bay islands underwater museum

I am a scuba diver, but had a blast checking out the cheeky underwater museum by snorkle. Great excursion for kids as well. The atmosphere on the beach with the "Gilligans Island style" bar is awesome for a photo shoot! Bring your sunscreen, your own water (beverages?!) and your underwater camera!

First, a disclaimer: I have not paid the fee and actually done the Underwater Museum tour. I have often stayed nearby and have snorkeled the "museum" independently several times. I've observed the tour groups but not actually interacted with the staff. I assume a lot of the benefit for visitors is having a good experience with the people who work there.First, the snorkeling. The area is nice enough... some decent scattered coral heads on a nice sandy bottom in fairly shallow water that is usually very clear. It is near a channel and inside the main reef. On tour days, a large raft is towed out to the area and moored. People are taken out to the platform in boats and tours initiate from there.The "museum" - well... that is something of a joke. While it can be fun for a few minutes to swim around coral head seeking things like fake Mayan statues and anchors and "treasure chests" and such, it really is just a few areas of man-made stuff scattered around. It doesn't belong there, so a purist will see this as pollution. Given the immensity of the reef, and the basically benign nature of the stuff that is there - mostly concrete, wood, and metal items... it is no big deal to invade this one small area with large scale bric a brac... but it is hard to generate more than a mild interest at seeing this junk through 10' of clear water.There is really good snorkeling nearby. The reef in Sandy Bay is healthy. The nearby channel often has eagle rays. There is a good variety in the fish community. Unfortunately, visitors to the UM won't see any of those areas because the tour is limited to a contained area around the raft. The website vastly oversells the place. They emphasize the word "adventure" - but this is a truly tame... and a bit schlocky... experience.So consider this a mixed review. If I had a group of non-snorkelers arriving on the island for a few hours - as in a cruise ship group - and some of them were uncertain about attempting snorkeling - I might consider paying for the UM experience. They are likely to get a decent introduction to their equipment an will probably have relatively calm water to paddle in a circle around a large raft.But for people who have even basic water comfort, there is much better easy snorkeling at West Bay. And for those who are reasonably comfortable snorkeling, there are much better independent experiences ranging from shore snorkeling to paid trips by boat to sites with much better coral and much more sea life.

I loved this snorkeling trip when I was there a few years ago. I went back last month and was disappointed in every way. The number of snorkelers in our group had doubled. I was kicked in the face so hard the Snorkel was knocked out of my mouth. I was told to "stay with the group". I replied that I was trying to stay AWAY from the group because there were too many people and it was dangerous to be so close together. Didn't see many fish. The coral appeared to be dead. It was a windy day. Returned to shore. Ate pizza (must buy it) and lied down on 1 of their hammocks. Got back to the ship and noticed I was covered with small red circles. Found out I was bitten by sand fleas. No one else in our party was affected. I have over 100 bites. Weeks later they are still itching. It's unfortunate that a nice attraction has been ruined.

We booked this through Norwegian for a family of four, including our 6 year old. One of the guides, Dennis was wonderful with him and did a great job helping him snorkel and look for shells and star fish. The water is gorgeous! Would definitely recommend.

Excelent choice if ist your first time using a snorkel, the attention and the museum its a great choice for beginnners, even children, recomended for anyone at any age

We had a great time. It was our first time snorkeling and the staff was very helpful and attentive. Tulio let you know upfront that the artifacts are not real they are replicas but they are still very cool. Once we got out to the reef the fish were amazing. After we were done snorkeling we had some pizza that was made outside in a large outdoor oven. And a couple bottles of the local beer. Then we just relaxed on the lawn chairs. Tulio and his staff were awesome. All in all a nice relaxing excursion.

Amazing sea life and fun knowledge. Would do again in a heartbeat. If you only do one thing in Roatan, make sure this is it.

From the tour guide on the shuttle (Tina) and especially the snorkel guides, we found the service to be outstanding. They were not only friendly and knowledgeable but also provided us with good quality snorkeling equipment that was clean and the right size. The snorkeling guide also kept a white life preserver floating near him which made it easy to identify him among the group of snorkelers. He would stop periodically to show us special fish, eels, lobsters, sea cucumbers, etc… and even allowed us to handle a few if we so desired. We went on a nice tour around the floating deck and enjoyed seeing the close-up reefs and sunken items including a boat and a friendly shark statue. This snorkeling excursion far surpassed our previous snorkeling experience in Cozumel, Mexico.

I had a good time indeed. Beautiful water & nice people. There would only be 2 things I'd change. 1 being the life jackets. It would help if they had the strap underneath to prevent it slipping over people's head while swimming. 2nd being alcohol options. If there had been larger variety they would make more money. Overall though, I had fun.

My self and some friend took the underwater museum Tour with Lauren Moterroso, it very interesting love it very much we did see allot of fish, and coral. We go information about the Island and the pointed out stuff to us before we got to the spot where we had to get in to the water, The staff is very informative and knowledgeable.Great excursion!!!

Great excursion!! Everyone was so helpful and friendly and they made you feel right at home.The water was beautiful. It was so nice that after our time in the water we were still able to relax on their private beach. They also had the cutest little dog roaming around.

We decided to check out the unseated museum today. We were the only 2 people once we arrived and we were welcomed immediately. The staff were very friendly and informative before we even hit the water. Once we were in the water the guides were constantly searching and pointing out interesting marine life. We saw an octopus, lip fish, parrotfish, spinder shrimp...just to name a few. They have also done a great job of the underwater statues and exhibits. Although they were technically closed to prep for the busy tourist season we were treated with excellent customer service and given a very thorough tour and snorkel. We would highly recommend them!

I can here during a cruise and rway didn't know what to expect. I did read the brochure and I knew is was fake artifacts hit still wanted to try of out. Had a great time, the ppl there made it great. The water was perfect and cleared when my wife and I were there. I liked how they had an outdoor oven to make pizza and it was good. Very relaxing. Wish I had more time to enjoy.

We really did not know what to expect. We were on a cruise and this was offered as an excursion. You are taken out by boat to a large raft where give you a safety breifing,very hot on safety, then you start snorkling in a large circle seeing all the artifacts,I must cocurre with Elisa L alot of the items were dropped as last reort we still found it very interesting, but like all cruise ship excursions overpriced but you know you will be "ripped off" on any cruise ship. Make sure you put plenty of blockout on I did not, and suffered!!!

This trip was one of the best of our week long vacation. The three guides were amazing. We saw large schools of fish, a lobster and many other species and the guides were so informative. I am an amputee an the whole team was very good at getting me on and off the dive platform. This is an A+++ trip