Dive Review of Utila Lodge in
Honduras/Utila

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Utila Lodge: "Utila Lodge a great place for Caribbean Diving", Aug, 2015, by Mae L. Ding, CA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 9 reports with 10 Helpful votes). Report 8430 has 3 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	Great hotel built over the water. Caters to divers with excellent service and their own dive operation. Clean large rooms with good AC and porch or deck. Room furnishings are simple but in good condition. All but one have water views. Good home style food. Free wifi with decent signal in most rooms and public areas. Located in town and easy walking distance to bars, restaurants, and mini grocery stores. Reasonable prices. Fly into San Pedro Sula or Roatan. Then local puddle jumper CM Airlines or charter to Utila. San Pedro Sula Airport is air conditioned throughout. No luggage carts. Has a few small fast food restaurants and small bar. Has nice Club Lounge in waiting area open to the public which for $10 provides meal and an alcaholic or nonalcaholic drink, free wifi, lounge chairs. Had Drageon sushi roll which was pretty good with coffee and chocolate ice cream. Food Service is very slow. Recommend that you have at least an hour if you want to take advantage of meal. Several ATM’s at airport, but no bank. Rooms: Only 8 rooms. All built over the water. Best rooms are close to dining room on 2nd floor. Positives: Every room has comfortable queen bed plus twin with one small night stand and screened in deck overlooking water.Very clean. Nice long bench for suitcases, and lots of shelf space to hold other items. Bathrooms large with double sinks, shower, well lit, newish fixtures. Plenty of hot water and good water pressure. Lots of U.S. style 3 prong electrical outlets. Good strong hi speed wifi in most rooms. Avoid room H and F which have poor wifi signal and are set too far back to have views of water as good as others. Air conditioner quiet and works well. 2 overhead fans. Small 19 inch tv has plenty of english language channels. Large screened porch or balcony has overhead fan, pegs for hanging wet stuff, 2 good quality patio chairs and table. Negatives: Room E we stayed in had a safe which was a small portable lock box – not the best. Moved to room H, 2nd floor room which had a metal lock box attached to a shelf which was better. No shampoo or hair dryer provided. Small closet about 1.5 feet wide. No dresser. First floor to be avoided if possible because you can really hear the footsteps above you. Cannot drink water out of the tap. Front door on our unit E did not open or close very well. Some people in our party complained about noise from nearby bars late into the night. Public areas: Nice large screened in open air dining room with overhead fans and free wifi service. Dining room and bar have expansive views of the water. Even with high outdoor temperatures, dining room was almost always comfortable due to constant ocean breezes. Small gift shop. Pool table. Bar prices are very reasonable. $1.25 for soda, $1.75 for beer, $4 for blended drink. No beach or pool, but has a large dock with chairs but no shade. Made a pleasant and peaceful place to sit in the evenings and look at the stars. Meals: Home style meals served buffet style with one selection for entrée were mostly pretty good. Will serve alternate entrée for individuals if you have ane allergy to food or don’t certain foods such as fish etc. Coffee is mediocre served with milk, not half and half. Sweet and Low, not Splenda. If you are picky about coffee, recommend bringing your own coffee maker. Breakfast: always includes eggs or omlettes to order, make your own toast, mixed fresh cut fruits, coffee, tea, muffin or sweet bread. Also would serve one of the following: pancakes, french toast, or waffles. Also would serve either bacon or sausage. Orange drink served not real OJ. Lunch: always includes fresh mixed cut fruit, soup, one entrée, pasta salad or other salad, home made cookies. Iced tea or water. Soft drinks available from the bar at extra charge. Entrees included beef burgers and very good fries, fish burgers, spaghetti with meat sauce, pita pocket sandwiches with tasty fried breadfruit (tastes somewhere between french fries and fried plantains), and chicken fajitas burritos. Dinner: always includes iceberg lettuce and tomato salad with Wishbone italian dressing, home baked dinner rolls or rustic toast. Iced tea and coffee. Fresh vegetables every night usually were overcooked. Desserts were all homemade and usually very good. Menu for the week was as follows: 1. Tasty grilled chicken and mixed vegetables with twice baked potatoes and orange cake with chocolate frosting. 2. Fresh baked fish filets with tartar sauce, tasty cabbage tomato onion slaw, boiled broccoli, chinese rice, delicous dark chocolate cake. 3. Fettucine Alfredo with beef tips in gravy (on par with frozen dinner), boiled carotts and cayote squash, mediocre banana cream pie. This meal was the low point of the week. 4. Braised Chicken with BarBQ sauce, watery instant mash potatoes with chicken gravy, tasty bread pudding with caramel sauce and whipped topping. 5. Tender braised Pork chops with BarBQ sauce, baked beans, vegetable kabobs, delicious carrot cake. 6. Fish filets in spanish sauce. This time the fish was fishy tasting and dry, but the sauce was good. Wished I had ordered fried chickent with french fries that some of the others ordered. Service: Peter the Manager, Queenie – Asst. Manager. Excellent service. Provided coffee filters for the coffeemaker we brought with us. Changed our room on our request for 2nd story when room became available. Fixed squeaky ceiling fan right away when we requested. Hotel picks you up at airport and drops you off at end of trip. Airport is only about 5 minutes away. Hotel will change money at a very good near bank rate which was 21 Lempiras to the dollar when we were there. Free bottle of wine in the room. Diving Boat dock is very short walk from rooms and dining room. We dove on the Sea Sprite, a large boat with shaded benches and toilet, good ladder. Package includes 3 dives/day plus 2 night dives. Many of the dives are a 15-20 minute boat ride away. Most of the better dives are on the North end and West end which are an hour boat ride. Nitrox is $150 for week or $10/tank. Big air fills averaged 3300 pounds and sometimes more. Willie was a great dive master who can find lots of small stuff. He is very accommodating to photographers in the group going at a very leisurely pace. Albert the captain was helpful with getting in and out of water. Water and fresh fruit provided on the boat. Bring towels from hotels which are available at front desk. You set up your equipment first day, and then they will set up tanks rest of the time. They rinse your BC and regulator. You take care of the rest of your own equipment. Camera bucket and mask bucket provided. Camera table is provided. On shore, storage in equipment and wet suit drying room with a limited number of hanges, lots of hooks, long shelves open during the day and locked at night. You had freedom to dive your computer. Dives of 1 hour or more were common for our group. Water temps in August averaged about 82 degrees and air temps of 88-91 degrees. I dove without a wet suit the entires time and was never cold. Most sites featured beautiful and lush coral, sea fans, and sponges, schools of jacks, schools of creole wrass, schools of snappers, Green Turtles, Eagle Rays, Southern Sting Rays, lobsters, banded shrimp, squid schools, trumpet fish, lots of stoplight parrot fish, a few large porcupine fish, a few scrawled file fish, lots of chromis and damsel fish, a few permit. Other dives featured several friendly nurse sharks and grouper. Very few fish larger than 12 inches. Over the course of the week we saw a few giant baracuda and a few large snappers and large groupers. Some sites have very few fish, but very interesting small stuff: sea horse, pipe fish, wire coral shrimp, flamingo tongue, slender file fish, unusual blennys, Burr Fish,splendid toad fish, upside down jelly fish. Night dive at Moon Hole was over a large sandy bottom where we saw 2 large lobsters, a mushroom scorpionfish, small octopus. 2 conch - a mediocre dive at best. Water had a big surge and it was difficult getting back on the boat.
Websites	Utila Lodge
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	Fiji, Cozumel, La Paz, Hawaii, Palau, Little Caymen
Closest Airport	Utila Airport	Getting There	LAX to Houston, then San Pedro Sula or Roatan. Then fly on to Utila. Over 12 hours travel time from Los Angeles including layovers.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	82-86°F / 28-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	50-60 Ft/ 15-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Recommended max depth.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Beautiful and lush corals, sponges, and sea fans. Saw several sea horses, unusual small stuff, large schools of fish, lots of sharks and turtles. Used the GoPro with red filter and everything looked great. Boat has camera tank.

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Utila Lodge in Honduras/Utila

Utila Lodge: "Utila Lodge a great place for Caribbean Diving", Aug, 2015,

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 Utila Lodge in
Honduras/Utila