Trip Report - Roatan Honduras

Roatan Trip Report - TLDR: PITA flight issues, awesome time on the island, will return.

We made our first trip to Roatan a few weeks ago and I'm just now finding time to write up a review.
This was a last-minute getaway booked less than seven days before we left. Normally when we decide to sneak away on short notice, we head to Isle Mujeres, but we wanted to try somewhere different this time.
As you'd expect, airfare wasn't cheap with such short notice. The plan was simple: San Antonio to Houston to Roatan. Leave San Antonio at 7:00 a.m. Thursday and be on the island by noon.
Then Wednesday night around 9:00 p.m., I got a text from United saying our crew had exceeded their allowable duty time and our flight to Houston would be delayed an hour and a half, causing us to miss our connection to Roatan.
I called United, and after checking every option, they told me the only other flight to Roatan was out of Miami and it was full. The next available flight wasn't until Saturday.
Our only real option was to drive the 3+ hours to Houston and catch the international flight there. So that's exactly what we did. We left the house at 3:30 Thursday morning hoping to beat traffic and avoid any major wrecks on I-10. Everything went smoothly, we made it to IAH by 6:30 (I may have exceeded the speed limit a time or two... ??), caught our flight, got a little nap in, landed in Roatan, picked up the rental car, and officially switched over to island time.
Puerta Azul Boutique Hotel
I found a one-bedroom villa at Puerta Azul Boutique Hotel in Sandy Bay, a few miles east of West End. I'll admit, the drive down to the property had me questioning my decision, but once we arrived, it was absolutely perfect.
We were greeted with a cold drink at check-in, the property sits right on the beach, and there's a long private pier for guests to use. They also provide snorkeling gear, fins, paddleboards, kayaks, and pretty much everything you'd need to enjoy the water.
The owner is a lady who moved there from Colorado about 15 years ago, while her French husband runs the boats. They offer fishing, snorkeling, and dive trips directly from the property.
I don't really think of it as a hotel. It's more like a small boutique resort with only nine individual cabins four beachfront and five tucked back in the gardens.
They have a small restaurant on-site where we had dinner the first night after swimming off the pier while watching the sunset. I had fresh red snapper with local sides, and it was excellent. They source around 90% of their ingredients from the island, so everything was incredibly fresh.
Breakfast was included every morning, cooked to order, and the coffee was strong enough to wake the dead.
After our very long day getting there, we didn't make it much past dinner before calling it a night.
Friday – West Bay & West End
Friday we headed west to check out West Bay and West End.
Being the off-season and with no cruise ships in port, the crowds were surprisingly light. We wandered around most of the day before stopping at Sundowners Beach Bar in West End for a late lunch/early dinner. Great local food, and honestly, we never had a bad meal anywhere on the island.
We wrapped up the evening back at the hotel with a couple of cocktails at the bar.
Saturday – Snorkeling at Pigeon Cay
Saturday was probably the highlight of the trip.
We booked a private snorkeling excursion through the hotel to Pigeon Cay on the far eastern end of the island. The boat ride was about an hour, staying inside the reef most of the way. Near the end, we actually cut across the island through a narrow mangrove-lined channel connecting the north and south sides. Very cool experience.
Pigeon Cay has resident nurse sharks and stingrays you can swim alongside; plus beautiful coral reefs loaded with fish.
On the way back, we stopped at three additional snorkeling spots. One was called Starfish Alley, where hundreds of giant starfish—many the size of dinner plates—covered the sandy bottom.
For lunch we pulled onto a beach that isn't accessible by road, meaning we literally had the entire place to ourselves.
The trip lasted over six hours and was worth every penny.
That evening we had one mission find authentic pupusas.
We ended up at a tiny local kitchen in West End where they were making them fresh. They were incredible, especially with a couple of ice-cold Imperials.
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