Any advice on Iberostar Cozumel and the Dressler dive operation there at the hotel???

[krbailey]

I had the same experience with Dressel at the Iberostar-Riviera Maya. 2 other divers had to wait for me to complete my OW lesson and I had to kneel on the sand for about 10 minutes while 2 other divers did part of their Underwater Navigation course on another dive. Didn't really seem fair.

 

[Nitrox624]

We stay at Iberostar all the time and have never had a problem with the food/service/etc.. The cab fee's are a little steep (usually $17 to town), but does not really bother me. Share a cab with someone and split the cost.

We do not dive with Dressel but most of the people at the resort that we spoke to that dove with them were new divers/infrequent divers. If you are looking for more experienced divers PM me and I will send you some dive ops that will pair you up with more experienced divers. (don't want to promote individual dive shops in the threads )

If you have a room close to the beach you are going to be close to the dive shop. If you are at the front of the resort it is a long walk. I suggest walking down the right side though. There is a straight sidewalk there that goes all the way down to the dive shop and you do not have to take the winding walkways.

 

[kdbeckstrom]

We stayed at the iberostar in November 2008 and overall thought it was a nice resort. The staff, grounds, rooms and general facilities were very good. The food was terrible in our opinion. We have stayed at many AI resorts in other countries and have realistic expectations for food quality. We don't expect 5 star meals at AIs, but the food was well below our expectations. From what I understand this is to be expected at mexican AIs.

The beach itself was nice, but the sharp rocks near the shore don't make it easy to swim or access the water directly from the beach.

We did not dive with Dressel divers instead chose Dive with Alison. Would highly recommend Alison - reasonable prices and very personalized service. At most there were 8 divers on each trip.

I'm not sure if we will stay at Iberostar again, but would certainly consider it.

 

[coralfreak]

I had the same experience with Dressel at the Iberostar-Riviera Maya. 2 other divers had to wait for me to complete my OW lesson and I had to kneel on the sand for about 10 minutes while 2 other divers did part of their Underwater Navigation course on another dive. Didn't really seem fair.

wait.. so you are telling me that divers that pay to dive will be paired up with divers that are doing thier open water certs??? All this while having to wait for them to complete thier dive exercises underwater? am I understaning this correctly???

I booked my trip to Iberostar about two weeks ago now and am booked with Dressel... Oh man I was expecting divers with all levels but not expecting diving while others are being certified... I'm going to contact dressel. LMK

 

[bgillis]

I have stayed at the Iberostar many times and mostly dive with Dressel. Their nice big boats and the SI at the resort are really a plus. The only time that I have had to wait for a student was when my wife did her discover SCUBA there and I did not mind that. If you do the two morning dives you will never see any training as they always take students out on the afternoon dives and when I went on those they never mixed the students with the certified divers.

 

[krbailey]

wait.. so you are telling me that divers that pay to dive will be paired up with divers that are doing thier open water certs??? All this while having to wait for them to complete thier dive exercises underwater? am I understaning this correctly???

I booked my trip to Iberostar about two weeks ago now and am booked with Dressel... Oh man I was expecting divers with all levels but not expecting diving while others are being certified... I'm going to contact dressel. LMK

That was my experience with them on 2 separate occasions. I guess it depends on the types of divers on the boat. You might get a group that doesn't have any students. You might want to check this beforehand. They also have a strict schedule of which dive sites they go to on which days. (I think someone posted a pic of this on another thread).

 

[Pickering]

Just got back from the Iberostar - great resort but some things you may want to consider. Hotel is furthest from town- $ 40 cab fare return - ripoff but... With toddlers you might not care but if you are there for two weeks you may want to get off the resort. Place is great for kids. Ocean is offlimits to the small ones because of the coral between beach and sand. They have two large areas in the pool great for kids - they even have the lounges in the pool - maybe 6" deep.
There is a kids club for those a little older. Separate fenced sand play area - fully supervised. Monitors take the kids into the restaurants for lunch and we saw them throughout the hotel on "excursions". Do not know for a fact, but was told they had certified staff for nightime care. Better email them though.
Kids are welcomed in the restaurants and the staff is very friendly. Main bar at night is in the lobby and we saw many parents with small ones in strollers. Little smokey but not a big problem. Staff always have a smile and a hug for the little ones.
Now for the diving. I dove with Dressler and it was good. Boats are large but they are good at keeping groups to 8 or less. Dive boats run about 30 minutes late and I found that a problem until I adapted. You can get better prices and Dive with Martin was the perferred alternative of most but about 90 % of those at the hotel used Dressler. I found it a great way of meeting people as the numbers were such that you always had a different make-up within the group. If you care - not likely to have the same divemaster - hate to saw it but you save on tips. Big advantage to Dressler with non-divers is that they come back to the dock for SI. You can do a 8 AM ( 8:30 ) and be back about 10. You can package your dives as singles, doubles and intermix. Found them to be very accommading with changes ie if your kids are fussy you can cancel or change a two tank into a single.
In summary , place is very kid friendly and think the advantages of Dressler outweigh the drawbacks. If I went with my buddies - would stay closer to town and use a smaller more intense operator - but for you - think the Iberostar is perfect.

 

[coralfreak]

Thanks all... great info. I did book with dresser and after hearing about all of that I wanted to e-mail them and ask if this will be the case... BUT, I'll deal with this situation when I get there if I have to. I'm looking forward to the trip. long overdue.