Going back to work the day after a 10 day trip is rough, so I'll take a break and do a quick summary of our trip!
This is our 3rd trip to Coz, but our first visit since 2008.
HOTEL
Very nice changes at Blue Angel. Eva was there and is really making some nice changes. Including breakfast is a great addition. There seems to be more staff on-site, and every one of them seems to genuinely take pride in making you comfortable. Eva found out it was our anniversary and insisted that her chef prepare a special meal for us. Claudia and Eva and the restaurant staff went beyond expectations and really made it a special night!
The hotel is clean, convenient, and we value the combination of friendly staff, great location, with on-site pool, shore diving, restaurant, and dive shop. Most guests that we talked to are return customers. That's telling.
DIVING
We found the marine life to be more abundant than we remember. Plenty of nurse sharks and MANY turtles. Currents were a bit strange (different direction, and swirling at the wall), but visibility was great and each dive was memorable.
We did see an interesting situation: about 8 grouper were hanging out at this coral head and taking turns poking their heads at this moray eel. We later read that they do this to get the eel to go out and flush out some fish out of holes and the grouper will then eat the fish. We saw very few lion fish. Many lobsters.
We also did one dive with Aldora and dove Barracuda Reef. My wife and I have 140 dives each, and found Barracuda challenging and a bit stressful. Aldora is very well organized and did a 30 minute pre-dive meeting. Still... diving with 120 steel tanks (heavy) at a new site with a lot of current and fairly deep added up to a challenge. Great reef, but a bit over our heads. Thankfully, we didn't end up in Cuba after that dive.
DIVE MASTERS / BOAT CAPTAINS
The Blue Angel DMs were all professional, helpful, and good dive leaders. We dove with Mateo, Tony, and JP. We appreciate how the boat captains also keep an eye on details: not only finding us in a busy dive site, but also setting up gear, and noticing if we forgot anything. The boats are clean and fast. Marcos in the shop was also very helpful with questions, using the kayaks, and scheduling. The motto seems to always be: "no problem, we can do that."
RESTAURANTS
I came to the conclusion that we could make a restaurant tour of Cozumel alone, and not even dive! We hit all the SB favorites.
- Blue Angel - nice breakfasts, very good margaritas, and a superb dinner! It holds it's own as a stand alone restaurant that happens to be connected to our hotel. Our special dinner was ceviche (tons of it!) and Mahi mahi with a shrimp/octopus reduction. Fantastic!
- El Moro - a new favorite - visited twice. Ray was our waiter both times and is a gem.
- La Perlita - 2for1 lionfish - another favorite - food, service, and off the beaten path!
- Ohana - Mateo the DM's restaurant. Bacon wrapped lobster and Chicago style pizza. As a transplanted Chicagoan, I had to try it, and it was excellent. Peanut butter tequila shots? Yes. They are great.
- Casa Denis - good dinner - fish with garlic / onions.
- Kinta - wow.... each bite was something to behold. High-end food at moderate prices. Special meal.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Javier the churro guy stops by Blue Angel twice per day. Very nice guy and we spend a few $ with him!
- If I had one complaint with Coz, it's walking around downtown. I hate to be rude, but I'm about done with the guys trying to sell me cigars and vanilla and t-shirts. 10 days of that is my limit. I try to be nice, but my patience is waning.
- One of these pushy sales guys, however, made me laugh. Trying to sell us a hammock, and he says "this hammock is so comfortable, you go to sleep and you are 3, wake up and you are 4."
- No-see-ums. I need to find something that works for those nasty buggers. They don't touch my wife, but I look like I've got some nasty skin disease by the end of my trip! Arrrgggghhhh!
- The Scotia bank charges about 44 pesos per transaction. If you take out 1500 pesos ($100USD), that's about 3%. Not too bad - $3 per $100.
- Taxis seem to charge what they want. I learned to ask the fare before we got in. Take MANY small denomination bills. Pesos are better than dollars.
- Rasta Bar service was horrible. I'm a reggae fanatic, but we won't go back
- ISIS rental car (not the terrorist group) is great - we got a 2004 VW bug that looks exactly like they did back in 1960 or whatever.
- We're glad to have met some nice people during our trip as always.
That's about it for now.
Adios Amigos!
This is our 3rd trip to Coz, but our first visit since 2008.
HOTEL
Very nice changes at Blue Angel. Eva was there and is really making some nice changes. Including breakfast is a great addition. There seems to be more staff on-site, and every one of them seems to genuinely take pride in making you comfortable. Eva found out it was our anniversary and insisted that her chef prepare a special meal for us. Claudia and Eva and the restaurant staff went beyond expectations and really made it a special night!
The hotel is clean, convenient, and we value the combination of friendly staff, great location, with on-site pool, shore diving, restaurant, and dive shop. Most guests that we talked to are return customers. That's telling.
DIVING
We found the marine life to be more abundant than we remember. Plenty of nurse sharks and MANY turtles. Currents were a bit strange (different direction, and swirling at the wall), but visibility was great and each dive was memorable.
We did see an interesting situation: about 8 grouper were hanging out at this coral head and taking turns poking their heads at this moray eel. We later read that they do this to get the eel to go out and flush out some fish out of holes and the grouper will then eat the fish. We saw very few lion fish. Many lobsters.
We also did one dive with Aldora and dove Barracuda Reef. My wife and I have 140 dives each, and found Barracuda challenging and a bit stressful. Aldora is very well organized and did a 30 minute pre-dive meeting. Still... diving with 120 steel tanks (heavy) at a new site with a lot of current and fairly deep added up to a challenge. Great reef, but a bit over our heads. Thankfully, we didn't end up in Cuba after that dive.
DIVE MASTERS / BOAT CAPTAINS
The Blue Angel DMs were all professional, helpful, and good dive leaders. We dove with Mateo, Tony, and JP. We appreciate how the boat captains also keep an eye on details: not only finding us in a busy dive site, but also setting up gear, and noticing if we forgot anything. The boats are clean and fast. Marcos in the shop was also very helpful with questions, using the kayaks, and scheduling. The motto seems to always be: "no problem, we can do that."
RESTAURANTS
I came to the conclusion that we could make a restaurant tour of Cozumel alone, and not even dive! We hit all the SB favorites.
- Blue Angel - nice breakfasts, very good margaritas, and a superb dinner! It holds it's own as a stand alone restaurant that happens to be connected to our hotel. Our special dinner was ceviche (tons of it!) and Mahi mahi with a shrimp/octopus reduction. Fantastic!
- El Moro - a new favorite - visited twice. Ray was our waiter both times and is a gem.
- La Perlita - 2for1 lionfish - another favorite - food, service, and off the beaten path!
- Ohana - Mateo the DM's restaurant. Bacon wrapped lobster and Chicago style pizza. As a transplanted Chicagoan, I had to try it, and it was excellent. Peanut butter tequila shots? Yes. They are great.
- Casa Denis - good dinner - fish with garlic / onions.
- Kinta - wow.... each bite was something to behold. High-end food at moderate prices. Special meal.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Javier the churro guy stops by Blue Angel twice per day. Very nice guy and we spend a few $ with him!
- If I had one complaint with Coz, it's walking around downtown. I hate to be rude, but I'm about done with the guys trying to sell me cigars and vanilla and t-shirts. 10 days of that is my limit. I try to be nice, but my patience is waning.
- One of these pushy sales guys, however, made me laugh. Trying to sell us a hammock, and he says "this hammock is so comfortable, you go to sleep and you are 3, wake up and you are 4."
- No-see-ums. I need to find something that works for those nasty buggers. They don't touch my wife, but I look like I've got some nasty skin disease by the end of my trip! Arrrgggghhhh!
- The Scotia bank charges about 44 pesos per transaction. If you take out 1500 pesos ($100USD), that's about 3%. Not too bad - $3 per $100.
- Taxis seem to charge what they want. I learned to ask the fare before we got in. Take MANY small denomination bills. Pesos are better than dollars.
- Rasta Bar service was horrible. I'm a reggae fanatic, but we won't go back
- ISIS rental car (not the terrorist group) is great - we got a 2004 VW bug that looks exactly like they did back in 1960 or whatever.
- We're glad to have met some nice people during our trip as always.
That's about it for now.
Adios Amigos!
