Cozumel / Playa Aug 2011 Trip report: Hotel Cozumel, Dive Paradise, etc

[Mike]

The extra stops our boats were forced to make were certainly not 2-minute delays. The delays ranged from 10 minutes to one hour. The rest of your reply makes a host of assumptions and simply isn't accurate.

:shocked2: an hour! WOW, I'd be pissed too. What the heck takes an hour to do? My experiences with DP doing the quick stop next door were always just a very quick stop, the stuff would be waiting for them at the dock, the boat would pull in, barely stop enough for somebody to jump off and grab some gear on the dock and jump back on. An hour is crazy!

 

[Power Scuba]

The one hour+ stop was for gas inside the anchorage cove/harbor. Why they hadn't taken care of that prior to picking us up I don't know.

Then two separate stops again inside their cove anchorage to exchange the entire load of bottles. 40+ minutes each time.

Assorted other stops, throughout our stay, at their "second" (home) pier as well.

When you have a 75-100 minute journey in front of you the last thing you want is uncessary stops of that magnitude.

Every one of our stops could have been avoided with proper planning and logistics on the part of Dive Paradise Staff.

Bill Powers

 

[warmwaterturner]

49 people on a tour........you must have been Narced. Thanks for the trip report!

 

[DandyDon]

The one hour+ stop was for gas inside the anchorage cove/harbor. Why they hadn't taken care of that prior to picking us up I don't know.

Then two separate stops again inside their cove anchorage to exchange the entire load of bottles. 40+ minutes each time.

Assorted other stops, throughout our stay, at their "second" (home) pier as well.

When you have a 75-100 minute journey in front of you the last thing you want is uncessary stops of that magnitude.

Every one of our stops could have been avoided with proper planning and logistics on the part of Dive Paradise Staff.

Bill Powers

Dreadful. Too bad you didn't include this in your first post. Maybe you did on the original text that was removed from article comments, but this is the place to post such.

And with the owner disabled I guess you had no recourse.

Group trips to Coz can be fun I guess, but it's so easy to do Coz without a group, for less money - then change Ops if needed.

 

[Power Scuba]

Don,

My gang of 49 was a delight. Most of us are from the same area (San Diego) and dive together regularly. We did this trip in a no-profit manner, which really made a difference price-wise. Regardless of the class level of the resort and dive op, not running the trip to make a buck can result in great savings for the group. I funneled free spots and my group leader commision (12%) back into everyone's price.

Plus I was able to negotiate some excellent perks and side deals. As I related in my original post here those perks didn't always get translated effectively to the people who were supposed to implement them, but it worked out eventually. Just took a lot more time, talking, demanding, and proferring of emails-as-proof than usual.

I'm actually surprised that my comments on the Dos Ojos ceynote tour really being a cave dive in some areas didn't get any interest / replies. I perfomed decent due dilligence on this one beforehand and never saw a mention of that ceynote tour having cave-like aspects. (I'm not referring to the Dos Ojos cave route. We didn't enter that.)

Bill Powers

 

[Mike]

The one hour+ stop was for gas inside the anchorage cove/harbor. Why they hadn't taken care of that prior to picking us up I don't know.

Then two separate stops again inside their cove anchorage to exchange the entire load of bottles. 40+ minutes each time.

Assorted other stops, throughout our stay, at their "second" (home) pier as well.

When you have a 75-100 minute journey in front of you the last thing you want is uncessary stops of that magnitude.

Every one of our stops could have been avoided with proper planning and logistics on the part of Dive Paradise Staff.

Bill Powers

Wish you'd actually said that in your original post. If I was responsible for the fun of 50 people I'd have had to have a talk with Apple about what was going on with that sort of thing. I mean sh*t happens sometimes.

Where the heck were you going in over an hour and a half boat ride? Tulum? That seems really excessive too.

I'm actually surprised that my comments on the Dos Ojos ceynote tour really being a cave dive in some areas didn't get any interest / replies. I perfomed decent due dilligence on this one beforehand and never saw a mention of that ceynote tour having cave-like aspects. (I'm not referring to the Dos Ojos cave route. We didn't enter that.)

Bill Powers

It's Mexico, really do we need to say more?

 

[DandyDon]

Wish you'd actually said that in your original post. If I was responsible for the fun of 50 people I'd have had to have a talk with Apple about what was going on with that sort of thing. I mean sh*t happens sometimes.

Where the heck were you going in over an hour and a half boat ride? Tulum? That seems really excessive too.



It's Mexico, really do we need to say more?

Apple was unable to be there after breaking her hip in a mugging; didn't I mention that above? DP boats are known to be slow.