Areas to avoid?
- Thread starter dogbone
- 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
cozcharlie
Contributor
This is a wide open question. You can stay at a B&B for $30-40 dollars a night, you can stay in ocean front suite for $400/night+. Do you want to be somewhere you can snorkel/sit on a beach, or do you want to be in town and walk to one of the many good restaurants? Most people on this board don't recommend the all inclusives because we have our favorite local restaurants, but some people like all inclusives (especially families with kids).
A lot of the dive "shops" here don't even have a physical location. You meet them at the marina, they pick you up at hotel pier, or you meet at a pier somewhere. Clearly some do have physical locations but it usually isn't necessary to go there for day to day diving (especially if you are being picked up at a hotel). Bottom line is I wouldn't sweat the dive shop location. Find where you want to stay, and then find a dive shop that works with your situation. Generally wouldn't recommend higher volume dive shops affiliated with the big all inclusive hotels, but even those might suit your needs if they are pretty basic. There are more than a dozen highly thought of boutique dive shops that are frequented by people on this board (and probably a 100+ dive operations on the island).
IMO, it's safe here, you do need to use common sense but it's fine. If I were staying here, somewhere in Centro will give you access to any dive shop and all sorts of food and shopping options, all while on foot.
Try and find somewhere no farther inland than 30, say maybe Xe-Ha to the South and 10 to the North - that's a pretty big area. Beware of internet pictures and descriptions, you know how that can be - I live here, if you want someone to look at it and give you opinion, just ask.
I probably should have provided a bit more information. I don't like resorts even a little bit, particularly AI. Don't need ocean front or fancy, but clean and safe. If it's got some local feel, all the better. If I didn't want the culture I wouldn't travel.
I want to be able to get to local restaurants fairly easily, but not interested in fancy ones. I like smaller dive shops so don't need or want one affiliated with a AI hotel. I think I'd like to find a shop, if they exist there, where I can leave my gear so I don't have to carry it back and forth. Thanks for the info!
Like Charlie said earlier, so many shops don't even have a "shop" - I like different ones for different things. How long are you here, you want to dive every day? If you're solo, need to get you with someplace that has enough people because most won't take just you. Do you like long dives, normal dives, looking for little things, just being underwater or all of the above LOL?
jbjclj
Contributor
Try casa lotus a small verbo across the street from Tres Pelicanos and in the heart of the dining district
Similar threads
