djanni:
First trip to Cozumel. First week in September. RCI members using our time share at the "Allegro Cozumel Occidental." Is the on-site dive shop okay or is it a cattle boat organization? Is there shore diving? At the hotel or nearby? Any safety concerns regarding shore diving there?
I've stayed at the Allegro 4 times now.... Dived with the on-site shop (Dive Palancar) 3 times. They're a pretty good operation over all, IMHO. Certainly, they tend to have more people on their boats than some of the operators you read about on this board, but I wouldn't quite call it a cattle boat shop. Everytime I dove with them, if they had more than 6 divers, they would split us up into two teams, each led by a separate dive master. The other great thing is that they're located literally about than 5 minutes away from the reefs, so it's not like you're crammed on the boat with a ton of people for an eternity. Quite to the contrary, you're generally scrambleing to get your gear ready before you arive at the site. As for bottom times, they always let buddy teams stay down 'till 700 psi. If someone is running low, the divemaster will send that team up, but the rest of the group can continue the dive. This has happened to me several times, and I've always been able to stay down for my full tank, despite some bonehead divers who went down to 120 ft. on Palancar Horseshoe, and ran out of air in half the time. (sorry, venting a bit...)
Since the dive sites are so close to the resort, the surface intervals always consist of returning back to the dock, so you can use the bathroom, grab a quick snack, or whatever. That's one of the things I actually really like about diving with Dive Palancar.
How are the restuarants at the hotel? We're doing the "all inclusive" since it's pretty cheap there. How are the rooms?
The restaurants are generally decent... nothing fantastic, but not bad either. My favorite is always the breakfast omelette made to order. :-D Several times, we ate at their a la carte restaurants in the evening and they were pretty good, over all. Again, I've had better, but it's not at all bad for all-inclusive.
The rooms... well, the past couple of times I've been there, I noticed that they were starting to get a bit run down, but I also saw that the resort has been renovating, and that was a couple of years ago, so I would imagine that most of the rooms are probably renovated by now. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't down right bad or anything, but not as nice as some of the other resorts I've stayed in Mexico.
How far to town? Is a car recommended? Our agenda, if you couldn't guess, is get in all the diving we can.
Thanks, dj
It's a fairly good ride back to town, probably about 25 minutes and $20 dollars to the taxi driver. A good option may be to rent a car for a day or two and take a trip around the island, especially to the Caribbean side. Lots of folks here will recommend doing that.
Overall, I'd recommend The Allegro, especially to divers, because the price is right, and it's so close to the best reefs in Cozumel. It's a bit ways from the town, but the diving convenience is hard to beat.
