Myself and fellow students stayed at this hotel while in honduras. We were with a group there to do a reef ecology course, and to become PADI certified by the professional dive instructors on site. The hotel its self is very simple but with staff that our very accomadating. After a night dive, the owner was the only one awake and on the way to bed, when I asked for a piece of bread to tie me over til morning she made me a whole bowl of soup, definatly not expected, but very appreishated. Even if you don't dive, great people to teach you! And awsome night life in town about a half hour walk to awsome bars. Happy Diving!

My wife, another couple and I stayed at Coral View Resort March 7, 2008. Although we had already paid for 2 nights and ultimately planned on staying for 4 (half payment of total stay required to confirm reservation), we left after only one day to go back to the Mango Inn, where we had been for the past week.

First, the good things about Coral View:
Terrific views off of the “penthouse” balcony
Easy access to water for snorkeling off of the deck. I didn’t get a chance to check-out the snorkeling, because we didn’t stay long enough.

Now the bad things:
Tiny, bare, charmless over-priced rooms. My wife and I sprang for the extra $20/night for the “penthouse”, the “best room” in the resort.
In the bathroom, the showerhead hung limply off the end of the pipe and was so clogged that it barely dribbled water. I removed it to see if there was removable debris blocking the flow, but it was merely wear, being hopelessly clogged through years of use. We ended up taking showers with it completely removed from the pipe. The toilet seat was smaller than the bowl and there were no shelves, drawers or cabinets of any kind. It also smelled strongly of vinegar, maybe for cleaning of mold.

Two double beds with scratchy, thin sheets were what we slept on.

The air conditioner was loud, with gaps between it and the wall stuffed with toilet paper. Although effective in cooling the room, virtually anything would have done the job, given the room size.

The balcony was large, heavily worn, with no hammock, one plastic lounge, a couple of plastic chairs and a crude wooden table. An open railing configuration removed much hope of privacy from the ground below. I had little luck in getting wifi connection from our deck, despite their website claims. To top it off, one of the 3 six-foot tall lamp posts had been snapped off of the railing and was literally lying on the deck with the electrical cord attached and yes, it was still electrically “hot”.

Our travel companions were not as lucky. Their room was smaller than a college dorm. With their four standard-sized suitcases, they literally had to JUMP over their stuff to get on the bed. There were tiny (non-biting, thank God) ants in their bathroom as well as ours. No closet, nor rod to hang clothes on and one tiny cabinet made even partially unpacking their stuff not feasible.

The main deck/bar (the resorts’ main selling point) was a large, grey basic two-storied wooden structure with four wooden chaise lounges. The enclosed sea-water pool (used for dive training) had scum on the surface and smelled like it doesn’t get much opportunity to mix with fresh sea-water.

Besides these specifics, what was just as bad was the overall disrepair and lack of charm of the entire facility. For example, the 2 light fixtures in the room were homemade wooden half-boxes with a toogle switch, socket and a fluorescent bulb screwed in. I guess giving the rooms an actual lamp or two was not in the budget for $70 a night.

Okay, that covers the structural, now lets’ go to the “customer service”. Mango Inn had arranged to taxi my wife and me out to the facility. Our other couple went diving that afternoon, thereby needing Coral View to pick them up at the dive shop which is a 30-35 minute walk from downtown. After more than 45 minutes had passed and no one from the resort had shown up, our friends were forced to walk to the resort in the late afternoon heat after a 3-dive day.

During check-in, my wife requested that the hotel arrange taxi service at 7:30 the next morning to take us all to the dive shop for that day’s diving. At 7:40AM, with the taxi not yet there, we asked the front desk where the taxi was, and were told that “because of the weather, I figured the boat wasn’t going, so I didn’t call the taxi for you”. Despite being breezy and overcast, the dive boat left (without us) as scheduled.

At this point, we’d had enough. We had NO FAITH in them being able to get us down to the ferry to leave later that week at 6:00AM. When we asked if any refund was possible, we were told that we would have to talk to the manager who, of course, wasn’t there. We described the desk clerk to the manager at Mango Inn later that day and were told that she was, in fact, the owner!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m totally understand that I’m in a third-world country here. I do not expect (nor want) the 4-5 star all-inclusive, corporate, sanitized resort. I’ve stayed in a couple of them and trust me-they’re not for me. I’m always the last guy at the table to complain if the steaks not done right, so to speak.

It’s sort of sad, in that the location makes this a potentially wonderful facility. Despite claiming that the resort is only a couple of years old, it appears and feels a lot older. It just seems that the owners want to get your money, but not spend a dime to make the resort someplace they could be proud of. Absolutely no pride in ownership.

In closing, if you do want to spend time here, I would strongly suggest you do 2 things:

1) Get the penthouse, in that you get a bigger (slightly) room than
the postage-stamp sized ones everyone else gets. And you do get the balcony. Just pray for good weather, so at least you can enjoy the view.

2) Rent a scooter or at least a bicycle so you can get around, because taxis don’t like to go out there. Admittedly, we did not try the resort restaurant, but we quickly lost confidence in the resort as a whole and decided not to chance it.

Likes: View from balcony, easy access to water

Dislikes: small, bare, non-functional rooms; long distance from anything and unreliable, indifferent staff.

We are a group of 9 divers who recently spent 12 wonderful days at the Coral View Beach Resort. The rooms were simple, but nice. Always had hot water for the showers. Meals and dives were included in our package. Tonia and C.J. the owners made you feel right at home and took care of all of our needs. Tonia's meals were excellent, omelets or pancakes for breakfast, a nice lunch and fresh fish for dinner.
The front of the resort faces the ocean and has a wonderful deck that has a bar and second story for sunbathing or star gazing. Snorkeling right out in front is great!!
The back of the resort is on a bay. The dive boat is right there along with newer nice dive equipment that was also included in our package, so some of us didn't have to drag ours along from home. Calvin, C.J. and Tonia's son is the boat captain, so it is a real family operation.
The walk to town was about 20 minutes along the ocean, which kept us away from the noise of down town.
This was a very nice place to stay and I would go back in a minute!!!

Coral View is ideal if you are looking for a stay that is away from the bar and music scene on Utila. It's about a 20 minute walk from the town center. Renting a bike or golf cart would be useful if you see yourself wanting to pop into town for dinner or music. For my husband and I, we were happy to while away the time quietly on the dock or in a sea kayak. Coral View's dock extends right out to the coral reef - you just step off the dock onto the reef. Snorkelling gear comes as part of the price of your stay ($50 for a double room); we were able to go snorkelling whenever we wanted. The reef is alive and beautiful even if the weather is overcast (as it was when we stayed). One can swim out over the reef for about 40' at which point it drops down about 20 or 30'; if you can free dive it's a great chance to go over the shelf. Soon enough the reef drops off even deeper. With it's placement on both the ocean on the south side and the lagoon on the north side, there's lots to do for the outdoors person. We kakayed into the mangroves and followed the canal for a while. A tandem sit-on-top sea kayak was $10 for the day. The proprietors, Mrs. Tonia and Mr. C.J. were friendly and helfpul. Ms. Tonia is a great cook; the meals were all individually prepared which meant they took a while. But when was the last time that you had home-made french fries and freshly cut/steamed vegetables? Our red snapper was outstanding and very fresh. Ice and water are all purified. The bar on the dock opens mid-afternoon and the sunsets from the dock are great. Our room was small, but comfortable; absolutely no need for the air conditioning in February. In fact, a light jacket was useful in the evening. No TVs in the room; but hey, if I wanted TV I could stay home, right? Internet on Utila was spotty during our stay due to government problems, but a phone call directly to Coral View confirmed our reservations. If Ms. Tonia asks you to mail a check for the deposit, don't hesitate. It's OK. The family is just that...family.

Our best treat was swimming with dolphins late one afternoon, right off their dive boat. It was a spontaneous thing, and wouldn't be likely to happen often, but after that experience it was hard to imagine that our trip to Honduras could get any better! You'll love the enthusiasm of Ms. Tonia and her daughter, Toniette.