Cozumel dive center recommendations for base OW PADI certification?

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I would bet that most of the dive guides for the bigger operators are also instructors.

I thought I would weigh in on the question of doing some or all of the certification at home.

I was an instructor in Colorado, where our ability to conduct OW dives is extremely limited. The overwhelming majority of our students did their classroom and pool work with us and then did the OW dives at some tropical resort. Consequently, we poured all our efforts into the class and pool work. I worked for two shops, and I assure you that the pool training was thorough in both. When we did the OW dives ourselves, it was usually in a very shallow, murky lake, where it was tough to do a meaningful dive.

I myself was certified fully in a tropical resort, and they were just the opposite. The pool work was done in a very shallow pool, too shallow to do some of the required skills, because that was all that was available to them at the resort. We just breezed through the most important skills and skipped the rest. I saw the same thing many times when I was in tropical locations and saw classes being conducted. The pool work barely qualified. On the other hand, the OW dives for the course can be excellent because they have really good diving sites, unlike the shallow murky ponds in Colorado.

While this is certainly not universally true, for many people living in locations with the kind of limitations we have in Colorado, the ideal situation is to get through the pool work at home and do the OW work on vacation.
 
In September we completed our advanced open water with Roberta's Scuba Shack (Scuba Diving Cozumel MX - Roberta's Scuba Shack) and we had an amazing experience. Great instructor for just the two of us. When we did boat dives we had the instructor with us and the usual guides for the rest of the divers. The shore diving from the shop is pretty nice. It is close to the cruise terminal which is the one downside.
They have a great little hotel right across the street and there is a pool where you could do you pool dives if needed. They provide breakfast and have homemade bread in the mornings.
Overall we had an excellent experience. They are a few km south of San Miguel so we walked/took a taxi into town for dinners.
 
I want to thank everyone for their advice and sharing their experiences. I ended up doing the whole OW course with ScubaJuan, including the paperbook work. I also had time to do another 6 post-course dives, including a night dive and a C53 wreck dive. Heading back today to get some more experience under my belt, work on my buoyancy, and sample a few other dive operations. Thanks all!
 

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