I got back 3 weeks ago from my first time diving with Aldora and wanted to share some thoughts for those who are considering them. Note that this was my third trip to Cozumel and I've used around fifteen warm water boat ops at different places over the years, so I have some basis for comparison.
IMPRESSIVE
- HP120. The big selling points of large capacity tanks and thus long dives is completely legit. The big tanks was my primary reason for choosing Aldora because I was diving with a friend who had poor air consumption the last time I dived with him. Happily, he's done quite a few dives since then and his consumption rate has improved greatly, so that turned out to be a non-issue. But I was surprised to find how liberating the HP120s were for my diving. I did the first dive the way I usually do, minimizing movement to conserve air (except when I was following the dolphins), with the result that I still had 1300PSI at the end of a 71 minute dive. After that I gave up on trying to conserve and just swam where I wanted and how I wanted, including against the current if there was something worth seeing. Despite this, I never went under 800PSI on my remaining 10 dives, which averaged 76 minutes long. I like swimming in general and using the current to get down low and fly over the terrain in particular. It was extra fun to be able to do as much of this as I wanted without concern about my gas.
- Matching divers. This is another advertised advantage that panned out. Aldora had several boats out each day and they sorted the boats by skill/experience level. It worked well on our boat. I never felt like a dive was rushed nor was I ever bothered by another diver's actions. On several of the dives it really felt like a team effort, we were well spaced to cover a large area and everyone was pointing out their finds to each other. Note that it was not a problem if you wanted to linger over something longer than the rest of the group. The guide moved slowly and the current allowed you to catch up quickly when you were done.
- Nitrox. All of our 2 tank divers were 32% for the first dive and 36% for the second. Combined with the long SI, NDL time was not an issue despite even the second dives having 30 minutes+ over 70'. Everyone on our boats dived nitrox. I assume if you were diving air, they would put you on a boat with much more conservative profiles.
- Schedule. Pick up was at 7:30, return 1:30-2. Pickup was fairly close to the scheduled time. I liked this schedule because it put you out of synch of most of the other ops. I think I saw other divers in the water on one out of 11 dives. It does mean that you are pretty much stuck with a 2 dive day. 3 if you can get a night dive. Still that's likely to be over 2.5 hours of bottom time. We did one night dive, which was amazing. Afterwards, my friend pointed out that we had almost exactly 4 hours of bottom time over our 3 dives that day, which was the most he'd ever had, even including his 5-dives-a-day liveaboards in Thailand.
NEUTRAL
- Boats. Fast. But nothing special here in terms of creature comforts. Water and a roof were provided. No head. No snacks. They did have boat jackets if you got cold. These were kind of beat up, but they served their purpose. There was plenty of room for the 5-7 divers + guide and captain.
- Surface Interval. If we were diving off the southern part of the island, they ran you to their own beach for the SI. They had water and some fruit and maybe cookies on shore along with a few chairs. These are provided by Aldora, but nobody told us this so a lot of us didn't get anything until someone clued us in. Anyway the mosquitoes kept most of us on the pier or boat when I was there. One day we were diving up north and they gave us off the option of staying on the boat or being dropped off at a hotel buffet for the SI.
DIDN'T MEET EXPECTATIONS
- Flexibility. Despite all the claims on the website, we went just slightly beyond the standard sites. I've been to all the sites on previous trips except Islote. There were also 3 days of Norte while we were there and again, despite the claims of "guaranteed diving", we were unable to get out. I suspect the chance of going to unusual sites improves when the weather is more cooperative and maybe they had more flexibility in the past, but don't expect that diving with Aldora is going to mean you'll be going out when the port is closed or that you are going to be taken somewhere new.
- Customer Service. OK, but I expected better. Example: During the Norte, on three separate occasions, they told us we would be able to dive from the east side, so we were forced to wait around until they cancelled. The last time they did that we had gotten up at 6:00am and were waiting outside with all of our gear when we got the cancellation e-mail. I get that the Norte was making them scramble, but given the hype I expected at least better communication. Another small thing, we were staying next to (not in) Villa Aldora and the one day the Villa didn't have divers, they made us come downtown to catch the boat even though we were told we would get picked up at the Villa each day. Finally, there was an issue at final payment. I had an e-mail from Memo stating our price per dive trip, but Denise couldn't figure out how he had arrived at it, so she kept giving me different prices. I kept saying that I expected them to honor the written quote. Eventually she agreed, but it was unnecessarily tense. All in all, small stuff. But again, for a premium price, I thought everything would be handled more smoothly.
SO?
Do I recommend them? They are a great bet for a 1-3 diver group looking for guaranteed long dives and professionalism on and under the water. Especially if one or more of your party has a poor gas consumption rate. Just understand that your extra dollars are going for the tanks and fills and boat gas, not luxury service or frills on the boats. If you have 4 or more that are good on air, I'm not so sure. On my last trip with 4 we were able to charter a boat for ourselves through Pelagic Ventures for a cost comparable to what it would have cost with Aldora and that worked out really well. Also note that I haven't dived with any of the other big tank ops on the island. For my next trip, I'll probably give Tres Pelicanos a try unless Aldora can assure me I'll be going to some sites I haven't seen yet.
IMPRESSIVE
- HP120. The big selling points of large capacity tanks and thus long dives is completely legit. The big tanks was my primary reason for choosing Aldora because I was diving with a friend who had poor air consumption the last time I dived with him. Happily, he's done quite a few dives since then and his consumption rate has improved greatly, so that turned out to be a non-issue. But I was surprised to find how liberating the HP120s were for my diving. I did the first dive the way I usually do, minimizing movement to conserve air (except when I was following the dolphins), with the result that I still had 1300PSI at the end of a 71 minute dive. After that I gave up on trying to conserve and just swam where I wanted and how I wanted, including against the current if there was something worth seeing. Despite this, I never went under 800PSI on my remaining 10 dives, which averaged 76 minutes long. I like swimming in general and using the current to get down low and fly over the terrain in particular. It was extra fun to be able to do as much of this as I wanted without concern about my gas.
- Matching divers. This is another advertised advantage that panned out. Aldora had several boats out each day and they sorted the boats by skill/experience level. It worked well on our boat. I never felt like a dive was rushed nor was I ever bothered by another diver's actions. On several of the dives it really felt like a team effort, we were well spaced to cover a large area and everyone was pointing out their finds to each other. Note that it was not a problem if you wanted to linger over something longer than the rest of the group. The guide moved slowly and the current allowed you to catch up quickly when you were done.
- Nitrox. All of our 2 tank divers were 32% for the first dive and 36% for the second. Combined with the long SI, NDL time was not an issue despite even the second dives having 30 minutes+ over 70'. Everyone on our boats dived nitrox. I assume if you were diving air, they would put you on a boat with much more conservative profiles.
- Schedule. Pick up was at 7:30, return 1:30-2. Pickup was fairly close to the scheduled time. I liked this schedule because it put you out of synch of most of the other ops. I think I saw other divers in the water on one out of 11 dives. It does mean that you are pretty much stuck with a 2 dive day. 3 if you can get a night dive. Still that's likely to be over 2.5 hours of bottom time. We did one night dive, which was amazing. Afterwards, my friend pointed out that we had almost exactly 4 hours of bottom time over our 3 dives that day, which was the most he'd ever had, even including his 5-dives-a-day liveaboards in Thailand.
NEUTRAL
- Boats. Fast. But nothing special here in terms of creature comforts. Water and a roof were provided. No head. No snacks. They did have boat jackets if you got cold. These were kind of beat up, but they served their purpose. There was plenty of room for the 5-7 divers + guide and captain.
- Surface Interval. If we were diving off the southern part of the island, they ran you to their own beach for the SI. They had water and some fruit and maybe cookies on shore along with a few chairs. These are provided by Aldora, but nobody told us this so a lot of us didn't get anything until someone clued us in. Anyway the mosquitoes kept most of us on the pier or boat when I was there. One day we were diving up north and they gave us off the option of staying on the boat or being dropped off at a hotel buffet for the SI.
DIDN'T MEET EXPECTATIONS
- Flexibility. Despite all the claims on the website, we went just slightly beyond the standard sites. I've been to all the sites on previous trips except Islote. There were also 3 days of Norte while we were there and again, despite the claims of "guaranteed diving", we were unable to get out. I suspect the chance of going to unusual sites improves when the weather is more cooperative and maybe they had more flexibility in the past, but don't expect that diving with Aldora is going to mean you'll be going out when the port is closed or that you are going to be taken somewhere new.
- Customer Service. OK, but I expected better. Example: During the Norte, on three separate occasions, they told us we would be able to dive from the east side, so we were forced to wait around until they cancelled. The last time they did that we had gotten up at 6:00am and were waiting outside with all of our gear when we got the cancellation e-mail. I get that the Norte was making them scramble, but given the hype I expected at least better communication. Another small thing, we were staying next to (not in) Villa Aldora and the one day the Villa didn't have divers, they made us come downtown to catch the boat even though we were told we would get picked up at the Villa each day. Finally, there was an issue at final payment. I had an e-mail from Memo stating our price per dive trip, but Denise couldn't figure out how he had arrived at it, so she kept giving me different prices. I kept saying that I expected them to honor the written quote. Eventually she agreed, but it was unnecessarily tense. All in all, small stuff. But again, for a premium price, I thought everything would be handled more smoothly.
SO?
Do I recommend them? They are a great bet for a 1-3 diver group looking for guaranteed long dives and professionalism on and under the water. Especially if one or more of your party has a poor gas consumption rate. Just understand that your extra dollars are going for the tanks and fills and boat gas, not luxury service or frills on the boats. If you have 4 or more that are good on air, I'm not so sure. On my last trip with 4 we were able to charter a boat for ourselves through Pelagic Ventures for a cost comparable to what it would have cost with Aldora and that worked out really well. Also note that I haven't dived with any of the other big tank ops on the island. For my next trip, I'll probably give Tres Pelicanos a try unless Aldora can assure me I'll be going to some sites I haven't seen yet.