemed committed to running a safe and professional operation. When I went to Roatan last year nobody ever checked my c-card, but there was none of that nonsense at Valentine's. Everyone's cards were checked and they asked about the last time we'd been diving. When we were in the water the divemasters did a good job of keeping an eye on the less experienced divers while leaving those with more experience the freedom to do their own thing. The dive boats always seemed competently and professionally run. I had a few issues with how the DMs led the dives (sometimes it felt like they were in a hurry to take us in a big circle and didn't really point out any sights, which seems silly when you're paying them for their local knowledge) but I never had any concerns about their commitment to safety. Rental equipment seemed pretty typical, at this point I own everything except for a BCD but the friends I went with rented regs as well and none of them had any problems. I do kind of wonder about the state of the O-rings on some of their tanks though, it seemed like there an unusual number of issues there.
The couple who run the dive operation (George and Francine) are real nice folks and they seem serious about improving it. I believe they purchased the shop fairly recently and it sounds like they took over an operation that needed some work. As I mentioned earlier I never had any concerns about safety, but IMO the diving isn't that well integrated with the resort. There isn't any area where you can store your gear, which means you have to haul your dripping gear and wetsuit back to your room every day. The only rinsing facilities are plastic tubs on the boats.
Also, service at Valentine's is slooooow. We always showed up for breakfast at 7:30 on the dot when it opened but it took us nearly an hour every day because of the long wait for food. This meant that the dive boats always left relatively late in the morning, and on at least one day it felt like they hurried the second morning dive so they could get back to take out the afternoon dive. In theory it was possible to do three dives per day (two tanks in the morning and one in the afternoon) but the problem with that was that was never enough time to get back & have lunch before the boat left again. As far as I know nobody in our group did more than two dives per day. On a positive note George took a number of pictures that he then e-mailed to us for free. I really appreciated him doing that.
Looking back I don't think that I'd return to Valentine's if I wanted to go diving. I didn't have a bad experience but it wasn't really exceptional either. If you're the sort of person who wants to dive a lot then it's probably a lousy destination choice, but for someone who wants to hang out at a resort and get a dive or two per day in it would probably be a good choice. As I mentioned the dive operation seems to be in the process of improving itself and I'm curious to see what they're like in six months or a year.
Rooms: The accommodations here were gorgeous. I have no idea how our group got them for the price that we paid, I'm guessing that Valentine's couldn't fill all of their rooms at their regular rates so they unloaded a bunch through a wholesaler. Anyways, the suites were huge and luxurious but they had a few quirks. For some reason the safe in our room didn't always work correctly and would occasionally be impossible to lock or unlock. Also at certain points the microwave in the kitchen would make random beeping noises as if an invisible person was pressing buttons, and the room telephone did not work. I'm guessing that the safe and microwave might have been affected by the regular power fluctuations (the lights would dim or go dark for a few seconds from time to time) or just didn't handle the humidity very well.
A much more frustrating quirk (if you can call it that) was that on our third night there the electronic lock on our room door stopped working. We got back around 11 PM hoping to shower and go to sleep and the darn thing would not open. We went to the front desk where it took nearly half an hour for someone who could actually try to help to arrive. Once he figured out that the lock was somehow busted it took another 45 minutes or so for a maintenance person to get us in our room. I'm fine with somewhat laid back customer service but that was really unacceptable.
Diving: Unfortunately I can't give a great review of the dive sites that're accessible from Harbor Island because of the wind and rough seas during our stay. Because of all the chop in the open ocean we ended up staying in the area between Harbor Island and Eleuthera which seriously limited where we could go. The few sites that we did go to were mostly very shallow and didn't impress me all that much. I enjoyed the dives and conditions weren't bad, but there was nothing really memorable in terms of features or coral. I got lucky and saw a couple of turtles as well as a huge stingray that cruised right by us on the last dive of the trip. That made my day. The water was also quite warm so I ditched my wetsuit after the first day & just dived in a bathing suit & a shirt that served as a pseudo-rash guard. That was a huge positive.
I was very happy to see that the people running the dive center seemed committed to running a safe and professional operation. When I went to Roatan last year nobody ever checked my c-card, but there was none of that nonsense at Valentine's. Everyone's cards were checked and they asked about the last time we'd been diving. When we were in the water the divemasters did a good job of keeping an eye on the less experienced divers while leaving those with more experience the freedom to do their own thing. The dive boats always seemed competently and professionally run. I had a few issues with how the DMs led the dives (sometimes it felt like they were in a hurry to take us in a big circle and didn't really point out any sights, which seems silly when you're paying them for their local knowledge) but I never had any concerns about their commitment to safety. Rental equipment seemed pretty typical, at this point I own everything except for a BCD but the friends I went with rented regs as well and none of them had any problems. I do kind of wonder about the state of the O-rings on some of their tanks though, it seemed like there an unusual number of issues there.
The couple who run the dive operation (George and Francine) are real nice folks and they seem serious about improving it. I believe they purchased the shop fairly recently and it sounds like they took over an operation that needed some work. As I mentioned earlier I never had any concerns about safety, but IMO the diving isn't that well integrated with the resort. There isn't any area where you can store your gear, which means you have to haul your dripping gear and wetsuit back to your room every day. The only rinsing facilities are plastic tubs on the boats.
Also, service at Valentine's is slooooow. We always showed up for breakfast at 7:30 on the dot when it opened but it took us nearly an hour every day because of the long wait for food. This meant that the dive boats always left relatively late in the morning, and on at least one day it felt like they hurried the second morning dive so they could get back to take out the afternoon dive. In theory it was possible to do three dives per day (two tanks in the morning and one in the afternoon) but the problem with that was that was never enough time to get back & have lunch before the boat left again. As far as I know nobody in our group did more than two dives per day. On a positive note George took a number of pictures that he then e-mailed to us for free. I really appreciated him doing that.
Looking back I don't think that I'd return to Valentine's if I wanted to go diving. I didn't have a bad experience but it wasn't really exceptional either. If you're the sort of person who wants to dive a lot then it's probably a lousy destination choice, but for someone who wants to hang out at a resort and get a dive or two per day in it would probably be a good choice. As I mentioned the dive operation seems to be in the process of improving itself and I'm curious to see what they're like in six months or a year.
