1-Mile Drift Snorkel vs. Snorkel Hopping Tour?

[michelleandpaul]

We will be booking a snorkel excursion with Roatan Ocean Adventures.  I am looking at both the 1-Mile Drift Snorkel or the Snorkel Hopping tour that visits 3 or 4 locations.  I am leaning more towards the Drift Snorkel, but I was curious to see if anyone else has experience with this & would have any advice or thoughts you could share.  

[Guest 2000]

If you can find out where each excursion occurs, I would better be able to give you my thoughts. 

[michelleandpaul]

Thanks for your response.  The tour operator is located in French Kay, which would be where we are departing from (they are very close to Daniel Johnson’s Monkey/Sloth Hang Out).  The description of the 1-Mile Drift just indicates is along a 1 mile reef.  I could ask for more information regarding where the drift location would be.

 

The description of the multi-location tour indicates the locations would be “The barrier reef, lobster city, the drop off, and underwater Mayan city” (all stops are close together).  I am not all that interested in seeing the Mayan City & not too sure about lobster city, but the drop off sounds very cool.  

[Guest 2000]

I would not pay French Key or anybody associated with them a dime, they have a very bad reputation of destroying the ecosystem, not acquiring the correct permits and flat-out stealing money from people. Daniel Johnson's has a really good reputation so if you're going with him that's a different thing. They are both located on the windward side of the island which means depending on the weather you may be fighting waves that are pushing you into the reef. 

 

I don't know the names of the three places the other tour mentions. If it's on the opposite side of the Island from Daniels place then you're a whole lot less likely to be fighting waves. I truly believe that the best snorkeling is within the Roatan Marine Park which runs Sandy Bay to West Bay. There are many places along the reef where there's a drop-off. One in West Bay that you can get to from the beach no need for a snorkel excursion. 

[michelleandpaul]

Guest 2000, Thank you so much for your input!  This is very helpful.  My husband is not the strongest swimmer, so I don't want to put him in a situation where he is fighting waves.  I will look at some options in the area that you suggested. 

[ABQrobin]

Snorkeling in Roatan is like a swimming pool, very little wave action unless there is a storm.  The only reason they would call it a drift snorkel is the boat is probably not anchored, it follows the group along and picks up anyone who wants to get back onboard.  The current at Roatan is minimal (nothing like Cozumel which is true drift).  

 

 

[Guest 2000]

17 minutes ago, ABQrobin said:

Snorkeling in Roatan is like a swimming pool, very little wave action unless there is a storm.  The only reason they would call it a drift snorkel is the boat is probably not anchored, it follows the group along and picks up anyone who wants to get back onboard.  The current at Roatan is minimal (nothing like Cozumel which is true drift).  

 

 

You are correct one side of the island is bathtub calm.,the other side is much deeper with waves pushing into the reef. 

[beachgirl32931]

Last time we went to Roatan we snorkeled with Roatan Eco Tour  www.roatanecotour.com  This snorkeling was some of the best I've done in the Caribbean.  They picked us up at the port and brought us back.

 

 

[Finnrox]

On 11/28/2018 at 9:08 AM, Guest 2000 said:

I would not pay French Key or anybody associated with them a dime, they have a very bad reputation of destroying the ecosystem, not acquiring the correct permits and flat-out stealing money from people. Daniel Johnson's has a really good reputation so if you're going with him that's a different thing. They are both located on the windward side of the island which means depending on the weather you may be fighting waves that are pushing you into the reef. 

 

I don't know the names of the three places the other tour mentions. If it's on the opposite side of the Island from Daniels place then you're a whole lot less likely to be fighting waves. I truly believe that the best snorkeling is within the Roatan Marine Park which runs Sandy Bay to West Bay. There are many places along the reef where there's a drop-off. One in West Bay that you can get to from the beach no need for a snorkel excursion. 

Roatan Ocean Adventures is not associated with French Key, and they spend a considerable amount of time making sure that they do nothing that damages the eco system.  We went with them in July, and they were absolutely fantastic.

[Finnrox]

On 11/27/2018 at 7:54 PM, michelleandpaul said:

We will be booking a snorkel excursion with Roatan Ocean Adventures.  I am looking at both the 1-Mile Drift Snorkel or the Snorkel Hopping tour that visits 3 or 4 locations.  I am leaning more towards the Drift Snorkel, but I was curious to see if anyone else has experience with this & would have any advice or thoughts you could share.  

We did the 3 location tour in July and it was great.  Herbert and his cousins are very friendly, very focused on the environment, and make sure to tailor the snorkeling to the ability of their customers.  We were blown away by the canyons of coral that we saw, as well as the sealife.  As someone who has extensively snorkeled the Caribbean, they were the best tour we have done, plus they will send you pics after your tour.  Would highly recommend them.

[sunny2runner]

We did a tour with Roatan Ocean Adventures last summer. We were suppose to 2 snorkel stops plus Daniels Monkey and Sloth. We ended up doing only 1 snorkel spot and Daniel's Monkey and Sloth due to time and the tour operator not managing his groups well. We were left waiting to do our snorkel for about 30 minutes-45 minutes and than we did the 1 mile drift snorkel which was awesome. It was very choppy and wave action was strong but my family are strong swimmers/free divers so it didn't bother us at all and we quite enjoyed it. The reef was gorgeous and quite possibly the best/healthiest reef we have ever seen.

It is a drift snorkel because they can not drop anchor in this location.

 

Only bummer was not being able to go our second snorkel location because the tour operator mis-scheduled the tours for the day.