tecbarrera
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Hi everyone! Just thought I'd contribute to the forums a little about the honeymoon my wife and I just got back from in Cancun! Hope this helps any would-be vacation divers who need a little help finding a good dive operator.
Before our trip, I did some extensive research on and received numerous cut and paste responses from several larger dive operators (I won't mention names, but they have all been mentioned in this forum. One even replied to my email wherein I requested personalized packages with a direct cut and paste of their website... Not a good start at all!). Luckily, thanks to this forum, I came across Alvaro Gonzalez of Alwaysdiving.com. He and his small team were the only ones who actually seemed to have read my email and replied with a highly personalized response, unlike the spam and unwanted mailing list add-ons of the other operators. Good start! So we decided to give Alvaro a try. He did come highly recommended by divers on this forum after all! We also dove with new BCDs. I bought my wife and I Zeagle Express Tech BCs with the Zip-Touch integrated weight system. Totally awesome compared to our old jacket BCDs. Light and modular, it was like wearing a backpack in the water. I highly recommend it if you're in the market for a new BC.
Let me make this perfectly clear: I CANNOT RECOMMEND ALVARO HIGHLY ENOUGH!!! Extremely personalized service, totally above and beyond just the diving. Initially, due to our budget (we had already splurged a rather hefty amount on our Secrets Maroma Beach Resort suite) we had planned on only doing 2 dives on our honeymoon. After emailing Alvaro, not only did we decide to increase our dives, but we went all the way and decided to dive for 3 days and get our Advanced Open Water certification with him! His pricing was just that good!
Now for the actual dive report. (Sorry for the 'marketing spiel' above. But I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and Alvaro and his team certainly deserve all the credit I can give!) We started out with Cancun. Beautiful beautiful ocean with water visibility over 20 meters! (This was generally the vis conditions we experienced throughout our stay). Alvaro decided to throw in an extra dive for free, but unfortunately, we got horribly sea-sick so we had to turn back.
The day after, he took us to Playa Del Carmen and Isla Tortugas (taking into account that we get sea-sick, he took us to areas with calmer water). There was a bit of a current and enjoyed a nice drift dive. LOTS of sea turtles!!! Even got to touch a few! We also saw a stingray and some scorpion fish. I forgot the name... but there was one of those big fish you see hanging out with sharks. Pretty cool! Got up nice and close too! I've been diving for a little over 5 years now, and that was by far the best dive I've ever experienced.
The next day we went to Cozumel. On route to the dive site, we saw wild dolphins and jumped in for a swim with them. Wife's childhood dream: Accomplished! Got back on the boat and headed out to do our navigation test and wreck dive. Also amazing! Wall diving in Cozumel is breathtaking! Can't count how many times I had to remember to breathe in pure awe. It's a must if you're diving in Mexico!
So those were our planned dives. Alvaro told us about the Cenotes and that he was diving at Angelita and Chac-Mool cenotes the next day and invited us... So we did! It's really something else! Words can't do it justice, so you'll just have to go and try it for yourselves! After the cenotes, Alvaro took us for some fish and shrimp tacos at Taco Paco. Best tacos ever!
In case you need visuals, I posted up our diving photos on my Flickr page. Flickr:. Hope this report whets your appetite for a good Mexican dive trip! We'll definitely be heading back!
Before our trip, I did some extensive research on and received numerous cut and paste responses from several larger dive operators (I won't mention names, but they have all been mentioned in this forum. One even replied to my email wherein I requested personalized packages with a direct cut and paste of their website... Not a good start at all!). Luckily, thanks to this forum, I came across Alvaro Gonzalez of Alwaysdiving.com. He and his small team were the only ones who actually seemed to have read my email and replied with a highly personalized response, unlike the spam and unwanted mailing list add-ons of the other operators. Good start! So we decided to give Alvaro a try. He did come highly recommended by divers on this forum after all! We also dove with new BCDs. I bought my wife and I Zeagle Express Tech BCs with the Zip-Touch integrated weight system. Totally awesome compared to our old jacket BCDs. Light and modular, it was like wearing a backpack in the water. I highly recommend it if you're in the market for a new BC.
Let me make this perfectly clear: I CANNOT RECOMMEND ALVARO HIGHLY ENOUGH!!! Extremely personalized service, totally above and beyond just the diving. Initially, due to our budget (we had already splurged a rather hefty amount on our Secrets Maroma Beach Resort suite) we had planned on only doing 2 dives on our honeymoon. After emailing Alvaro, not only did we decide to increase our dives, but we went all the way and decided to dive for 3 days and get our Advanced Open Water certification with him! His pricing was just that good!
Now for the actual dive report. (Sorry for the 'marketing spiel' above. But I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and Alvaro and his team certainly deserve all the credit I can give!) We started out with Cancun. Beautiful beautiful ocean with water visibility over 20 meters! (This was generally the vis conditions we experienced throughout our stay). Alvaro decided to throw in an extra dive for free, but unfortunately, we got horribly sea-sick so we had to turn back.
The day after, he took us to Playa Del Carmen and Isla Tortugas (taking into account that we get sea-sick, he took us to areas with calmer water). There was a bit of a current and enjoyed a nice drift dive. LOTS of sea turtles!!! Even got to touch a few! We also saw a stingray and some scorpion fish. I forgot the name... but there was one of those big fish you see hanging out with sharks. Pretty cool! Got up nice and close too! I've been diving for a little over 5 years now, and that was by far the best dive I've ever experienced.
The next day we went to Cozumel. On route to the dive site, we saw wild dolphins and jumped in for a swim with them. Wife's childhood dream: Accomplished! Got back on the boat and headed out to do our navigation test and wreck dive. Also amazing! Wall diving in Cozumel is breathtaking! Can't count how many times I had to remember to breathe in pure awe. It's a must if you're diving in Mexico!
So those were our planned dives. Alvaro told us about the Cenotes and that he was diving at Angelita and Chac-Mool cenotes the next day and invited us... So we did! It's really something else! Words can't do it justice, so you'll just have to go and try it for yourselves! After the cenotes, Alvaro took us for some fish and shrimp tacos at Taco Paco. Best tacos ever!
In case you need visuals, I posted up our diving photos on my Flickr page. Flickr:. Hope this report whets your appetite for a good Mexican dive trip! We'll definitely be heading back!
). Alvaro said that's around the time the bull sharks come out.
