This was our second visit. What can I say? Dive opportunities galore. An amazingly helpful staff--both dive and general resort staff. Excellent meals. Comfortable rooms. David Lee and Captain Mel went above-and-beyond to ensure our safety and assist so much with getting ready. Willy is one of my favorite bartenders on the planet. The kitchen staff and their manager are amazing. Patty in the dive shop is a great instructor. We are likely to be making this an annual trip.

Coco View has a summer camp feel for varied levels of scuba clicks, but does not meet average resort standards. Here's how my wife and I rated it:

1. Dive Operations and freedom to dive day or night are excellent. The layout of gear cubbies, wash area, and dock for easy movement to/from boats are fantastic. DMs and Captains are great as well. They make it as safe as it can be with the freedom of diving when you want. As a licensed diver, ultimately safety is on you and your buddy.

2. Dive Locations, the sites on the mainland facing side, where Coco View is located, are good but not the best diving Roatan offers (we dove both sides of the island). We spoke to a lot of divers and local DMs who agree that it offers micro life and walls where the gulf side offers better expansion of reef, walls, and marine life, like turtles, grouper, and eagle ray.

3. Number of Divers in a dive group was fair to poor for us. We had 21 divers on our assigned boat, one DM, and a safety. Since some in our group were very experienced divers focused on photography, they were around the DM with camera rigs, along with newer divers who wanted to see things. The DM was very familiar with the sites and what to look for. Since most was micro life, by the time the photographers were done we were moving on to stay in sight of the DM. Newer divers didn't have much chance in the frenzy. There were a couple of sites with swim-throughs, requiring 20 divers at varied levels to funnel through. To prevent a fin in the face, my wife and I learned quickly to do our own thing within the furthest reaches of the DM and hovering safety, at a loss of the local DM's keen eye for micro life.

4. Facilities are not what we consider to be resort standard. As a business it has to profit and maintenance of dive equipment and boats is not cheap. IMO they accept risk by offering bare minimum quality accommodation and comforts to provide unlimited diving. No fresh water pool, no spa, uncomfortable beds (mattress toppers on low quality/old mattresses), minimum furnishings in air conditioned rustic rooms (no table and only one wooden chair at a desk top, so difficult for my wife and I to get out of the heat to eat comfortably...will get to that), offered kayaks need work (back supports broken, etc.), cafeteria is not cooled... If you bring someone who does not dive, they may not enjoy it unless they snorkel, paddleboard, or want to read in a hammock. They cannot look forward to an evening of fine dinning or night life between your dive days. A few daytime non-diving excursions are offered at added cost.

5. Food Quality is important to us, we are foodies who expect good food choices with the resort price paid. It rated between poor to fair. They have one dining area with cafeteria style service, offering minimal choices (except made to order eggs for breakfast if you go to that service line). Food service is offered only within the three established meal times. Packaged snacks, water, coffee, tea, and some juices are available at all times. Food ranged from under cooked to overcooked and we got items from the over stuffed cooler that was expired and/or spoiled, such as lumpy creamer and a yogurt that was within expiration date, but black and moldy when opened. We stayed at another resort on the gulf side a week before going to Coco View without any stomach issues. We didn't drink or brush teeth with tap water at either location. However, both of us developed traveler's tummy after three days at Coco View, which we still have three days after returning home. I have traveled a lot, including C. and S. America, with few stomach issues. The cafeteria and bar area is open air (roof with bug screened exterior) and not air conditioned. There are ceiling fans, but air flow is not adequate throughout. People quickly learned the best spots. If we didn't get one we were sweating while eating. Tables weren't always cleaned. Multiple times there were the same food bits seen the day or meal before, which attracted ants on some tables. You cannot access other dining options since Coco View is accessible only by boat from a remote dock on Roatan.

6. Service was good and the staff friendly, to include pickup and drop off service at the airport, with the exception of being crammed to max capacity in a small bus. It got plenty warm. The greatest downside was the in-your-face, guilt-tripping methods for requesting a final tip for staff of 10 to 15% of the cost of each guest's stay, on top of $10 to $15 per tank per servicing DM, captain, and safety (dive crew tipping is a norm for us and most I think). They do not allow individual staff tipping through your stay but provide envelopes with a memo on the recommended 10-15% amount and how they distribute it among all staff members to help offset there nation's low average indiviual income, along with dive crew tipping, medical center donations, and marine park donations. Even with their tipping policy, the Coco View luggage handler requested another tip after dropping the group off at the airport. Our cost to stay at Coco View, without tips, was similar to a Sandals at a Caribbean destination we researced at the same time, that included unlimited diving, but does not allow tipping at all because they state that the employees are well paid. Again, Coco View is a scuba focused business with dive equipment/boat overhead.

In closing, Coco View is not a resort, by average resort standards. It is a good dive camp if you are only focused on getting as many dives in as possible through your stay (day or night), food, and a cool place to sleep. If you desire a true resort style vacation with diving, I would avoid it.

I did a lot of research prior to going. The reviews were mixed, for the most part they were good, as you can read for yourself. Some negative reviews I'd like to address using my recent firsthand experience:
1. Unsafe dive operations - I will debunk this one right now. As a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer that has dived world wide, examples being: UAE, Oman, Maldives, Seychelles, Philippines, and Florida, the dive operations at Coco View were very safe. Based on our boat, our DMs, Gringo and Joe, were top notch. There was an issue with one of our less experienced divers and Joe reacted right away and remedied the situation. Another safety example, the resort requires an orientation dive of their "front yard" for first time customers. The DM also evaluates your dive abilities to include buoyancy.
2. Trash at the dive sites - Again, going to debunk that one. As previously mentioned, I have world wide dive experience and have observed a lot of garbage at some of the most "pristine" locations. I did not see any garbage at the Roatan dive sites. One day there was a couple of items on the surface that I suspect recently blew off another boat.
3. The food was terrible - While not gourmet, it was good, plentiful, and there were choices. My wife has some dietary issues and the staff accommodated to the best of their ability.
4. "The resort is like a live-aboard on land" - Lets put it this way, we used the same dive sites as a local live aboard to include Coco View's "House Reef", that you can grab a tank and shore dive any time you want. A lot of reviewers disagreed with the live aboard on land comment, having been on a live aboard, I can tell you this place is as close as you can get to a live aboard on land.
5. "This is a 'has been' resort that caters to a bunch of old timers" - wrong again, we had a variety of people there, from early teens to senior citizens. There was good music in the evening and a bar that was open until around 9PM. You were allowed to hang out in the common/bar area as late as you wanted to play pool and if you required an after hours drink you could BYOB. Keep in mind the resort is geared toward diving, not partying. If you want a night life, go to the west end.
6. The staff pushed tipping - Yes, it was discussed during the resort orientation and a guideline memo was left in your room a day prior to checkout. Keep in mind the cost to run the resort is high, services many of us take for granted, electricity and indoor plumbing for example, are VERY expensive on the island and face it, we aren't paying a whole lot for two boat trips a day, unlimited shore dives, a well air conditioned room, and three squares a day. This said, not much is left over to pay the great staff, so they rely on tips. In fact there are part time DMs that work for food and housing, the only cash they get is tips.
7. Many did not like the second dive being a "drop off dive" - Meaning, you get dropped off at one of the walls and divers returned to the resort via the shore (one of the reasons for the initial orientation dive). I didn't see an issue with this as the dive sites were good and you were able to spend as mush time as your tank/dive profile/dive buddy allowed. Yeah, you had to hump your tank back to the gear storage area, but we did have a couple of divers with disabilities and they were able to coordinate with the DMs to get assistance with their gear. I saw this as an advantage for the many that didn't necessarily want to participate in the second dive, it averaged about half of those on the boat. The half that didn't want to make the second dive didn't have to wait around for those wanting to make a second dive.

The dive sites were excellent when compared to other places I've been to in the western hemisphere. I was able to attend a Lionfish hunting class conducted from a Marine Park representative (highly recommend the class and if you want to hunt the menace, it is required). A couple of interesting facts to keep in mind, the coral is recovering (nicely I might add) from a major bleaching event a few years ago and a recent disease. The fish population, as most of the Atlantic from Argentina to New Jersey has been reduced from the Lionfish infestation.
All in all we really enjoyed ourselves and like many others we plan on a return visit next year.