Aqua-Inn dive shop in Akumal

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SteveC

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Messages
607
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Location
St. Louis Mo
# of dives
200 - 499
We will be staying at the Grand Sirenis resort in Akumal. The dive shop on the resort is Aqua-Inn. However there web sight appears to be down, and my e-mails are not being returned. Does anyone know if the Aqua-Inn dive shop is still in business?
 
Steve
When you went to Grand Sirenis, what did you find out about Aqua-Inn?
Will any of the other dive shops pick you up or do you have to take a cab into town?
 
The Aqua-Inn dive shop is still there and doing well, although their web site appears to still be down. They are in the resort, right on the beach. I think that they cater only to the Grande Sirenis guest.
If you are staying there, you wouldn’t need to use any other dive shop. It’s really convenient to walk down to the beach and get on board their boat.
We did a package deal for 2 ocean dives, 2 cenote dives, and 2 Cozumel dives, and they arranged all transportation for us. It really worked out great.
 
I am puzzled how anyone managed to attain customer satisfaction with the Aqua-Inn Dive Shop @ The Grand Sirenis, because I certainly did not. It might of been a language barrier (I only speak and write enough Spanish to survive), but it seemed like each time we booked a dive with them it became an extraordinary hassle and it almost seemed they would rather not take our money. Every time we showed up to pay a bill or book another dive they had this expression on their face like, 'oh hell, what now'.

Additionally, mathematics didn't seem to be on the curriculum for a dive shop owner. The woman -who I assume has an equal partnership in the company with her husband-, overcharged us $120 (We only purchased four dives and some rental equipment). If the egregious error hadn't of been caught by us it would be charged and never spoken of again. To me it also seemed intentional because she believed we didn't know how to calculate the exchange between pesos and usd, but that will never been known. They also fell short on supplies, too many time delays too describe (some over 2 hours), and spoke in bad form (foreign foul language while discussing our dive trips) before they realized I understood them.

I understand that I may be a little harsh towards their management, but I have never been treated so poorly by any other dive shop. It should also be noted that while we were there no one else that stayed at the hotel and used their services had a different opinion than us about their inadequate satisfaction. We ultimately switched to the Akumal Dive Shop which was much more organized and actually treated us like paying customers.
 
Wow...I've been there twice and had great satisfaction both times. In 2006, they had just opened up and had plenty of brand new equipment. In 2007, the owner (Ernesto) was a little on the rough side, but once you got to know him - it was great. In fact, they gave us a great deal on a package deal and when I talked to them about taking my wife and boy up parasailing, they basically gave me the trip.

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. I certainly didn't. I hope things have changed because we are thinking about returning later in the year. Not sure about the equipment in 2007 because we had our own equipment.

S. Nagel
 
Aqua Inn used to be located in Gala Hotel at Playacar and 2 years ago changed it´s name to Sandos Playacar Beach & Resort. They had a web page and e-mail but for some reasons they are not on line. Today I called the hotel +52 984 877 4040 and on the front desk they transferd me to the lds. Aqua Inn was the place where I made my first dive and someday I would like to return, they are for me vey professional guys.
 
Aqua Inn used to be located in Gala Hotel at Playacar and 2 years ago changed it´s name to Sandos Playacar Beach & Resort. They had a web page and e-mail but for some reasons they are not on line. Today I called the hotel +52 984 877 4040 and on the front desk they transferd me to the lds. Aqua Inn was the place where I made my first dive and someday I would like to return, they are for me vey professional guys.


We stayed at the Sandos in Playacar the last week of April this year. And Aqua Inn was the dive shop there, on the beach. We had a great time with them and would use them again.
 
We stayed at the Sandos in Playacar the last week of April this year. And Aqua Inn was the dive shop there, on the beach. We had a great time with them and would use them again.

I tried Aqua Inn at the Sandos hotel but the port was closed so we were shuttled up to their other operation at the Esmeralda hotel up the coast. We found the operations at both sites to be very unorganized, sometimes unsafe, and take poor care of their equipment.
First of all they took a guy diving several days that was having episodes of short term memory loss. He was blacking out and forgetting the last 1/2 hour or hour time blocks. His wife was scared to death but they kept letting him dive.
Our two tank local reef drift dive ended up taking 8 hours. Out of 14 divers 11 had rental equipment. 3 Regs were free flowing and there were two bad depth gauges. One of the guages was reported as being bad the previous day upon return from a cenote dive.
They forgot to get a boat captain and then sent down to Pto Aventuras for one.they also forgot to call the other hotel to tell them that guests from another hotel were coming (or better yet Ask if they could bring us). So that meant 45 minutes sitting in a van at the hotel gate while a whole lot of butt kissing was going on with the hotel manager. Between hotel A and hotel B they lost some equipment and on return to our hotel they told us that EVERY diver HAD to go the snack bar and get the dive shop staff Hamburgers and french fries because the staff missed their lunch because they had us out on a dive. Total adventure = 08:15--- 16:00 Bottom time = 89 minutes
During our first dive the DM was riding the Zero 100/84/77 feet and when my buddy and I pointed to out computers and thumbed the dive he kept signalling us to regroup. We ascended another 22 feet and the DM stayed down but close to our second alarm we went up to 40ft and waited for the group and stopped again at 20. The DM held the group at 15feet for 4 1/2 minutes.


One great thing about this dive was that I was able to write something in my log that I was never able to write before " Instant buddy had PERFECT SKILLS !!!" He was in the German Military and was what you would compare to a US Seal. We talked about diving together the rest of the week but he had purchased a dive Bundle from Aqua Inn and was stuck diving with them and I refused.
 

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