My dive and travel experience: 2336 dives since certification in 1999 95 weeks of dive travel out of the US Dive instructor I would love to give the Garden Island Resort a better star rating as it did so much very well, but fell short in many categories. I am going to start with the positives and list them with explanations. 1. The price was super cheap for what we got. It was approximately $1900.00 per person for a 10 night stay with food, transportation to/from airport, room, taxes and seven days of two tank boat dives as well as one night dive. 2. The staff is super friendly and helpful. They really made our stay better than it should have been. 3. The food was above average to very good. It was mostly a Western menu. However, the portions were a bit small if you are a heavy eater. 4. The view from the hotel was super nice. 5. The bed was firm, which is to my liking and the pillows were good. 6. The diving was good with some pretty reefs and lots of fish. For reef and fish life on the Tropical Pacific scale I give it a B rating. However, The other than fish category such as sea snakes, sharks, turtles, rays, eels, nudibranchs, lobster, crabs and other oddities it would rate a D. Unfortunately, here are the cons. 1. Bats! Yes, fruit bats by the thousands in the trees between the rooms and the ocean. First of all they are super noisy and second they leave a mess under the trees. They were at their noisiest from before the sun rose each morning and early evening. Although I started to get use to the noise as time went on it was still uncomfortable hearing them at times. More about the bat poop later. So, my recommendations is get rid of the bats. Hire a professional if you need to. 2. Our room was not very clean and needed painting. The bottom of the toilet looked like it had never been scrubbed in it's lifetime and the bathroom counter was not cleaned when we checked in. There is a large amount of mildew in the shower and there were a few ledges in the bathroom and bedroom that looked like they had never been dusted. Lastly, the first set of towels we were given felt like sand paper. It did get better later in our stay, but the hotel should consider better towels. I suggest you do a periodic major cleaning on each room and have some sort of inspection system. 3. Several times we ordered items at the restaurant only to find out they were out of that item. In other words it was being offered by the restaurant but they were out of stock of the item. 4. The dive boat was a bit difficult to get onto and off at times based upon their docking system and I would never recommend it for those with a disability or the very old. 5. The dive boat had no camera rinse bucket. 6. The dive staff did not always do the best job of explaining stuff. For example it wasn't until the third day of diving that I realized the crew would switch my tanks for me. That was never explained as many other things were not mentioned. 7. The dive staff did not help us to our
Very Good
33 Reviews