Dive Review of Reef House Resort in
Honduras/Roatan

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Reef House Resort, Jan, 2011, by Samuel B Johnson, NC, US ( Contributor 17 reports with 7 Helpful votes). Report 5900.
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
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was my third and last visit to Reef House. The resort changed hands 4 or 5 years ago. Under the old management it was a low-key, very simple, fun, family-like place, with the attitude of "We'll do whatever we need to do to make it a fun time." Now it is only low-key and very simple. The attitude is that any request is an imposition. Others may find the new owner/manager, Mike, simpatico. I did not. He makes promises when one books that he is ambivalent about fulfilling once one arrives. He is defensive and rigid. He is also petty; on my departure morning when I asked after breakfast for an extra piece of fruit to take on the plane, he at first said that "probably" the kitchen had no more. I have no idea of his personal history, but he feels like retired military. David, the divemaster, who is a local native, continues to be excellent at spotting reef life. He is by far the best divemaster I've ever experienced for finding seahorses. However, one gets the feeling that he has burned out. His dive briefings have become perfunctory, and his jokes are delivered by rote. Most of his time underwater is spent hunting lionfish, which may be worthwhile, but he shows divers much less life than he used to do. The dive boat entry is by back rolls, which is not to everyone's taste. Far worse is that the exit requires one to reach up one's BC and then heave oneself out of the water onto a wooden platform that is let down more or less to water level but which is a difficult exit even in calm seas. At a bare minimum some way must be found to add a ladder exit. The boat also has no head. Packages include 3 dives a day, two tanks in the morning and one in the afternoon. Normally there is a weekly night boat dive, but if Mike rescheduled the night boat dive for one group early in the week, another night boat dive might not happen during the week long visit of another group. The shore dive would be quite acceptable. On one night dive I saw four octopuses among the rubble. But the return from the wall requires navigating a difficult maze of channels and coral heads. Mike insists that it is "easy," but three different experienced divers attempted the shore dive on four different nights in different buddy combinations, and only one buddy team succeeded in finding the dock. Mike refuses even to consider finding some way to mark the return route because it is already "easy." The food is quite good but there are no choices; everyone eats the same menu at each meal. At a minimum they should put out bowls and plates of whatever is being served so that people can give themselves seconds without having to play "Oliver" in the kitchen, begging for more. The bar is serve oneself and record one's drinks on an honor system. The physical resort, located on its own tiny key in the Oak Ridge harbor, is quite pretty and well kept up. Still very simple, but attractive. As for Roatan diving, I have been to Roatan 7 times in the last 18 years, and the state of the reefs and reef life continues to deteriorate. There are no large fish; during a week of diving we saw one large grouper and everyone was excited to see it. The hard corals are not in good shape. My impression is that the small critters are much less in evidence, and even the abundant species are fewer than in the past. I had the unusual experience that most of the conversations with other guests about the diving consisted in comparing notes on other Caribbean places where the diving is better.
Websites	Reef House Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Almost all of my experience is Caribbean, including Curacao, Bonaire, Caymans, Turks and Caicos, and Cozumel.
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy
Water Temp	77-79°F / 25-26°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	30-40 Ft/ 9-12 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	None
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
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
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Reef House Resort in Honduras/Roatan

Reef House Resort, Jan, 2011,

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