CoCo View Resort Roatán, the dive-only resort on the south shore

CoCo View is not a beach resort where you can dive. It is a dive operation with rooms, sitting on a cay off Roatán’s south shore, and it makes no secret of it.

Three things sum it up, all of them verifiable on the resort’s own rates page: your certification card is checked at the counter when you arrive, you get there by boat from a landing, and the resort takes no cruise ship and no day guests.

Founded in 1982, and it shows in both directions

CoCo View was founded in 1982 by Bill and Evelyn Evans. Forty-plus years on, that makes it one of the oldest dive operations still running on Roatán, from a time when the island counted its visitors in handfuls and had no direct flights at all.

That history produces a number I have not seen anywhere else in the Caribbean: more than 1,600 guests have come back five times or more. They even have a house name, the “CocoNuts”. In one review, a traveler mentions meeting a guest on their twenty-sixth visit.

It also produces the other side, which is worth saying plainly: the rooms are the weak link. On TripAdvisor the “Rooms” sub-score sits at 4.2 while service is 4.7 and location is 4.7. It is the only criterion under 4.5 (checked 17 September 2026). Several travelers use the words “rustic” and “dated”. That is not a hidden flaw, it is the trade the place makes: the money goes in the water, not in the decor.

The Front Yard, and why regulars miss the boat on purpose

The reef starts at the end of the dock. The resort calls that stretch the Front Yard, and it holds enough to fill a week on its own: the CoCo View wall, Newman’s wall, and the wreck of the Prince Albert, all a swim away from the Clubhouse.

• Unlimited shore diving, 24 hours a day, off a 150-bottle tank rack.
• Night diving from shore, with no scheduled trip, whenever you feel like it.
• Two boat trips daily, up to four tanks a day counting the return drop.

That last point deserves a word, because it is what makes the place unusual. The second dive of each trip is a drop-off: the boat leaves you over the house reef and you swim back to the resort. You never get back on board. A diver describes exactly that in his review, and it is also why some regulars say they miss the boat on purpose.

An underwater photography course with Mickey Charteris

Since 2021 the resort’s Photo Video Center has housed Caribbean Reef Photography, and the courses there are taught by Mickey Charteris.

He is not a visiting instructor. Charteris lives on Roatán, has led thousands of dives on this reef, and wrote “Caribbean Reef Life”, a 480-page field guide covering more than 1,800 Caribbean species. He is the kind of person whose book divers already own before they find out he teaches.

Four formats, shortest to most serious:

⚠️ These courses are booked through Caribbean Reef Photography, not through me. I mention them because they exist and nobody writes about them in French, not because I earn anything.

What the package covers, and what it does not

Packages run seven nights, per person, double occupancy.

Included (checked 17 September 2026): the room, a welcome cocktail, three meals a day served buffet style, airport transfers on stays of five nights or more, unlimited shore diving day and night, two boat trips daily, tanks, belts and weights, kayaks and internet.

Not included, and this is the part people skim:

• 🔴 The 19% tax, stated as being on top of the package, in black and white on their rates page.
• Alcohol beyond the arrival cocktail.
• Rental gear, which must be reserved in advance.
• Spa, tours and day trips.
• 🔴 Tipping. Three unrelated travelers describe the same thing: an expected tip in the order of 10 to 15% of the total bill, boat crew on top. No official figure appears on the resort’s site, but three independent accounts is no longer an anecdote. Budget it above the tax.

A package with three meals a day and unlimited diving looks all-inclusive, and for a diver it actually covers more. But the two words are not interchangeable, and 19% tax plus a 10 to 15% tip on a four-figure amount is not a rounding error. If a genuine all-inclusive is what you are after, look at Roatán’s all-inclusive resorts instead.

Getting there

You are met at RTB airport, a private bus takes you to the landing, and a boat runs you out to the cay. You cannot drive to CoCo View. That is the most concrete fact on this page, and it is also why nobody wanders in.

The resort sits on the south shore, on the island’s windward side, which gives it a nearly constant breeze. The reefs there sit in shallow water.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

This is the section most pages about CoCo View skip. It comes from reading the ten negative reviews on TripAdvisor, the ones under three stars, which are 1.4% of the 732 on file.

It is worth it if you are a certified diver, you want to dive three or four times a day without negotiating anything, and how nice the room is matters less to you than what is at the end of the dock.

It is not worth it if:

• You do not dive. One review is literally titled “For divers only”, another “If you don’t dive don’t come”. The non-diver package drops by only $100 USD, and there is nothing else to do on the cay.
• You want a pool or a beach. There is neither. You get in the water off the dock.
• You want a modern room. “Rooms” sits at 4.2, and several reviews say “rustic” and “dated”.
• You are coming in the rainy season. A November 2023 review describes visibility wrecked by rain and runoff, several days running.
• Bites ruin a trip for you. No-see-ums, the biting sandflies, come up often enough in reviews that TripAdvisor made them a tag on the listing. The south shore breeze helps, but it does not settle the matter.

⚖️ One honest caveat about those negative reviews: they are old. Five of the nine I read date from 2017 or earlier, two go back to 2005 and 2008. The two recent ones are about a bartender and about the place feeling dated. None of them faults the diving itself, except two, on visibility.

What travelers say

On TripAdvisor, CoCo View shows 4.7 out of 5 across 732 reviews, ranked 2nd of the 4 hotels in French Harbour (checked 17 September 2026). On Google it is 4.6 across 388 reviews, two platforms, two counts, do not add them together.

The TripAdvisor breakdown: 542 “Excellent”, 145 “Good”, 35 “Average”, 8 “Poor”, 2 “Terrible”.

The owner answers reviews by name, with specifics. In one case where a guest complained the bar refused to serve his 17-year-old son, the reply points out that the legal drinking age in Honduras is 18. That is the kind of detail worth knowing before arriving with a teenager.

Booking, and what I can actually do for you

I do not sell CoCo View, and I would rather not pretend otherwise. The resort is booked only through its own direct reservation office. I have no channel on it and I would earn nothing on your stay. So the link goes to them: cocoviewresort.com.

What I can do is the rest of your week on Roatán. If you take a day off the tanks, I run excursions in English, French or Spanish, and I know the island from somewhere other than a dock. Have a look at my tours, the weekly calendar, or the hotels I can actually book if CoCo View turns out not to be for you.

And if you just want to see what the water looks like before deciding, the island webcams give a fair idea.