First time to Coz and first real dive!

[Nursediver]

You are making your first real dive in a spectacular place! Columbia Deep and Columbia Shallow would be good for you. The shallows are a great shallow dive, great for beginner, and you will see lots of life. Although, I must say, there are no bad dives in Cozumel. Have a great time!

 

[Jackie]

I would go with the cruiseship. at least you can be pretty sure that they will not have you diving a wall and that it will be a conservative dive plan.
The excellent point was raised that the time of year and weather raises its own set of issues.

 

[cvchief]

I don't think you have to be afraid to pick your own shop. Why subsidize the cruise lines with your dive business? Scuba with Alison Scuba Dive Cozumel | ScubaWithAlison is the op I go with and we have one day cruisers alot. You will get to dive your whole tank and you won't go to anything more challenging than you or she thinks you can handle. No problemo. I am quite sure a ton of other good ops out there will do the same. I don't know why an op kicking back to the cruise ships is an indication of it safety level.

I guess I might ask about the refund policy. I know some treat that differently, but just check it out ahead of time. I know having dove with cruisers for their first time in Coz, they seemed to appreciate having contacted Alison directly and were able to ask all those first timer questions and worry about little details and all. I know I did that the first time we came down. As a matter of fact, if you read the praise on SB for Coz shops, most of the one's that get lots of mentions also have notes about how responsive they are to email and such. It seems to me that this prior to arrival communication is just about as important to people as the actual trip.

 

[SeaHunt82]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I like the idea of investing in the local economy rather than putting back into the big cruise ship pot. We may wind up just snorkeling since my wife is not a certified diver. Either way it's gonna be awesome. I'm totally pumped. Our last trip wat our honeymoon on Maui. Again without her cert I opted to snorkel. So Lord willing this time I can convince her she needs her cert as well.

 

[cvchief]

Well, if you can't get her certified in time, consider a split trip. Some ops can sometimes bring a snorkel guide along for her and then you can still get a dive in. Or maybe give her the basics and then let her do a discover scuba with you?

 

[budaman]

We've booked our own & used the cruiseline dives on our cruises to Cozumel. There would have to be some very unusual circumstances to cause you to miss departure if you were to book dives on your own. many of the cruiselines use AquaWorld, so you would be on a large boat with 16 - 24 other divers. Even though they split you up into groups of 8, with a DM, that's still a lot of people going into the water in a short period of time. It will also take up more of your time on the island, limiting what you may be able to do after diving.

If you don't get to dive, and want to spend some time snorkeling with your wife, I would suggest catching a cab and going to Corona Beach. Good snorkeling, easy access, cold beer, good margaritas & decent food. Main thing, you wouldn't be surrounded by tons of people....you'll probably be ready to see fewer crowds as you'll likely be spending the week with a minimum of 2000 others. Spend a few hours there & then head into San Miguel for some sightseeing & shopping before having to head back to the ship.

Main thing.....have fun while you're there!

Mike

 

[SeaHunt82]

Thanks everyone for your input. The cruise was 7 months ago now.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to dive. I'll explain.

We were scheduled to depart Galveston Friday afternoon around 3 pm. However we did not depart until 11:30 pm...
Thursday evening a heavy layer of fog had rolled in and the USCG had closed the port to all incoming and out going traffic. Nothing moved anywhere.
Visibility was down to about 50 meters. We had stayed at a beach front hotel and could not see the ocean, the fog was that think.
Such a late departure gave us only six hours in Cozumel. 6 hours......

Needless to say, we didn't get to dive.

I hope one day to return and make good on all of your input.

 

[SeaHunt82]

Oh I forgot to mention. We did have a great time and really enjoyed the cruise. We did have time to swim with dolphins, a life long dream of hers.