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I've enjoyed many dive trips to Cozumel over the last 15 or so years, tried a variety of hotels and a few different shops, and this is how this one went. I've been at various times of the year, but now that I've cut back generally to one trip a year, I really like going in late August for my birthday – slow season for the island, no families with school kids as school starts earlier nowadays than when I was a kid, lovely tropical weather that's still cooler than most of Texas, and such.
About six months ahead, I was poking around American Airlines' site on a hunch to see if I could actually use my FF-miles for a “free” trip there at the lowest mileage rate, then 25K I believe. I wasn't optimistic, but to my surprise I saw a week long trip available at that rate, with decent times and flights – not one of those ridiculous routes they offer with extra connections in Phoenix or Miami to create frustrated shopping, and I grabbed it! It looked good, with a comfortable 10:22am departure, a fast change in DFW, arriving in Coz at 3pm. The return looked great at 3:52pm, a comfortable 3 hour connection in DFW to clear I&C, and back in Lubbock at 11:10pm. Sweet! Well, they still charged me $70 in fees on my "free" ticket, plus luggage fees both ways, eventually moved my departure from 10am to 8am, and such - but it worked.
I booked my Trip Insurance, something I try to insist on for my family for any international trip, then started hotel shopping. I really like Hotels.com for their free-night-after-ten program, their price guarantees, and their service after arrival - and I have used all of those in the past. I'd noticed Hotel Mary Carmen on past trips, liked its reviews and listed information seen online, and found it there for only $39 a night - so grabbed that. See the property description and claims at Hotel Mary Carmen
I mentioned that I have utilized Hotels.com guarantees in the past, like last trip when the junior suite promised turned out be a simple room - acceptable aside from broken promises, and they refunded more than half of my costs. For this trip, I simply watched the offered rates, checking every month or so, and ended up rebooking for $34 a night. I waited on the breakfast option until I arrived, they offered that 100 peso a day choice for 80, and I took that $4 extra on arrival. The cheapest way to pay seemed to be with pesos in cash, so they let me check-in with my one prepaid night, then I walked a half block to a bank ATM to withdraw. That took two days with my bank's ATM withdrawal limits and that ATM's choices of 3k, 5k, or 7k withdrawals, but they let me pay the next day ok. At least this trip I did let my bank know that I was traveling to Mexico so the machine wouldn't eat my card on the first try. The hotel is on a pedestrians-only section of 5th Ave a half block from Salas where the van dropped me, and that was a little bit of a challenge the way I over pack, but a nice fellow on the street offered to help, and I guess I tipped him enough.
The room was nice aside from the hard mattress and varying temperatures of warm water, the courtyard was nice with an abundance of tropical foliage, and the dozen or so turtles were fun to watch exploring everyday. The critters seemed to be begging in their limited way, and they did seem to love the melon bits I brought down from breakfast - very competitive, no sharing. Breakfasts were simple but nice, varying some day to day. The cook's English was as bad as my horrible Spanish, but we made sounds and pointed, and I got fed every morning. If you like keeping a low budget, are flexible on hotel comforts, and like staying in town - try this one. It has 27 rooms on two floors but they guaranteed me a downstairs room when I emailed them in advance about my bad knee.
I was there for the diving, and Cozumel has dozens of excellent choices in Ops depending on your preferences, so I am not going to try to persuade anyone to switch to my choices - just tell you about my excellent experiences. I was quite happy with my last Op, but wanted to try my the new one owned by a friend I've known for a few years now that he finally had it going, and booked with him - but flexible on the first day, as I didn't know how fast I'd get over my trip down and late arrival.
As travel time approached, CVChief suggested that I should go out with him on the one day our dive plans overlapped, his sweet wife Susunita, and their 4 young, newbie divers on Alison's wonderful boat. Sounded great, so we started working on that, 100 cf tanks for this air hog, how to get my pony filled, and how to get to the south marina. The first taxi I flagged agreed to the 110 pesos without arguing and he was actually nice enough I tipped him 10, a rare action for me and cab drivers. Chief had the cross connector to get my pony up to 2k psi from extra tanks (I guess future DM tanks), and we made that work well.
Some of his non-diver friends and another vehicle showed up at the marina after dives, we convoyed to a beach club for lunch with Alison and the boat crew, and Chief even insisted on buying my birthday lunch. What a guy. From there we hit Mega, then on to see their lovely condo and so Susan could spot me a pack of Moisture Munchers I forgot to pack for my camera, and finally back to my hotel. I Whatsapped Henry and he showed up at the hotel to collect my gear and pony for the next day, and he got it topped off to a full 3k psi.
The next 5 days of diving were with his new Op Salty Endeavors on a roomy panga-plus. Google maps said it was a 6 minute walk to Safari pier so I allowed 15 or 20 at my slow place and still had time to change from shorts to my dive skin before they picked me up at 8:10am each day. Henry's main DM had the weekend off, so I got to dive with him the first couple of days. Most days I was the only tourist on the boat, and I told Henry I knew he couldn't make any money that way so wouldn't mind being put on a friendly competitor's, but he said that was his policy - one diver was enough, and I got to call the dive sites.
I did expect valet services, but Henry went well beyond my expectations. I'd just had my regs serviced, and my pony second stage was put back on the wrong low pressure port for my preferences, so he fixed that on the boat. Then, since I'd just had the regs serviced, my main reg started bubbling from a bad o-ring on the second day, and he fixed that between dives. Now that I've had my cataracts removed and my vision is back up to glasses optional for driving, it was fun looking for tiny things like ¼" banded shrimp hiding in anemones, and Henry was great at spotting things, even a jawfish with a mouth full of eggs poking out from his hole.
Ray showed up to DM on my third day with Salty Endeavors, and I think it was that day that we had a couple from Belgium join us. We did what I'd call newbie sites that day, but it was still good diving. Funny thing happened after the first dive. I told Ray I’m such an air hog that I’d shoot my own smb so they could stay down longer. It worked fine except I lost my boat. I guess Captain Dom didn't hear us agree on my plan so wasn't looking for my different smb. A glass bottom boat full of tourists checked on me, then insisted I get on theirs, and they took me to mine. The boat load of tourists seemed to get a kick out of it all. Ray was embarrassed and upset but I thought it was funny. Of course I had my PLB in case I really got lost and my in-line whistle, but how lost can one get on Villablanca Wall?
The Latin America Tall Ships had been arriving for their gathering, my last dive day was my birthday as well as the morning of their parade, and I was again the only tourist on the boat, so when Dom & Ray picked me up, I offered my idea: "Ok, I paid for 2 dives, but the Tall Ships are starting their parade, so how about we skip the first tank and go out to watch?" They agreed, we toured them, driving up and down the parade for close looks & photos, and it was great. Someone even posted a photo to FB of us on our boat checking out Mexico's ship, and I'll include it below. If you look closely, you can see me standing up taking photos as well as a couple more Tall Ships in the background. I posted my photos to a FB album I made public at Tall Ships
(Continued on next post as SB claims I am over 10,000 characters!)
About six months ahead, I was poking around American Airlines' site on a hunch to see if I could actually use my FF-miles for a “free” trip there at the lowest mileage rate, then 25K I believe. I wasn't optimistic, but to my surprise I saw a week long trip available at that rate, with decent times and flights – not one of those ridiculous routes they offer with extra connections in Phoenix or Miami to create frustrated shopping, and I grabbed it! It looked good, with a comfortable 10:22am departure, a fast change in DFW, arriving in Coz at 3pm. The return looked great at 3:52pm, a comfortable 3 hour connection in DFW to clear I&C, and back in Lubbock at 11:10pm. Sweet! Well, they still charged me $70 in fees on my "free" ticket, plus luggage fees both ways, eventually moved my departure from 10am to 8am, and such - but it worked.
I booked my Trip Insurance, something I try to insist on for my family for any international trip, then started hotel shopping. I really like Hotels.com for their free-night-after-ten program, their price guarantees, and their service after arrival - and I have used all of those in the past. I'd noticed Hotel Mary Carmen on past trips, liked its reviews and listed information seen online, and found it there for only $39 a night - so grabbed that. See the property description and claims at Hotel Mary Carmen
I mentioned that I have utilized Hotels.com guarantees in the past, like last trip when the junior suite promised turned out be a simple room - acceptable aside from broken promises, and they refunded more than half of my costs. For this trip, I simply watched the offered rates, checking every month or so, and ended up rebooking for $34 a night. I waited on the breakfast option until I arrived, they offered that 100 peso a day choice for 80, and I took that $4 extra on arrival. The cheapest way to pay seemed to be with pesos in cash, so they let me check-in with my one prepaid night, then I walked a half block to a bank ATM to withdraw. That took two days with my bank's ATM withdrawal limits and that ATM's choices of 3k, 5k, or 7k withdrawals, but they let me pay the next day ok. At least this trip I did let my bank know that I was traveling to Mexico so the machine wouldn't eat my card on the first try. The hotel is on a pedestrians-only section of 5th Ave a half block from Salas where the van dropped me, and that was a little bit of a challenge the way I over pack, but a nice fellow on the street offered to help, and I guess I tipped him enough.
The room was nice aside from the hard mattress and varying temperatures of warm water, the courtyard was nice with an abundance of tropical foliage, and the dozen or so turtles were fun to watch exploring everyday. The critters seemed to be begging in their limited way, and they did seem to love the melon bits I brought down from breakfast - very competitive, no sharing. Breakfasts were simple but nice, varying some day to day. The cook's English was as bad as my horrible Spanish, but we made sounds and pointed, and I got fed every morning. If you like keeping a low budget, are flexible on hotel comforts, and like staying in town - try this one. It has 27 rooms on two floors but they guaranteed me a downstairs room when I emailed them in advance about my bad knee.
I was there for the diving, and Cozumel has dozens of excellent choices in Ops depending on your preferences, so I am not going to try to persuade anyone to switch to my choices - just tell you about my excellent experiences. I was quite happy with my last Op, but wanted to try my the new one owned by a friend I've known for a few years now that he finally had it going, and booked with him - but flexible on the first day, as I didn't know how fast I'd get over my trip down and late arrival.
As travel time approached, CVChief suggested that I should go out with him on the one day our dive plans overlapped, his sweet wife Susunita, and their 4 young, newbie divers on Alison's wonderful boat. Sounded great, so we started working on that, 100 cf tanks for this air hog, how to get my pony filled, and how to get to the south marina. The first taxi I flagged agreed to the 110 pesos without arguing and he was actually nice enough I tipped him 10, a rare action for me and cab drivers. Chief had the cross connector to get my pony up to 2k psi from extra tanks (I guess future DM tanks), and we made that work well.
Some of his non-diver friends and another vehicle showed up at the marina after dives, we convoyed to a beach club for lunch with Alison and the boat crew, and Chief even insisted on buying my birthday lunch. What a guy. From there we hit Mega, then on to see their lovely condo and so Susan could spot me a pack of Moisture Munchers I forgot to pack for my camera, and finally back to my hotel. I Whatsapped Henry and he showed up at the hotel to collect my gear and pony for the next day, and he got it topped off to a full 3k psi.
The next 5 days of diving were with his new Op Salty Endeavors on a roomy panga-plus. Google maps said it was a 6 minute walk to Safari pier so I allowed 15 or 20 at my slow place and still had time to change from shorts to my dive skin before they picked me up at 8:10am each day. Henry's main DM had the weekend off, so I got to dive with him the first couple of days. Most days I was the only tourist on the boat, and I told Henry I knew he couldn't make any money that way so wouldn't mind being put on a friendly competitor's, but he said that was his policy - one diver was enough, and I got to call the dive sites.
I did expect valet services, but Henry went well beyond my expectations. I'd just had my regs serviced, and my pony second stage was put back on the wrong low pressure port for my preferences, so he fixed that on the boat. Then, since I'd just had the regs serviced, my main reg started bubbling from a bad o-ring on the second day, and he fixed that between dives. Now that I've had my cataracts removed and my vision is back up to glasses optional for driving, it was fun looking for tiny things like ¼" banded shrimp hiding in anemones, and Henry was great at spotting things, even a jawfish with a mouth full of eggs poking out from his hole.
Ray showed up to DM on my third day with Salty Endeavors, and I think it was that day that we had a couple from Belgium join us. We did what I'd call newbie sites that day, but it was still good diving. Funny thing happened after the first dive. I told Ray I’m such an air hog that I’d shoot my own smb so they could stay down longer. It worked fine except I lost my boat. I guess Captain Dom didn't hear us agree on my plan so wasn't looking for my different smb. A glass bottom boat full of tourists checked on me, then insisted I get on theirs, and they took me to mine. The boat load of tourists seemed to get a kick out of it all. Ray was embarrassed and upset but I thought it was funny. Of course I had my PLB in case I really got lost and my in-line whistle, but how lost can one get on Villablanca Wall?
The Latin America Tall Ships had been arriving for their gathering, my last dive day was my birthday as well as the morning of their parade, and I was again the only tourist on the boat, so when Dom & Ray picked me up, I offered my idea: "Ok, I paid for 2 dives, but the Tall Ships are starting their parade, so how about we skip the first tank and go out to watch?" They agreed, we toured them, driving up and down the parade for close looks & photos, and it was great. Someone even posted a photo to FB of us on our boat checking out Mexico's ship, and I'll include it below. If you look closely, you can see me standing up taking photos as well as a couple more Tall Ships in the background. I posted my photos to a FB album I made public at Tall Ships
(Continued on next post as SB claims I am over 10,000 characters!)
