Tom R.
Google
I normally don’t leave reviews. My mother taught me if I can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. The only time I usually leave reviews is if the service or experience was exceptionally good. But I think there are a couple things about Lions Dive resort that need to be said so that other people don’t go through the same thing we did.
1. it is a very popular and loud resort. They have music in their own bar twice or three times a week, which can be heard for blocks, and just down the beach there is a gigantic stage with a DJ playing hip-hop that happens on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It makes the walls of several suites vibrate. If you don’t want to sleep through this, do not reserve room 512.
2. We had a disappointing experience with the dive shop that is co-located in the hotel. The hotel is not responsible for the dive shop, but I figured if you’re reading this, you might be diving, so fair warning, it is a cattle call. The boats take 15 to 20 people at a time. If you plan on diving with them, make reservations well ahead of time because if you wait until you get there, they won’t have room. I’m actually glad we did not dive with them, because we had a fantastic experience with a local company called Unique Diving run by a woman named Dushca and her husband Charlie, and they were awesome. We opted for three days of shore entries, and one boat dive, because the water was pretty rough. In hindsight, we were very glad we weren’t on a crowded boat rolling around while people tried to get their gear on and threw up.
3. Bugs- not really a problem because they fog the island with insecticidal smoke once a week. We were not aware of that, until the smoke truck set off the fire alarm at the resort and we were awakened just before dawn to the screaming of the fire alarm while smoke blew outside the windows. Needless to say, that got the adrenaline up until we realized that the smoke was coming from the bug spray truck. I have no idea what they were spraying and how bad it is for humans, but we breathed a lot of it. The official line was that someone forgot to turn off the hotel smoke alarm because they were sleepy.
4. Hotel amenities and staff. It is a nice hotel, and the locals that work there are extremely pleasant, hard-working, and provide excellent service. However, we ran into more than one 18 year old northern European who was there to party and get away from home who didn’t care about providing any kind of service. I have never seen a wait staff so adept at the skill of ignoring customers. I could triple their drink sales with a couple of competent bartenders.
5. Reefs. Sadly, many of the reefs are dead. There is an active and robust effort to propagate coral and re-colonize the reef, but it is too little too late for the current reef. Dushca and the dive masters at Unique Diving were well aware of this and took us to the spots that were not dead yet.
6. One last thing. I know this is a bit nitpicky, , and I don’t want to sound like the guy that complains about everything, but the bathrooms in our suites all had motion detectors that turned on the lights. That meant if you got up at 3 AM to go pee, wham! Blinded by the light. Everybody wakes up! To add insult to injury if you shut the door, the light would go off and then you would be sitting on the pot in complete darkness. Lyon’s Dive, are you listening? Install a freaking light switch! We used our first aid kit to tape over the offending motion detector, which solve the problem. But geez.
Overall, we had a great time, we’re glad we went, but we probably won’t go back to Lion’s Dive resort.
