We spent a week at the Mayan Princess. When booking the reservation, I asked for a specific 2nd floor beachfront room that we really thought would be the best location (#203). When we arrived they let us check in early and in the right room--we were very happy with our choice and that they got the room right (thank you, Victoria!).

The service is hard to rate. It's not that it was bad or that there was a lack of effort. They just don't seemed to be trained at a level that you might expect at a resort that looks this nice. You can tell that all the staff want to be at your service but, they just don't have the context for knowing what that looks like--not uncommon for emerging tourist desitinations.

The restaurant was okay. The breakfasts were perfect for loading up for diving or keeping it light for a day at the beach. The rest of the menu was pretty pricey so we didn't eat there much. The Mayan burger is huge. Despite a warning from our waiter, I decided to order one for myself and could barely finish half of it.

The room was quite nice and we were very happy with it. The shower drain was clogged and showers resulted in a swamp that slowly drained throughout the day. It was this that let us know our shower was never cleaned as the "swamp" was always there but the cleaning staff never did anything about it. We don't complain about stuff unless its a big issue so we never said anything. An average staff person should have been able to notice the problem and take care of it. They didn't and they lost out on a tip.

The beach is amazing. There's not much shade in the afternoon (true for most of the West Bay Beach) during the late afternoon, but the pool makes a nice retreat with plenty of shady areas. They do a nice job of segregating the cruise ship visitors so that guests are assured "prime real estate" on the beach. I don't usually care about beach resorts pools but this one was unique and very inviting. I wish the water was a little cooler, but still an amazing pool layout.

The grounds were immaculate. The landscaping and walkways were top notch.

The dive shop is not technically a resort function but is located inside the resort. You will find that the going rate for dives, rental, instruction, etc. is about the same along the beach. We used a different dive shop last year and almost defaulted back to them, but decided to see what Mayan Divers had to offer. Great service, equipment, instruction, guiding, and overall experience. Even if we selected a different resort next time, we would select Mayan Divers again.

Nightlife was non-existent at the resort. Despite the nice bar and seating area, the place was a ghost town at night. Our theory was the horrible playlist. It was random rock, country, pop, classical, wierd, and repetitive--all day and evening. It was like they were desparately trying to be "the party bar" and wouldn't give it up. We would have hung out there at night if they would have had a different or low-key tone, but they seemed determined with their style.

The earthquake.

This is why my review is a 3 instead of a 4. Not because of the earthquake but because of the way it was handled by the resort. We are not typically panicky people so we went back to bed after the shake-up. Not that is wasn't exciting...we just figured it was part of "island life". What we didn't know was that the staff was appearently "freaking out" and that most of the residents were meeting in the back of the resort and shuttling up to higher ground. Had we known this, we may still have gone back to bed, but it would have been nice to know that the locals were so concerned. Calling all the guests to inform them of there options would have been a good start. Additionally, my familiy was concerned so they had the embassy leave a message marked "urgent" with the front desk for me to call them. I got the message 2 days later when I happened to stop in to arrange transportation for our departure. The message was handed to me on a small piece of paper marked "urgent" and had our room number on it. Why wasn't it delivered to us sooner? Don't know.

Would we go back to the Mayan Princess? Don't know. This is the first time we have vacationed in the same area twice--which speaks nicely of Roatan. Mayan Princess was a very nicely appointed place to stay but sometimes that gets in the way of enjoying other things. There are lots of nice places to stay on Roatan and exploring other areas might trump returning, but we certainly enjoyed our stay at this resort and have no regrets.