Dive Review of Dive Dominica/Fort Young Hotel in
Dominica/Caribbean

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Dive Dominica/Fort Young Hotel: "Dominica in spring", Mar, 2022, by Jeffrey D Hubbard MD, NY, US ( Top Contributor 33 reports with 18 Helpful votes). Report 11962 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	There are now nonstop flights from Miami to Dominica on American Airlines, “Operated by Envoy Air As American Eagle.” This avoids the transfer in San Juan, but substitutes Miami airport, which is overcrowded and inefficient. The American Eagle “departure lounge” has signs about “distancing” but the rows of seating are very close together and there is no possibility of distancing; touching is nearly unavoidable. Service on board flights is poor. If you must change planes in MIA, you’re probably overnighting. We did, both ways. Wyndham Garden Hotel is a discourteous rat-hole; MIA Airport Hotel is charmless, but clean, quiet and IN the airport. Desk clerk recommended house restaurant. Menu looked good . . . but it was closed! (Dinner at Pascal’s on Ponce, via Uber, does a lot to relieve the misery of the MIA layover.) Arrival in Dominica is user-unfriendly. Hours in the heat, fooling with long lines & paperwork. They blame it on “COVID” but it’s just poor organization and disregard for travelers. (We arrived in U. S. Virgin Islands and in Belize, COVID test results in hand, a few months after re-opening after COVID, and they ran it like clockwork.) Departing Dominica, they let passengers through the door in order of seating, then let them all swarm about for several minutes. Boarding looks like a rugby scrum and has no relation to where seats are located Fort Young Hotel is on the waterfront in Roseau. It is surrounded by busy streets and commercial properties. View is of the sea to the west but many days it is blocked by a cruise ship. Walking around town seems unattractive and guidebooks advise caution. The hotel has efficiency issues. We got three conflicting stories about where & when to get our pre-departure COVID tests . . . eventually, we did get them, in time. Airport transfers arranged well, but varying times again. Restaurant service averaged OK, with a few stars (Princess & Keith) and some unconscionable delays. Food was good, but menu doesn’t list what’s actually available. Friday night the restaurant had a massive and ferociously loud party; evening manager Keith rescued us and personally served our party in the quiet downstairs! Our oceanfront room was magnificent. Roomy, clean, quiet, good A/C, wifi, open porch facing the sea (close curtains and leave the screened sliding door ajar to hear surf sounds.) A phone call each day asks if you want anything from housekeeping. If you answer, “No, thanks” the room doesn’t get made up next day! There is an in-house dive shop, run by kind Francesca, but we dove with Dive Dominica, which is off-site. (We were in a pre-planned group, though group leader didn't show up.) Each day the boat arrived, right on schedule, Captain Irwin “Stinger” + 2 divemasters, very expert and kind. Two dives, good surface interval, then back to dock. Spacious aluminum catamaran. Plenty room, good sun cover, good marine head. Idea is to gear up, walk to starboard stern gate, giant stride about 5 feet to water. Getting across the deck in full gear, with few hand-holds, is challenging for this diver with 41 dive years, but one may carry fins back to the gate. Plenty of help reboarding – DM will take your rig off on the ladder and rack it. Good fills to 3000. Average max depth 65 feet - no need for nitrox. Diving was all on east side of the island, in the 6 miles from Roseau south to Scott’s Head. Nice undersea topography – huge rocks, little coral - which the dive crew knows very well, and colorful little fish, but any fish possibly big enough for human consumption are gone; lobsters, too. Site “Champagne” has volcanic gas bubbling up through sand – you can hear the sizzle - and the sand is warm if you put your hand in it. Reminder that it's a volcanic island! Overall March water temperature around 78 F, possibly because of the cool Atlantic which is just ‘round Scott’s Head. Dive crew handles dive bags & fresh-water dip-rinses them after each trip. Rinse tubs, showers and drying areas on spacious deck by dive shop. Diving operation good, dives OK, accommodations excellent, hotel service weak, American Eagle from MIA and Dominica arrival poor.
Websites	Dive Dominica
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Caribbean, Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, Fernando de Noronha (Brasil), Australia, Fiji, PNG, Micronesia, Hawai'i
Closest Airport	DOM	Getting There	via MIA
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	choppy, no currents
Water Temp	78-°F / 26-°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	- Ft/ - M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Follow leader - no nagging/chasing
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Dive Dominica/Fort Young Hotel in Dominica/Caribbean

Dive Dominica/Fort Young Hotel: "Dominica in spring", Mar, 2022,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Dive Dominica/Fort Young Hotel in
Dominica/Caribbean