Dressel Cozumel

[hollanddiver]

Hello,

Who has been to Dressel Divers in Cozumel and can give me some general info
about the way it works over there.

 

[livewire]

I posted this in a prior thread, but hopefully it helps you here...

I stayed at the Iberostar at the end of November 07 and dove both Dressel Divers (the on site shop) AND Dive with Martin. I would HIGHLY recommend Dive with Martin over Dressel. Not that Dressel Divers was a bad outfit, it was just very different and there are some perks to going with Dive with Martin. Here are some highlights to each:

Dressel Divers:
1. Dressel has a couple of big boats. If you are there at the same time as a large group, things move slowly and you'll have to deal with the crowd moving on and off the boat. To their credit they limit it to 6 divers per DM, but you've still got a big crowd getting in and out of the water, so it takes a bit of time.
2. With Dressel when you get back, now all the divers are back so there is a little competition for the rinse tanks and lunch is now more crowded.
3. With Dressel, you do one dive and back to the dock. They offload and reload tanks and divers, and then head out again for the 2nd dive. Again, with a larger group present this is time consuming, although some people like the idea of coming back to the dock going to their room, or grabbing a quick snack before the 2nd dive.
4. Dressel dives on a fixed schedule for which dive sites they go to on particular days of the week. It can change because of conditions, but usually it's pretty rigid. This can pose a problem if there's a site you really want to see but can't get to because of their schedule. Here's the schedule (sorry for the eye chart):

Dive with Martin:
1. No set schedule for dive sites! Dive with Martin will pick you up at the Iberostar dock and take you anywhere you want to dive. For example, one day we showed up and one of the divers suggested Maracaibo. No problem, we headed out there, no extra charge.
2. The boats are smaller and carry no more than 6 divers so you will always get individualized attention. Also, the crew sets up your BC and reg for you, so you don't have to deal with that if you don't want to. With Dressel you set up your BC and reg and carry it on and off the boat. With Martin, they set it up and keep it for you overnight and clean it for you too, so no need to carry it on/off the boat every day.
3. There is no return to the dock between dives. While you can't go back to your room or to the restaurant, this saves TONS of time, and they do provide beverages and a fruit snack. This equals more time in the hammock later.
4. You get back to the dock at Iberostar 30-45 minutes before Dressel gets back. This is a really nice perk. When you get back the rinse tanks are wide open since no one's there, and you have plenty of time to go back to the room, shower, and get to the restaurant before the Dressel boats get back!

I think the Iberostar is one of the best places to stay as well. The food is great, staff is nice, grounds were beautiful. The beds were a little too firm for my taste, but you can't win them all. Some complained about bugs, but we found it's pretty easily controlled with bug spray, especially in the evenings. The biggest bonus for us is its location and proximity to the dive sites. Boat trips are all about 5-10 minutes out. Can't beat that! Have a WONDERFUL trip! I hope this helped!

 

[CMAN]

We stayed at Iberostar last March and did one dive (afternoon,two tanks) with Dessel. They are the "house" operator. They have a large dive boat that allows them to go out when its to rough for the "six pack" operators to go out. Their boat had about 20 divers total on it when we dove with them and 5 or 6 divers per group. They use aluminum 80's and we got about 50-60 min per tank. They seemed like a very saafe operator and the crew was friendly and helpful. They served fruit between dives but not bottled water (they had cups and a cooler). All in all we had a good time diving with them. We dove with Liquid Blue the rest of the week (the weather calmed down) which I like better because of the smaller boat and steel 120's.

 

[ggunn]

IMO, the worst thing about their schedule is that they apparently never go to Columbia Shallows, which is in my view the best shallow dive that post-Wilma Cozumel has to offer.

 

[Dave Zimmerly]

We have used them twice while staying at the Iberostar, and in addition to what the others have said, we found the boats too crowded, strict dive times (45 min), grouping of divers with mixed experiences and the divemasters were not local. One dive the DM took the whole group down to 140' before we all aborted because the DM couldn't find the reef.

They are an average dive shop. There are much better ones in Coz.

IMHO,
Dave (aka "Squirt")

 

[hollanddiver]

Thanks for the info

 

[hollanddiver]

I posted this in a prior thread, but hopefully it helps you here...

I stayed at the Iberostar at the end of November 07 and dove both Dressel Divers (the on site shop) AND Dive with Martin. I would HIGHLY recommend Dive with Martin over Dressel. Not that Dressel Divers was a bad outfit, it was just very different and there are some perks to going with Dive with Martin. Here are some highlights to each:

Dressel Divers:
1. Dressel has a couple of big boats. If you are there at the same time as a large group, things move slowly and you'll have to deal with the crowd moving on and off the boat. To their credit they limit it to 6 divers per DM, but you've still got a big crowd getting in and out of the water, so it takes a bit of time.
2. With Dressel when you get back, now all the divers are back so there is a little competition for the rinse tanks and lunch is now more crowded.
3. With Dressel, you do one dive and back to the dock. They offload and reload tanks and divers, and then head out again for the 2nd dive. Again, with a larger group present this is time consuming, although some people like the idea of coming back to the dock going to their room, or grabbing a quick snack before the 2nd dive.
4. Dressel dives on a fixed schedule for which dive sites they go to on particular days of the week. It can change because of conditions, but usually it's pretty rigid. This can pose a problem if there's a site you really want to see but can't get to because of their schedule. Here's the schedule (sorry for the eye chart):

Dive with Martin:
1. No set schedule for dive sites! Dive with Martin will pick you up at the Iberostar dock and take you anywhere you want to dive. For example, one day we showed up and one of the divers suggested Maracaibo. No problem, we headed out there, no extra charge.
2. The boats are smaller and carry no more than 6 divers so you will always get individualized attention. Also, the crew sets up your BC and reg for you, so you don't have to deal with that if you don't want to. With Dressel you set up your BC and reg and carry it on and off the boat. With Martin, they set it up and keep it for you overnight and clean it for you too, so no need to carry it on/off the boat every day.
3. There is no return to the dock between dives. While you can't go back to your room or to the restaurant, this saves TONS of time, and they do provide beverages and a fruit snack. This equals more time in the hammock later.
4. You get back to the dock at Iberostar 30-45 minutes before Dressel gets back. This is a really nice perk. When you get back the rinse tanks are wide open since no one's there, and you have plenty of time to go back to the room, shower, and get to the restaurant before the Dressel boats get back!

I think the Iberostar is one of the best places to stay as well. The food is great, staff is nice, grounds were beautiful. The beds were a little too firm for my taste, but you can't win them all. Some complained about bugs, but we found it's pretty easily controlled with bug spray, especially in the evenings. The biggest bonus for us is its location and proximity to the dive sites. Boat trips are all about 5-10 minutes out. Can't beat that! Have a WONDERFUL trip! I hope this helped!

Thank you for the information. I see I have more options.
I can't wait to get there

 

[redacted]

I have never dove with Dressler but had heard bad things about them. I was surprised las Dec while diving with Blue XT (a great operation) to find a Dressler boat all the way down on Maricibo. The previous summer while diving with DWM, I requested Maricibo (shallows so it was not a diver qualification thing) but was told it was too far down for them to go.