Christmas Diving in Cozumel

[bethbsting]

We are going on our first dive trip to Cozumel. Do we need to book in advance with a dive operation or should we wait and see who we want to dive with? We are staying at Allegro Cozumel and have read both good and bad reviews on Dive Palancar. I have yet to get them to send me an email back with their pricing.

What about availabilty for Christmas dives? Are the dive ops open on Christmas day? Thanks

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

Welcome to Scubaboard! I have been to Cozumel four or five times and we always book in advance. On the other hand I am a Type A when it comes to that stuff. For what it is worth I always dive with Aldora and have never had a bad experience with them. Can't help with the Christmas Day questions but that might be a good reason to book in advance. Good luck!

 

[5615mike]

Christmas is the start of high season so I would without question book in advance.

 

[ronrosa]

The Allegro is very close to the southern reefs. You don't have to use Dive Palancar. Any dive operator can pick you up at the Allegro dock.

Advantages to using Dive Palancar include:

- Fast and easy to check in and register
- Dive shop conveniently located
- Easy to socialize with your boatmates after diving
- Multiple departure times
- Dives are single tank allowing SI at the resort


Disadvantages include:

- Set maximum dive times of 45 min.
- Dive site selection limited to southern reefs
- Mixed diver abilities on the same boat
- Advanced dive sites usually not done


How much diving are you looking to do ? What kind of dive experience do you have ?

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

ronrosa once bubbled...
Disadvantages include:

- Set maximum dive times of 45 min.
- Mixed diver abilities on the same boat
- Advanced dive sites usually not done

Yuuuck!

 

[Len]

Tim Ingersoll once bubbled...
Yuuuck!

Aldora $87 for 2 tank dive.......double yuuuck !!

 

[ronrosa]

Len once bubbled...

Aldora $87 for 2 tank dive.......double yuuuck !!

Aldora advantages include:

- input on dive site selections
- north reefs, south reefs, in between, where ever you want
- dive until your tank is at 500 psi or to NDL limits
- separate boats for separate ability divers
- maximum of 6 divers per boat
- high capacity tanks
- 2 hour surface intervals at a beach club

This past October I did 6 dives with Aldora. My average bottom time was 75 minutes, longest 90 minutes. They split 11 divers into 3 different boats to accomodate varing diver abilities.

To each his own.

 

[ggunn]

ronrosa once bubbled...



Aldora advantages include:

- input on dive site selections
- north reefs, south reefs, in between, where ever you want
- dive until your tank is at 500 psi or to NDL limits
- separate boats for separate ability divers
- maximum of 6 divers per boat
- high capacity tanks
- 2 hour surface intervals at a beach club

- input on dive site selections
Not exclusive to Aldora, a common practice of many DO's on Cozumel.

- north reefs, south reefs, in between, where ever you want
Not exclusive to Aldora, a common practice of many DO's on Cozumel.

- dive until your tank is at 500 psi or to NDL limits
Not exclusive to Aldora, a common practice of many DO's on Cozumel.

- maximum of 6 divers per boat
Not exclusive to Aldora, a common practice of many DO's on Cozumel.

- 2 hour surface intervals at a beach club
Not exclusive to Aldora, a common practice of many DO's on Cozumel.

That leaves
- separate boats for separate ability divers
Aldora is not the only op that does this.

- high capacity tanks
At least two other DO's offer them, and it's a marginal benefit anyway on deeper dives if you are good at controlling your air consumption.

As you say, to each his own, but the diffs to me do not nearly justify the nearly doubling of the price.

 

[bethbsting]

ronrosa once bubbled...
How much diving are you looking to do ? What kind of dive experience do you have ?

Thanks for all the input! Wow, I am impressed by the friendliness and response time on this site!

We will be there for 6 full days. We are looking to dive for at least 4 days and have a few 2 or 3 tank dives. Also a night/twilight dive would be great! This will be our first dive after OW certification. We went to St Lucia but got chest colds so we wound up snorkeling. It was beautiful there, but a disappointment to not dive.

We want to dive as much as possible to get experience and then come back and get Advanced OW certification. We have all our own equipment except for tanks and weights.

With the response that Dive Palancar is limited to 45 min dives and that they are limited to the southern reefs, I wonder if we should sign up with them for our first day and then find another dive operator for the other dives? I think we could use them for helping to establish our buoyancy and the unlimited shore dives.

Any recommendations on scuba operators based on our lack of experience and time frame? Is it better to stick with one dive op or to check out more than two?

 

[ronrosa]

Let's not do another Aldora debate.

How about this.

Highly regarded dive operators include.....

I'll start.

From personal experience:

Living Underwater & Aldora.



From word of mouth:

Cozumel Equalizers, Deep Blue, Blue XT Sea, Papa Hogs, Liquid Blue.