Cozumel recommendations please
- Thread starter weboflies
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
captmike
Registered
Fiesta Americana is the best cleaniest and nicest ALL INCLUSIVE imho. You can beach dive with the folks from DIVE HOUSE and the boats pick you up to take you to PLAYACAR REEF. Iberostar ALLEGRO has the nicest beach, but food and service isn't as nice as Fiesta Americana. FA just finished a major renovation a month ago, closed for a year. Nightly entertainment at the beach with dinner was nice, lots of pools, bars, swim up bar in case diving is closed down on the reefs. Beach entry is tricky but to refresh your diving by yourself and get your water wings going the place is perfect with lots of corals, fishes. I stepped up onto the dock still in my rig and server came up to me and offered me a fish taco and cold bottle of water. Swapped out my tank and did it again.
gopbroek
Contributor
I think you would get a flood of information if you posted this question within the Cozumel sub form. Personally I avoid the AI’s because you do not get to actually experience the local area, but that’s just my preference. If you stay in town there are a lot of great hotels and most dive shops can put together package deals to suit your needs. Cozumel is an island and overall it is very safe, the local population is protective of the dive visitors. Cozumel is over-run with good restaurants and watering holes, again in the Cozumel forum there are many threads on recommendations for a restaurant, bar, hotel, Dive Op, etc. Another thing to remember is that regardless of where you stay you can dive with whom-ever you wish, but some of the sleazier AI’s will charge ‘dock pickup’ fees for anyone other than there in house OP.
I dive with Tres Pelicanos and think they are the best but again many would argue their favorite Dive OP is the ‘best’. Cozumel has a very large number of excellent dive shops. I would avoid the ‘in-house’ and larger scale operations as I think that due to scheduling constraints the dive times may be cut short to make the scheduled time for the next trip. Another concern with the cattle boat operation is that when groups are mixed together often the diving is limited to least experienced diver or the first one out of air. I prefer to ‘dive my tank’ for a 70 – 90 minutes, if I have a safe level of gas remaining. A few of the more highly recommended Op’s would be (and this list is by no means complete) Tres Pelicanos, Deep Blue, Liquid Blue, Living Under water, Aldora and the list goes on and on. There are lots of great dive sites on Cozumel but again it depends on what you like: swim thru’s, wildlife, walls, sleeping shark encounters, etc.
I dive with Tres Pelicanos and think they are the best but again many would argue their favorite Dive OP is the ‘best’. Cozumel has a very large number of excellent dive shops. I would avoid the ‘in-house’ and larger scale operations as I think that due to scheduling constraints the dive times may be cut short to make the scheduled time for the next trip. Another concern with the cattle boat operation is that when groups are mixed together often the diving is limited to least experienced diver or the first one out of air. I prefer to ‘dive my tank’ for a 70 – 90 minutes, if I have a safe level of gas remaining. A few of the more highly recommended Op’s would be (and this list is by no means complete) Tres Pelicanos, Deep Blue, Liquid Blue, Living Under water, Aldora and the list goes on and on. There are lots of great dive sites on Cozumel but again it depends on what you like: swim thru’s, wildlife, walls, sleeping shark encounters, etc.
A ScubaBoard Staff Message...
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/475264-shark-tank-looks-dive-op.html http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/474863-favorite-dive-sites-around-cozumel.html
Marg, SB Senior Moderator
drrich2
Contributor
If you like 120 cf steel tanks for long dives, Living Underwater and Aldora both have them from what I understand, and both are strongly reputable dive op.s.
Richard.
Richard.
diveprof
Contributor
You need to make a few decisions. For dive ops if diving AL 80s is fine and want to hit all the great South sites, Dive with Martin does this. If you need more air Aldora or living underwater is a good way to go (note: not once did my steel 120 have the working pressure of 3500 psi though, usually 200 -300 psi less less- though still more air). I've been diving with Dive with Martin in recent years as I still get an hour of bottom time so that's my choice. The lodging decision gets more complicated. Let me know if you need suggestions there.
DjDiverDan
Contributor
If you ask 20 veteran Cozumel divers which is the "best" Dive Op, I'm betting that you'll get at least 15 different answers. And the Dive Op that is best for you might well be on someone else's "I won't dive with them" list. You simply can't answer the question without knowing what you want from a Dive Op. Fast small boats or big boats with losts of socializing? DMs that will babysit a newbie diver or that will let you do your own dive? Big steel tanks for loads of bottom time, or is a 50 minute dive on an AL 80 just fine with you? Surface Interval on the beach? At a Beach Club? With Lunch on the boat? Valet service, or do you insist on setting up your own gear? There are a host of options on Cozumel, something for every taste. Like Drrich2, I really like Steel 120 tanks, Long SI at beach club, valet service, DMs who are great at finding the little interesting things that I wouldn't find on my own, smaller faster boats, and a Dive Op big enough to split up divers into groups with similar skills and experience. So, if it's my choice, I'll go with Aldora. But I've also been on a lot of group dive trips where we used Dive with Martin, a more budget option, less valet service, Aluminum tanks (you can get an AL 100 if you reserve it), SI on the beach, but not at a club and not as long. But great DMs - I really like Miguel and Roberto, and I won't hesitate to dive with Dive with Martin. So figure out just what you want from a Dive Op and then ask which one best fits your taste. As to locations, pretty much all the Dive Ops will go to all the locations in the Marine Park (though they won't all take you to the far south advanced locations, Maracaibo and Punta Sur); fewer Dive Ops will take you to the advanced dive sites at the north end; and, AFAIK, only Aldora will take you to the East Side (when the weather is right) or to the more remote sites that it has recently discovered.
---------- Post added April 5th, 2014 at 07:36 PM ----------
BTW, if you are looking for Lodging recommendations, I'm with gopbroek on the no AI - I don't have any firm opposition to AI resorts generally, but Cozumel is just not the place for it. Too many great restaurants, the people are incredibly open and friendly, and it's incredibly safe. Your choices for hotels kind of depend on preferences - I like staying in or near downtown, where I can walk to most of the restaurants at night, wander around the Plaza at night, and browse in the downtown stores without worrying about taxi money. Casa Mexicana is a nice hotel, very well located downtown, and if you choose to go with Aldora, it's a very short walk to its Dive Shop and its downtown pier. It has a nice breakfast buffet, but its "pool" is really only a small kiddie pool. Hotel Cozumel and Resort is south of Downtown and is a very nice Hotel, nice rooms, huge pool, but DO NOT DO THE ALL-INCLUSIVE PLAN. The food is, in my opinion, TERRIBLE. it offers a European Plan, room only, which is the way to go, IMO. It's not a bad walk into downtown to eat out at night. Farther south, there's Casa Del Mar, which I like; nice rooms, provided you go for the Superior rooms (the standards rooms are smaller and face the parking lot out back; not for me, thanks), decent pool (though the hot tub hasn't been working any time in my last 5 stays there), and a decent breakfast (though I often walk across the street to Ernesto's for breakfast). It's closer to the Dive Sites, and Dive with Martin will pick you up at its pier, but you'll spend more on taxis to eat out. Lots of other choices, including the big self-contained resorts farther south, and several places up north of Downtown, but the north end is a long way from the dive sites, and I've never stayed up there.
---------- Post added April 5th, 2014 at 07:36 PM ----------
BTW, if you are looking for Lodging recommendations, I'm with gopbroek on the no AI - I don't have any firm opposition to AI resorts generally, but Cozumel is just not the place for it. Too many great restaurants, the people are incredibly open and friendly, and it's incredibly safe. Your choices for hotels kind of depend on preferences - I like staying in or near downtown, where I can walk to most of the restaurants at night, wander around the Plaza at night, and browse in the downtown stores without worrying about taxi money. Casa Mexicana is a nice hotel, very well located downtown, and if you choose to go with Aldora, it's a very short walk to its Dive Shop and its downtown pier. It has a nice breakfast buffet, but its "pool" is really only a small kiddie pool. Hotel Cozumel and Resort is south of Downtown and is a very nice Hotel, nice rooms, huge pool, but DO NOT DO THE ALL-INCLUSIVE PLAN. The food is, in my opinion, TERRIBLE. it offers a European Plan, room only, which is the way to go, IMO. It's not a bad walk into downtown to eat out at night. Farther south, there's Casa Del Mar, which I like; nice rooms, provided you go for the Superior rooms (the standards rooms are smaller and face the parking lot out back; not for me, thanks), decent pool (though the hot tub hasn't been working any time in my last 5 stays there), and a decent breakfast (though I often walk across the street to Ernesto's for breakfast). It's closer to the Dive Sites, and Dive with Martin will pick you up at its pier, but you'll spend more on taxis to eat out. Lots of other choices, including the big self-contained resorts farther south, and several places up north of Downtown, but the north end is a long way from the dive sites, and I've never stayed up there.
Similar threads
