Blue Roatan Resort

A Few Streets Back From the Busiest Beach in Honduras

West Bay is the stretch of sand every visitor to Roatan is told about, and by mid morning the cruise tenders have proved the point. Blue Roatan solves that problem by geometry. The hotel sits on Tamarind Drive, a short walk uphill from the water, so its garden, pool and terraces stay quiet while its beach club holds a position on the sand for whenever guests want it. The building is low and white, arranged around planting rather than a car park, and the whole place runs to fewer than a dozen suites. It has taken a Travellers Choice award three years running.

Why It Works

We kept it for the balance it strikes. Most of West Bay is either a large beachfront resort or a rental block with no service behind it. This is neither: a small hotel with a restaurant of its own, a spa, a dive desk and an airport shuttle, at a scale where the staff learn your name within a day. The suites are genuinely suites, with terraces and room to spread out, and the beach club means you get West Bay without paying for a beachfront footprint you would only use in the morning.

Why This Location

West Bay Beach is the reason to be here. The reef comes close enough to the shore that snorkellers swim out from the sand, and the wall drops away just beyond it, which is why the dive boats of the whole island converge on this corner. West End, with its restaurants and bars strung along the water, is a few minutes up the coast road. A golf course lies within a short drive, and Roatan's airport is around twenty minutes away on the other side of the island, with the hotel running a complimentary shuttle.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: Small, white, garden quiet, Caribbean without the crowd

• Rooms: Fewer than a dozen suites, sleeping two to six, each with a private balcony or terrace facing garden, sea or mountain

• Best For: Couples, divers, families needing a suite rather than two rooms

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The beach club on West Bay sand, which gives you the beach on your terms and a garden to disappear into afterwards

• Dining: Azul, the house restaurant, cooking island produce in a fusion register, with a bar

• Amenities: Pool, spa, beach club with loungers and umbrellas, dive and excursion desk, private parking, airport shuttle

• Attractions: West Bay Beach and its reef, the West End strip, Roatan wall dive sites, a golf course within a short drive

Suites, and the Terraces That Come With Them

The rooms are configured as suites rather than hotel bedrooms, in a range of sizes that runs from a king room for two up to a family layout sleeping six with two queen beds and a sofa bed. Every one opens onto its own balcony or terrace, and the aspect is what separates them: tropical garden on one side, the Caribbean on another, the island's green interior behind. Robes and smart televisions are standard, but the detail that matters is space, which is unusual in West Bay where most rooms are sized for a beach nap between boats.

Azul, the Spa and the Water

Azul is the hotel's restaurant and the reason many guests stay in for dinner. It works local produce into a fusion menu rather than reproducing the international list served all along the beach, and it sets the pace of the evening. The spa handles the other half of the day, which on a diving island is more useful than it sounds. Beyond that, the desk arranges what the water allows: scuba, snuba, snorkelling, clear bottomed boats, pontoon trips, kayaks and fishing. Guests who want to dive twice a day can, and guests who want to swim and read are not made to feel idle.

What to Know Before You Book

The hotel is a walk from the beach rather than on it, which is the trade that buys the quiet, and the beach club closes the gap. A shuttle handles the airport transfer. Children are accepted and the larger suites are built for them. Staff work in Spanish and English. West Bay fills over Christmas and Easter and through the North American winter, and a hotel this small sells out first, so book well ahead for those windows.