Dive Review of Reef House Resort in
Honduras/Roatan

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Reef House Resort: "Degraded Reef, OK Resort", Dec, 2023, by Gary & Robin Schiendelman, PA, US ( Top Contributor 42 reports with 56 Helpful votes). Report 12855.
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	We had been to Roatan many times from 2006 through 2014. At least 5 trips were to Reef House,. On the last trip in 2014, the reef was showing signs of degradation, mostly due to algae, and the fish life was dwindling. Because we needed a quick and inexpensive trip this fall just to get wet, we decided to give Reef House Resort and Roatan another try. We were there for 10 days and did 23 dives. Getting there was pretty easy. We flew American from PHL via DFW to RTB. Reef House scheduled a taxi. The driver waited for us with a sign just outside of arrivals. The taxi ride was about 40-45 minutes to a dock in Oak Ridge where we had to wait for 20-25 minutes at the dock. The taxi driver had a number of phone conversations with Reef House and eventually a local boat taxi picked us up for the 5 minute boat ride to the resort. Upon arrival, there was no one at the dock to greet us or help with luggage. Fortunately, we knew our way up a boardwalk then across an unpaved, sandy area through the gate into the resort. We finally found an employee (Keith who was also the bartender/server). He took us to the room and gave a quick briefing. No sign in, no waivers, no checking of c cards. Maybe because they knew we were returning guests?? Reef House has always been a “rustic”, small, family owned resort. Currently, the place is owned and operated by David, a Georgia native and his wife Delicia who is a local Honduran. They live on site with their 3 kids who are usually seen around the resort. Set on a small caye in a residential area, there are a total of 12 rooms. We always prefer to stay in S1 or S2 which are upstairs in a separate building steps away from the common area and rooms 3-12. Rooms S1 and S2 are a bit larger than the other rooms and also feature a small porch. All rooms have a line out front for drying out clothing (wet suits and gear are hung in a gear room at the boat dock). The room is furnished in thrift shop basic. The beds, pillows and linens are marginal but ok. The towels were a little better quality and changed every other day. Water pressure in the shower varied. The bathroom sink however, had nothing more than a thin stream of water and no stopper. Fine for basic teeth brushing and hand washing but don’t try to wash any clothing or even give your swimsuit a good rinse. No hot water in the sink but the shower had enough hot water most of the time. The AC worked fine for us (we don’t like it really cold). Front windows have no screens so you aren’t able to open the windows to take advantage of the ocean breeze. The back windows, in the bathroom, did have screens so they were always open. Don’t flush the TP and turn off all lights and AC whenever you leave the room. Room was serviced daily except for one day when they must have forgotten. There are plenty of “pets” around. Polly, the one eyed parrot who has been there forever, Chca Blanca a cute little cat who has been there for 10 or 12 years and at least 4 or 5 dogs. The dogs seem to wander in and out of the place with only one being there most of the time. There is a natural salt water “pool” in front of the resort that is really nice. The common areas include a large indoor area with a few seats and a long table used daily for breakfast and can be used for lunch and dinner if you don’t want to sit outdoors. Most people chose to sit at the outside picnic tables or the outdoor bar. Next to the eating/bar area is an open area used mostly for corn hole games which go on daily and seem to be quite competitive, especially when the alcohol is flowing. They are in the process of extending the deck in front of the bar to allow for more seating. If you are outdoors, you definitely need lots of DEET. The no see ums in Roatan are notorious and Reef House is no different. One of the things that has changed a lot is that the resort has now become a hangout for many ex-pat locals. They also host small groups of cruise ship visitors for lunch and swimming on occasion. This seems to be the way they have survived over the years, especially during covid so we can’t fault them. It’s a great ambiance if you like hanging out at the local bar (think friendly but loud people, lots of cigarette smoke, foul language, sports talk and games) Everyone was very nice and, if this is your thing, you can have a lot of fun. It’s just not for everyone. They have live music Friday afternoons. It’s not a night time hang out so no real issues with noise from the bar at night. It is, however, in a residential area so there is all of the noise associated with that. There are things to do on Roatan and Reef House will make arrangements if you ask. You need to get a boat back to the mainland and then transportation depending upon what you want to do. Because of the cruise ships, there are many more options on the island than in the past. Zip lining, a sloth farm and 4 wheel “adventures” are among the offerings. You can also do some charter fishing from the resort and we saw one guest fishing for bonefish right in front of the resort. Food was good but they have a really limited selection. Breakfast is whatever they put in front of you. It was varied everyday and over the 10 days we were there we had scrambled eggs, pancakes, bagels, french toast, tortillas, sausage, bacon, toast and fresh fruit in different combinations. Lunch and dinner are ordered from a chalk board. The first couple of days had fresh fish but that was erased and never appeared again so you are left with chicken and shrimp. Burgers were on the board for 2 or 3 days only. They have special cooked chicken once a week (smoked and beer butt while we were there). So the main menu was chicken fingers, chicken sandwich, boneless chicken wings, fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, grilled shrimp and chicken or shrimp tacos. Sides included salad (except one day when there was no lettuce), fries, beans, veggies. You are asked to order dinner between 5 and 5:30 and to finish up by 6 or 6:30 so the kitchen staff can go home. If you have food restrictions, we would suggest being very sure they can accommodate you before you make your reservation. Their regular dive boat, the Captain Morgan blew an engine and is being repaired. It looks like it will be a while before that project is finished. In the meantime, we were diving from a small skiff. It did have shade and a decent ladder for getting up. Backroll in and you can hand up your gear at the end of the dive if you choose. The boat was crowded with 8 divers but manageable when filled with experienced and well organized divers. There was a small tub for cameras, maybe 2’ in diameter. Fortunately, there were only 2 small point & shoots and a go pro since it was also used for masks, computers, sunglasses, a hat and water cups. There are 2 interconnected rinse tanks at the dock that are used to rinse all gear and cameras. The gear room is nice with places to hang wetsuits and bc’s and shelves for fins, masks and any miscellaneous gear. BC’s and reg’s are brought to the boat every morning by the crew. You are responsible for removing, rinsing and hanging your gear at the end of the day. Rental equipment is available and looked new and in good repair. The dive guide, Davitt has been at the Reef House for 20+ years. He goes very slow and spends most dives hunting for lionfish. They no longer feed the eels but he did feed a toadfish. If he's not bringing the lionfish home to eat, he removes the spines and just leaves the meat to be taken by whatever swims by. The Captain, Cootie, was great. He held tanks to help divers move from their seats to the steps where he put on your fins and you can backroll into the water. He took gear when you were exiting the water. The boat diving is easy. The daily schedule is a 2 tank AM dive (starting at 9am), return for lunch, a 2:20 PM dive. One night dive per week, in lieu of the afternoon dive was advertised. We asked the dive guide, Davitt about night boat dives and his response was that we could do one only if the weather cooperated. Even though we told him to just let us know when, he never brought it up again. Perhaps if we had pushed it, he would have taken us out but we were left with the impression that he didn’t really want to go out at night. There were some divers not interested in a night dive and since they would also have to give up the afternoon dive, perhaps that was part of the issue. In the past, we were able to do night dives off of their front pier. We were told the steps were in disrepair and unsafe so they didn’t encourage it. We also found the waves washing over the dock almost constantly so we opted to skip giving it a try. Unfortunately, the reef is in terrible shape. Our estimate is that about a third of the coral was already dead from algae. At least 2/3rd of what is left is undergoing a severe bleaching event. Davitt thinks the reef will come back by February as the water cools in the winter. There were some dive sites where it was hard to find any coral not affected. There were some others that still had some healthy coral but overall, very little. Fish life continues to diminish. We saw only a couple of small grouper, one eagle ray, one stingray, no turtles, no sharks, Even angelfish were fewer than in previous years. The only fish still seen in abundance were creole fish. One day we did see a group of about a dozen small parrotfish and on another, a school of tang. Even small critters seem to be in short supply. We did see at least 3 seahorses on different dives as well as neck and arrow crabs and reef shrimp. Squid and octopus, formerly abundant, were in short supply. We saw no octopus and only saw 2 small squid on one dive. We’ve posted a short video where you can clearly see the bleaching. [youtu.be link] In summary, this might be ok if you need a cheap trip with really easy dive conditions (think new divers) and understand the limitations of both the resort and the reef. As for us, we won’t be returning to Reef House and probably not to Roatan either. We’re happy to answer any specific questions about the resort or our experience.
Websites	Reef House Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Indonesia, PNG, Solomon Isl, Red Sea, Maldives, South Africa, Mozambique, Cocos Isl, Galapagos, Socorro, Palau, Var Caribbean locations, New Jersey, Florida, No Carolina, Philippines, Fiji
Closest Airport	RTB	Getting There	American Airlines PHL-DFW-RTB
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy, no currents
Water Temp	84-85°F / 29-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	30-80 Ft/ 9-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Stay with dive guide, bottom time about 60 minutes
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	no
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	See comments in review

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Dive Review of Reef House Resort in Honduras/Roatan

Reef House Resort: "Degraded Reef, OK Resort", Dec, 2023,

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 Reef House Resort in
Honduras/Roatan