For sure appreciate Dennis and Roxane for all their hard work. They are true rockstars. Overall an enjoyable trip because of their tireless efforts! I’m glad to have attended and met lots of nice people. Thanks to everyone for making it a great event in spite of the venue.
The frontline staff at the resort were mostly friendly and bent over backwards to make the stay as nice as possible. The wait staff in the pool area were tireless and hero’s of the whole resort. In general, the staff were the shining star of an otherwise old hotel. That being said, I will never go back to Hotel Cozumel or use Dive Paradise again. Disappointing hotel and dive op.
Here are a few reasons for this decision:
Hotel-
*AC was great. Super cold all week!
*Swimming pool looked nice although I did not use.
*Food was mediocre with limited choices and mostly repeating the same bland items over and over.
*Fish choice was usually shrimp cooked so long it was mushy in the shell. A couple nights did have a better white fish.
*Limited staffing at the made to order stations, particularly breakfast caused long waits.
*Hotel was clean but overall old with tiny bathrooms - sitting on the toilet my knees hit the wall in front of it and I’m not tall.
*Bikes were an appreciated hidden gem, but limited hours of use and difficult to check out.
*Resort was unable to support our wrap up party timing, basic AV needs, clean tablecloths or staff to support.
*Not the fault of the resort, but would have been nice if they were more proactive in notifying guests about the cost of taxi to the airport. I talked to two fellow attendees who got ripped off by the taxis and my driver was visibly mad when I simply said, "no that’s not the correct charge" after he tried the rip-off.
Diving-
*Boat crew very helpful with divers who needed assistance donning gear or less stable on the boat.
*Boats extremely slow - we had four days on Aries or Atlantis which took about 75 minutes+ to get to Palancar and consistently back to the hotel at 2pm+ except on days when we compromised on dive sites.
*A couple days the boat was packed so tight we had to take turns setting up our gear.
*Disappointed to see that the boat tips were pooled. I believe tipping is a personal decision and the combined tip jar nullifies everyone’s ability to directly reward individual performance unless they tipped before hand.
*We were refused 7:30am Friday morning shore dive tank rentals due to "boats at the dock" however none were observed and I heard later there were only one or two all morning (unconfirmed).
*Hidden gem - this refusal forced us to walk down to Blue Angel and discover their shore dive is much better than Dive Paradise.
*Inconsistent implementation with "off limits" dive sites compared to what was shared earlier.
*One person on our team had problems getting the 100cf tanks he paid for.
*Expensive for what you get - $100 per two tank boat dive with Nitrox is only slightly less then with the "boutique" dive ops who clean and store everything and use small fast boats.
I’ll say again, this is not intended as a reflection on Roxanne, Dennis, or Pete. I very much appreciated all their efforts.
edit to respond to
@drrich2 follow up questions below:
Why is BA dive site better? It has quite a lot of rocks, coral, etc. just to the north which attracts a larger variety of fish. We saw multiple eels, not just the sharp tails, two lionfish and etc. The fence to the south and the various pieces of cement is less attractive but provided much more cover for fish than at DP. We got more depth quickly and not just grass like at DP if you leave the iron shore area.
Taxi rip-off - Perhaps alleged is an accurate word to use, but I wouldn’t select it. I was told directly by the taxi driver that the bill was $300 pesos. When I told him in a not unfriendly tone that it was actually $200, he took the money and after being quite chatty on the entire ride, left abruptly without another word. I had to chase after him and signal to roll the window down so I could give him the tip.
