Bananarama Diving Resort

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  • West Bay Beach
    Roatan, Honduras
    (504) 445-5005Website
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ext212
ext212
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
2
Reviews
4
Photos
Editor Pick

Bananarama Dive Resort

  • October 25, 2007
  • Rated 5 of 5 by Travelingwith2 from Paradise, California
Bananarama was an incredible place. If you are looking for concrete condo's, huge swimming pools and mints on your pillow this is not the place. If you are looking for a botique style hotel this is the place. My wife and I found the accommodations and the layout to be the caribbean resort to be just what we were looking for. We enjoyed the free breakfasts (which were great, but you only get one meal choice per day), free kayaks, use of the beach chairs, daily maid service and hospitality from the staff and the owners.

The resort was a family run organization and although we did not dive, several of our now friends who were their did and said the dive shop was the best they have ever seen. We snorkeled and found that the resorts location in the middle of the beach with just a short swim out was much better from the resort than from the local snorkel trip we went on. The resort is located in the middle of the marine park which means taking anything or damaging the sealife is frowned upon heavily.

The beach is absolutely incredible. Try to pick a day when the cruiseship will not be coming in though. The owners are pretty upfront about how busy the beach gets during a cruiseship and we were very appreciative to have planned the park when the beach was so packed.

The rooms were clean and comfortable, but not upscale in anyway. They had the basics including A/C, coffee pot, microwave, purified water and a little fridge.

The office helped us book several amazing activities which we found to be convient and reliable.

Gumbalimba park and the canopy are a must. Don't go in the afternoon though because it gets really hot and the birds go back in to their cages in the early afternoon. We made this mistake and felt the trip although amazing would have been much better in the early morning hours before the sun is overhead.

We also visited the dolphins and had our pictures taken with them. The resort charged $45 per person. Totally worth it. We also were able to go into the museum for free while we waited to see the dolphins.

Overall I would reccommend this resort to anyone. If you are looking for luxury though their is other places on the beach which I personally found to be way over priced for what we needed.



From journal The real Roatan

Editor Pick

Bananarama Diving Resort

  • June 13, 2006
  • Rated 4 of 5 by ext212 from New York, New York
Bananarama Diving Resort

Bananarama is the perfect refuge from the condos being built along West Bay. They have private cabins and suites with either A/C or fans, TV (with whatever channels Roatan can get), a fridge, and a microwave. You can call home or access your email from their main office. Trees and tropical fauna surround the resort so you really feel like you’re in a secluded area when you’re at Bananarama. The beach is a few steps away, and West End is accessible by taxi from the dock off the cabins.

Bananarama is really a dive shop. They have a fully-equipped dive center with qualified instructors and dive masters. Their dive boat is right off the beachfront, so carrying your tanks and equipment wouldn’t be too much of a pain. If you’re not a diver, you can also sign up for snorkeling, although when we did we were told the next morning that their dive boat is full and we just have to find another boat to go snorkeling. It was only a small inconvenience because it was easy enough to rent some gear from one of the Hondurans on the beach for $5 per day and hire one of the water taxi guys to take us far enough in the water to snorkel (but I’m still convinced we got ripped off for paying $50 to go to the “Blue Channel” which is really just half a mile off the beach). We borrowed their mountain bikes one day but we didn’t last too long because West Bay is a very hilly neighborhood. We also tried to kayak one afternoon but the kayaks were too heavy for us to lift all the way to the beach. I think staying at Bananarama just forced us to go into our vacation-lazy mode.

We stayed in Suite #5, a suite with a queen-sized bed and a futon in the living room. Every morning, we would wake up at 7am because the staff would start carrying the tanks from the storage room out to the front to get ready for the day’s dive. We would wake up to the sound of tanks clinking and being dragged around. In the afternoon, our nap would be disturbed by the tanks being returned to storage. If you can avoid Suite #5, I think you’ll have a better chance of sleeping in.

The rooms and suites range from $54 per night single occupancy in the small cabin to $94 per night for a quad occupancy in the king-sized bed suite. Prices are reasonable until you get tacked on 16% Honduran tax plus the 5% international payment service fee when you send your deposit. Breakfast comes with it from 8am to 9am in the common area but you’re better off walking along the beach or going to West End if you want a more substantial—and tastier—breakfast. The diving courses are still the least expensive I’ve seen in all of my travels so far: $100 intro dive without a certification to $700 to be a dive master.

From journal Would the Real Honduras Please Stand Up?

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