Aldora and 3 P's Reviews

[Gdog]

I have to disagree. The logistics of added dives with Aldora are just too difficulty to do repetitively, at least from town. With the boat ride, dive time, a SI between 1.5 to 2 hours and the long ride back, it was 3 pm on average by the time we were back in town, and very hungry. Twice we hoped to do their twilight dives but just couldn't manage the turn around time between dives plus the next day's am dives too. It just wasn't pratical. Perhaps if staying south with the last on first off advantage, mulitdays of multiple dives might be a more practical option.

We were arriving back at the dock between 1:30 and 2:00 at the latest with Aldora. We were back on the boat around 3:30 for the second round. Even diving Maricaibo, ect, we were never later than 2 pm. Remember, Aldora leaves the dock about an hour earlier than most dive ops, 7:30 am. So your experience doesnt mirror ours at all.
Again, plenty of dive ops, good ones, to choose from. But you can do the same number of dives daily with probably any of the dive ops.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Hey Richard. Prehaps I can better answer your question. During my 2 trips, I did exactly 7 days diving with both ops. I could only reasonably do 2 dives a day with Aldora for the reasons already given. We got back too late to do the one tank afternoon dive and the other option as you have seen is the 2 tank twilight or 1 tank night but both then gives you a long late day especially with another planned am dive. And those dives, especially night dives are not always available. It could be done but it would be tough doing repeatedly. So for those 7 days we did 14 dives with 18.5 hours bottom time.

On our first trip with Aldora, we attempted some twilight and night dives, and it really took a toll on us. No time for a real meal, no time for a real siesta. We'd get back to our hotel at something like (if I remember correctly) 9 pm, quickly shower, and stumble outside, exhausted, ravenous, and looking for the nearest place with food that was open. That's no way to experience the great restaurant options Coz has to offer. No time for the pool or anything else. Not to mention that we never felt well rested, having to get up early again to repeat the routine. Never again, we told ourselves. That's not a vacation. Hence, for our second trip with Aldora, we stuck with the standard 2 dives per day, plus one night dive in the middle of the week. It was our best trip to date. I think we have finally figured out what we like best. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[ronscuba]

I agree with Lorenzoid.

For a relaxing dive vacation, Cozumel is 2 dives per day with a 3rd dive once or twice in a week. More than that feels like work.

4-5 dives a day and relaxing ? A liveaboard or a place with a good house reef like Cocoview.

Villa Aldora is an option. I hear the diving in front of the villa is worthwhile if you are staying there.

 

[noj3333]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

 

[scubafanatic]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

Aldora does their own tank fills, so they can do quality control, the other steel tanks ops probably use the central fill station (Meredero I think?), and if that's the case they probably just fill everything to 3000 for the standard AL80 which cools to 2700 psi, ignoring the fact that those are HP 3500 psi steels.

 

[elgoog]

Had the exact same experience as @Lorenzoid with twilight/night dives - wifebuddy actually skipped the next morning dives because she was too exhausted.

@drrich2 I was talking to a gent in the cabin next to ours and he was doing 4 dives a day with Aldora. The afternoon dives he was on were not the twilight/night combo but the trip that leaves almost immediately after the morning boat gets in. He was carrying a sandwich with him on the boat - there's no time between those trips if you stay at the Aldora Villa but it is possible. I wouldn't do it but if you're trying to max out diving for the week, it is possible. He also didn't have a group that was taking up the entire boat. AFAIK, he was traveling with just one other person.

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

Yep. For the week we were there, all tanks were very consistently 3400psi. EANx mix was also within <1% of the target mix.

 

[drrich2]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

I don't know what other operator you used, but here's an important point from another 'compare the op.s' thread way back; Aldora uses HP steel 120's, and Living Underwater uses LP steel 120's. The thread I mentioned involved a fairly long debate about which would be preferable, plus Aldora favoring 'group ascends together' vs. LU's willingness to send buddy pairs up as they ran low on gas, but the point is, if those tanks 'only filled to 2700 PSI' were LP tanks, I'm thinking no fault there.

Richard.

 

[ronscuba]

If you like most us of, you will love Cozumel and return many times where you can sample different dive operators and accommodations.

 

[Gdog]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

We did hit it hard, we are really hard core on the diving and not so much about relaxing in a lounge chair. We go to dive.
We all had right at 3400 psi, and the one time someone was shorter filled they swapped it out Pronto.

 

[AdivingBel]

Uncfnp, since you got a chance to dive the ops back to back, you might be in a unique position to answer. Did they structure the dives on the sites the same way? I'm generally not air limited when diving off a rec dive boat; just good genes I guess . In Coz, even on nitrox, on many days my computer (not particularly conservative) is "talking to me" by the end of the second dive. I'm not a "go deeper" cowboy, but if I'm diving a reef, I'm down on the reef. I generally get 60 - 70 min. dives with my op of choice. After checking my log, many of my dives have avg. depths of 55'+ which is a bit deeper than you mentioned (maybe yours was an average of averages). I like the idea of longer dives. I'm wondering how others are getting 80 and 90 min. dives on what I assume are the same sites without hanging shallow or somehow structuring the dives toward the shallow end. In my experience, with Coz guide rules & drift diving, the DM/guide has a bit more of an impact than in other locales where you can do more of your "own thing" if you choose. Did it "feel" different? Maybe my guys have been taking me deeper to shorten the dives... (j/k about this) Any of you other guys & gals that have used both "standard" and "big tank" ops in Coz?