Dive Review of Luna Beach Resort in
Honduras/Roatan

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Luna Beach Resort, Feb, 2011, by Ron Riesenbach, ON, CA ( 2 reports). Report 5919.
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	Luna Beach Resort is a modest establishment run by an ex-pat American. It is located on a quiet stretch of beach 10-minutes easy beach walk to the bars/craziness of West End and a 5 minute water taxi ride to West Bay. The resort is about 10-years old and family run. Debbie handles reservations from Colorado, while her sister Joan runs the front office with her daughter. The rooms are very clean and well kept. We didn't see one bug or dust bunny in-doors in 7-days. Staff are friendly and caring. We rented out a villa with full kitchen and were happy and comfortable. The rooms have high ceilings and are air conditioned (although we found the ceiling fans adequate all throughout the first week in February). The service is typical Caribbean (friendly, but not fast). The food is basic, tasty and fresh. We ate our breakfasts and lunches there, but usually walked to West End for dinner. The grounds are spotless. There is a tiny fresh water pool, parrot cages, and a modest bar. While I'm not an experience diver, I found the dive shop first rate. It occupies a big chunk of the main building with a ramp down to the boat dock. They provide a concierge service delivering fresh tanks right onto the boat and wheeling the empties back to the shop. The dive area has a locked dressing room with benches for over a dozen divers. Each diver has an overhead racks and hangars for your wet gear. Outside is an open-air shower and a couple of fresh water dunk tanks for rinsing your gear at day's end. Inside is a separate study table with TV/DVD for watching course material. They have a fully-equipped gear rental shop behind the business office. The rental gear was a respectable brand and in reasonable condition. Two of our party took the PADI Advance training and one took the NITROX course. The instructor, Arturo, was patient and professional. He never rushed us and always ensured that we fully understood what was needed. He made sure that we did our theory homework and he followed PADI curriculum closely. I learned a lot and felt very comfortable doing the deep dive and night dives under his supervision. If I were forced to find fault, I would say that he was a little laid back as to when exactly we were to meet to go through the various sections and when the various compulsory dives would be. But it was no big deal as we were there the whole week and we interspersed 'fun' dives with the course compulsory dives. Dozens of excellent dive spots are located just off the Western end of the Island, right across from the resort. The resort's main dive boat is the Queenie. Slow, but stable and wide. Ferman, the captain, piloted the spanking clean boat at a leisurely pace (we were always passed by the hot-shots with dual outboards), but it was no big deal as never had more than a 15-minute boat ride to get anywhere. You could stay in the shade of the canopy or climb up-top for a tan on the roof. Queenie easily accommodates a dozen divers and their are three regularly scheduled dives a day, with one night dive a week. We rarely had more than 8 divers and one time they took out single diver. There was fresh cold water on board to drink. They didn't provide any snacks for us except for the one day when we did a two-tank dive (then we ate copious amounts of pineapple and banana). Two other dive masters joined Arturo (Jose and Allan) and both were professional, knowledgeable and friendly. Safety was always their priority. There was a dive briefing before each dive and they reviewed safety procedures even if they knew that this was the 10th time you were hearing it. Jose moved us along if we were lolly-gagging but never cut a single corner or rushed us. In the 7 days I was diving with them, I never saw a single lapse of judgment or attention where safety was concerned. They have a passion for diving and drew our attention to some of the more interesting and bizarre creatures. They were almost as excited as we were when we spied the a ray, turtle, moray or a drum fish. The coral reef around the island is beautiful. Even in such a small area there is a reasonable amount of diversity in underwater topography with canyons, gardens, walls, sand flats. There are a few wrecks as well. We saw tons of little fish and some decent sized grouper, parrot fish, lobster crab, and schools of blue tangs. The reef is a protected marine park. They are fighting an infestation of lion fish so Jose often brought his spear gun and on a few occasions speared a lion fish, cut it's head off with scissors and fed it to a grouper who was following us for just this treat. On the night dive we spent 10-minutes following a octopus across the coral marveling at it's flexibility. We didn't see any big fish, unfortunately. In all, it was an excellent dive adventure for beginners and I would certainly return there for another vacation.
Websites	Luna Beach Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	0-25 dives
Where else diving	Israel
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm
Water Temp	79-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	75-125 Ft/ 23-38 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Very safety oriented. Divers were asked to follow Dive Master with some modest amount flexibility offered for the more experienced.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	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	Separate dunk tank for cameras. Dry table on boat. Dive Master took the time to explain some finer points of photography. He even brought is personal camera one day to take pictures of our group and to email them to us.

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Dive Review of Luna Beach Resort in Honduras/Roatan

Luna Beach Resort, Feb, 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 Luna Beach Resort in
Honduras/Roatan