Cozumel Trip Report, Late May – Early June 2017

[Dave Dillehay]

Dear BDSC,

To expect a precise reservation made in Feb to be remembered in June with out some sort of more current confirmation is a bit presumptuous. I am not sure which axe the OP wants to grind but the fact is that the only night he was denied a night dive was Sunday night. I trust the memory and dedication of my front desk staff and they well remember. Other than that he did get two night dives in with Aldora

IT MIGHT BE FUN TO POLL OTHERS WHO MISSED GUARANTEED NIGHT DIVES IN OUR 25 YEARS.

DAVE DILLEHAY
ALDORA DIVERS

 

[BDSC]

Dear BDSC,

To expect a precise reservation made in Feb to be remembered in June with out some sort of more current confirmation is a bit presumptuous. I am not sure which axe the OP wants to grind but the fact is that the only night he was denied a night dive was Sunday night. I trust the memory and dedication of my front desk staff and they well remember. Other than that he did get two night dives in with Aldora

IT MIGHT BE FUN TO POLL OTHERS WHO MISSED GUARANTEED NIGHT DIVES IN OUR 25 YEARS.

DAVE DILLEHAY
ALDORA DIVERS

Really Dave? Seriously?

So a guy makes a reservation in February. Did anyone in the shop write it down? Do you have a calendar? How did you guys remember the other dives he signed up for but not remember the night dive?

The OP wants to grind an axe? That's just great. I love that explanation. The guy simply related a not so positive experience with your outfit. Then you claim it couldn't possibly happen the way he said it did. But the OP was able to show that, in fact, he has an email from the shop confirming he was booked for a night dive either on Wednesday or Saturday. The guy shows up and they don't take him out. Now we are supposed to believe he showed up on the wrong night.

Are you ready for this, Dave says "I trust the memory and dedication of my front desk and they well remember" but to remember a reservation made in February without someone reminding them about it is a bit presumptuous.

You take the cake Bro!

 

[Ironborn]

Dear BDSC,

To expect a precise reservation made in Feb to be remembered in June with out some sort of more current confirmation is a bit presumptuous. I am not sure which axe the OP wants to grind but the fact is that the only night he was denied a night dive was Sunday night. I trust the memory and dedication of my front desk staff and they well remember. Other than that he did get two night dives in with Aldora

IT MIGHT BE FUN TO POLL OTHERS WHO MISSED GUARANTEED NIGHT DIVES IN OUR 25 YEARS.

DAVE DILLEHAY
ALDORA DIVERS

I did reconfirm that Saturday night dive in an email exchange with Aldora on Tuesday, May 23 - four days before it was supposed to occur. I have already posted a screen shot of that email twice on this thread - but here it is again, in case anyone missed it. The Aldora employee was clearly aware of my reservation when I arrived; they had not forgotten about it, they just decided not to honor it.

The above post contains two falsehoods. I only did one night dive with Aldora as part of a two-tank twilight trip (the first dive of which was still during the daylight). I would have done two night dives with Aldora if Aldora had honored my "guaranteed" booking of the Saturday night dive.

The other falsehood is the above claim that the only night that I was denied a night dive was on Sunday night. I was denied the "guaranteed" night dive on a Saturday night. Please see the attached screen capture of my text message on the evening of Saturday, May 27, in which I informed another diver that Aldora had cancelled the "guaranteed" night dive, so I would be joining 3P's night dive instead.

I did also request night dives on any other, non-guaranteed nights on which they might be available, but they were not - and I do not hold that against Aldora or fault them for it, as they had not made any guarantees or other claims about their ability to accommodate me on those other, non-guaranteed nights. I do, however, have an "axe to grind" against false advertising and "guarantees" that do not come to fruition.

 

[ggunn]

You guys wanna take this outside? Bygones.

 

[robint]

ggunn....exactly my point in my post.... lessons learned, time for both parties to move on.

 

[deepsea21]

Your comment raises another issue that struck me in my pre-trip research on this sub-forum and in my interactions with other divers once I was there - that there are many regulars who go to Cozumel very frequently, and often mainly or exclusively, i.e. they dive mostly or entirely there and rarely or never go anywhere else. I am genuinely curious as to why. Even if you really like it, aren't there other places that might appeal to you too? What is so addictive about it?

For me, Cozumel was a bucket list item, along with other destinations, e.g. Bonaire, Saba, Roatan, etc. I did not plan on returning even when I was originally planning my trip, as I rarely visit the same places twice after I have "been there and done that." It is a big world out there, and I want to see as much of it as possible before I croak, so a place that I visit has to make a really powerful impression on me in order to persuade me to return, when I could instead use that time and money to visit another place that I have not yet experienced. Cozumel did not impress me enough to prompt me to revise my plans to not return, as only about 1/3 of the dive sites really suited my personal taste.

Plain and simple - it comes down to economics for me. Coz offers world class diving at a total trip price that can't be matched (this is why it is common to see divers from Europe and even the far east on your boat checking Coz off their "bucket list"). Would I love to dive many other far away and exotic destinations? Of course I would but given the cost and having spoken with many divers who've "been there and done that" they too always seem to have Coz on their regular "annual" list for the same reason... Can't beat the quality for the price. As such, Coz is "good enough" for my working years and I'll look to start on a bucket list in retirement when the heavy bill paying and plowing $ into retirement accounts is over and done. Furthermore, like most, I'm worth far more dead than alive so if I'm killed in a car crash tomorrow my wife can start diving the world for the rest of her life starting Wednesday!

I'll also add that for me personally, my enjoyment of a good destination increases every time I re-visit it. After 15? years of diving Coz we've found the best times to be had for us topside as well as diving and it's cool to be recognized topside by resort, dive, and restaurant staff who actually remember our us. That makes it a dive home for me and, of course, my conversational Spanish gets a bit better with every trip as I enjoy learning more Spanish as much as locals seem to enjoy teaching me more.

 

[ronscuba]

Plain and simple - it comes down to economics for me. Coz offers world class diving at a total trip price that can't be matched...

For me it is the air travel time. Strangely, the costs of the diving is often cheaper even though the quality of the diving is higher. For example check compare liveaboard costs in Maldives or Red Sea vs. Caribbean.

 

[deepsea21]

For me it is the air travel time. Strangely, the costs of the diving is often cheaper even though the quality of the diving is higher. For example check compare liveaboard costs in Maldives or Red Sea vs. Caribbean.

Yes, if we all enjoyed free airfare it would be a very cheap world to explore. Airfare is the killer.

 

[tridacna]

Not the airfare. $660 round trip from Newark to Manila. It's the travel time that's the killer.

 

[Ironborn]

Plain and simple - it comes down to economics for me. Coz offers world class diving at a total trip price that can't be matched (this is why it is common to see divers from Europe and even the far east on your boat checking Coz off their "bucket list"). Would I love to dive many other far away and exotic destinations? Of course I would but given the cost and having spoken with many divers who've "been there and done that" they too always seem to have Coz on their regular "annual" list for the same reason... Can't beat the quality for the price. As such, Coz is "good enough" for my working years and I'll look to start on a bucket list in retirement when the heavy bill paying and plowing $ into retirement accounts is over and done. Furthermore, like most, I'm worth far more dead than alive so if I'm killed in a car crash tomorrow my wife can start diving the world for the rest of her life starting Wednesday!

I'll also add that for me personally, my enjoyment of a good destination increases every time I re-visit it. After 15? years of diving Coz we've found the best times to be had for us topside as well as diving and it's cool to be recognized topside by resort, dive, and restaurant staff who actually remember our us. That makes it a dive home for me and, of course, my conversational Spanish gets a bit better with every trip as I enjoy learning more Spanish as much as locals seem to enjoy teaching me more.

I have been taking the opposite approach, and not just to diving trips, but to other trips and to life in general. I figure that I should spend my relative youth (I am 36) exploring the world, shopping around, and trying new and different things while I still can. I am working on my bucket list now because, for all I know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I figure that, by the time I retire, I will have seen enough of the world to "settle down" with a few regular destinations that I like the best and yield the best value for the money (for me).