Guests of Sunscape, Secrets & Residencias Reef

[morecowbells]

From my perspective I think it is extremely "small and petty" of hotels to charge their guests to use a hotel facility like a dock. Why not the swimming Pool? Like Iberostar, I think most reasonable people should avoid these places and I will urge my hundreds of customers to look elsewhere for a hotel. Those idiot bean counters may think they can squeeze a few bucks out of each guest but I wonder how much empty rooms may cost them.

I suggest that all dive ops should pass this on.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

There is no doubt that these resorts are acting in a petty manner. However, I will continue to stay at the Residencias condos. The short boat rides and the resort grounds are what make me return on a regular basis. Obviously I am not thrilled about these new policies and tactics. This is a golden opportunity for competing dive ops to a) inform their customers of these new policies b) outline the options of pay, wade or chose a different pier. Hence, leaving the drama and agenda up to the customer to decide how they want to spend their $$$, without being unduly influenced by a dive operator with an axe to grind.

 

[Scubagolf]

From my perspective I think it is extremely "small and petty" of hotels to charge their guests to use a hotel facility like a dock. Why not the swimming Pool? Like Iberostar, I think most reasonable people should avoid these places and I will urge my hundreds of customers to look elsewhere for a hotel. Those idiot bean counters may think they can squeeze a few bucks out of each guest but I wonder how much empty rooms may cost them.

I suggest that all dive ops should pass this on.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

Charging facility fees is becoming ubiquitous and is a problem for travelers. We were in Dallas last weekend visiting our daughter. We booked a hotel from the hotel website for a base rate per night plus specific listed taxes and fees totaling $198 per night. When I checked out there was an $18 per night “convenience fee” added to the bill. It was quickly deleted when brought to the attention of the front desk, but I am betting many people don’t review the prepaid bill when checking out.

 

[ColoDale]

To the best of my knowledge Secrets / Aura etc leases the rights to the name & is owned by a group of investors who likely have a management company running things. Not sure if that's current but Tennis player Rafael Nadal was a part of the investor group.

Last I knew, Rafael Nadal and a few others owned it. The current management company is AMR which I believe at least owns Apple vacations. The also have other hotels where they manage and sell time shares.

 

[ronscuba]

Is this pier fee charged to all guests or only if the guest uses an outside operator ?

 

[ronscuba]

I kind of understand and respect the concept of a $2 pier fee. The purpose of the pier is to enable resort watersports operators to serve guests. If guests choose to use an outside operator, that is cutting into the resort operators business.

As a guest I don't like paying extra and I don't necessarily agree with it, but as a business person, I understand the point of view of the resort operator. If they make the $2 payment process easy, they will get zero complaints from me.

So you’d be OK with any resort or hotel with an on-site restaurant tacking a $2 “access fee” on to your bill for every pizza you have delivered from the outside. Heck, why stop there, since the resort is “all inclusive” maybe they should tack on a $20 surcharge every time one choses to leave the compound for any reason... with perhaps an exception granted for a medical emergency so long as you can prove it via presenting management with a Doctor’s letter upon your return.

You and I are on the same side. As I said, I don't like paying a pier fee, but I understand their point of view.

If you wanted your significant other or child to take a cert course in Cozumel and wanted to use the resort pool for convenience, but use an outside operator. Would you understand if the house op wanted to charge your instructor or you a small fee ?

2 opposing opinions can both have good points. It is not necessarily good vs evil as the tone of this thread feels.

$ 2

 

[ColoDale]

Hotel guests and I believe Residencias Reef using an outside dive op and the pier fee is charged to outside dive op, not guests. They did this sort of thing before with the concrete pier to the north years ago and charged guests. Then the same at the wooden pier. They stopped that and then nothing for quite awhile. They tried charging the dive ops before then stopped. Now their pier cop takes pics of the boat and they have a registration process and multiple copies of tickets that have to be purchased by the dive op. We have heard that at least Aura is trying to increase it's quality ratings (diamonds versus stars) and this added to the mix probably won't help. I can't tell exactly what the motivation for it is - cost recovery for maintenance, pressure from in house dive ops to force customers to use them (revenue), proprietary pride, and/or some sort of pier ownership battle. This has been going on for years off and on.

 

[Coztick]

Some divers have a spouse that doesn't dive.
To stay near town would and dive would separate them for 4 or 5 hours while the diver is obligated to do 2 dives and a si plus transportation usually further south than any A.I.
The onsite dive op offers what others can't.

The onsite operator is NOT part of the hotel - they PAY a very healthy concession fee for the right to be onsite and have facilities onsite.

So charge your customers whatever is necessary.
If I wanted to dive with Aldora, I would pay their price.
But they won't stop for any price...
But many will, and do.
My point is that outside ops offer a different experience and should charge different rates.
Any customer that's going to moan about 2 or 3 bucks while choosing there Caribbean dive op. is probably best referred to a cheaper op.
These people are rarely satisfied and won't tip or even appreciate a professional crew.....

 

[Christi]

OK - latest update on this pathetic attempt to charge for pier usage and the cumbersome and time sucking process. This was my experience and conversation 10 minutes ago!

I need to purchase more passes because I had some divers add some afternoon dives. I had only purchased what I knew I needed through January 31st for bookkeeping purposes - to keep it clean on the books. This is what I have dealt with this morning:

Since they are charging the fee in dollars, but we are required to pay in pesos at the bank for the passes - we have to first CALL the accounting office at Secrets to find out what exchange rate they are going to gouge us with on the day of purchase so that we can pay the correct amount in pesos to the bank. Today, that exchange rate was 19.72 which is less than the local banks are giving us - so these passes effectively cost MORE than $2 now.

But OOPS - seems they are terribly unprepared to provide the very thing they are requiring.

My conversation:
Secrets accounting clerk: "we don't have any more vouchers right now"
Me: Ok, then how will our guests gain pier access?
Secrets: "They cannot access the pier without the passes"
Me: OK , so how do we get the passes if you don't have any to sell? Can the guests pay for them at the hotel?
Secrets: No, because I am the only one responsible for the passes and I don't have time to receive guests to sell them vouchers everyday.
Me: That's convenient for you. So you all are forcing this on YOUR guests, but you don't have the passes to give out nor do you have a back-up solution?
Secrets: Well, just give me a list of your divers for each day and you can pay at the bank, then bring the receipt to the office and I will give you a letter for each day.
Me: Are you serious? And what if one of them gets sick and can't dive, or if they change their days or add more days? This is really a problem. I am not coming down there everyday.
Secrets: It's the only way
Me: OK, but I am sharing this information with the largest online scuba diving communities on the internet and will also post on my personal facebook page, Cozumel for You and on my website. Many operators have already suspended servicing guests at your hotel and we will all be discouraging our divers to stay at your resort. They are on vacation to relax and enjoy themselves and to be able to dive, fish or snorkel with whomever they choose without hassle. The fee is not even the biggest issue, it is the ridiculous procedures. By the way, yesterday, I threw away (shredded) 8 pieces of carbon backed (worthless paper) which were my copies of the vouchers for 4 guests for ONE day - this is incredibly wasteful - I can't even recycle them as scratch paper because you cannot write on the back of them with normal ink. Your policy will invariably cause you to lose guests. This is insanity!

So I am making it official, I will stop servicing Reef Residencias, Secrets and Sunscape until further notice. I will honor those with existing reservations.

 

[BRT]

OK - latest update on this pathetic attempt to charge for pier usage and the cumbersome and time sucking process. This was my experience and conversation 10 minutes ago!

I need to purchase more passes because I had some divers add some afternoon dives. I had only purchased what I knew I needed through January 31st for bookkeeping purposes - to keep it clean on the books. This is what I have dealt with this morning:

Since they are charging the fee in dollars, but we are required to pay in pesos at the bank for the passes - we have to first CALL the accounting office at Secrets to find out what exchange rate they are going to gouge us with on the day of purchase so that we can pay the correct amount in pesos to the bank. Today, that exchange rate was 19.72 which is less than the local banks are giving us - so these passes effectively cost MORE than $2 now.

But OOPS - seems they are terribly unprepared to provide the very thing they are requiring.

My conversation:
Secrets accounting clerk: "we don't have any more vouchers right now"
Me: Ok, then how will our guests gain pier access?
Secrets: "They cannot access the pier without the passes"
Me: OK , so how do we get the passes if you don't have any to sell? Can the guests pay for them at the hotel?
Secrets: No, because I am the only one responsible for the passes and I don't have time to receive guests to sell them vouchers everyday.
Me: That's convenient for you. So you all are forcing this on YOUR guests, but you don't have the passes to give out nor do you have a back-up solution?
Secrets: Well, just give me a list of your divers for each day and you can pay at the bank, then bring the receipt to the office and I will give you a letter for each day.
Me: Are you serious? And what if one of them gets sick and can't dive, or if they change their days or add more days? This is really a problem. I am not coming down there everyday.
Secrets: It's the only way
Me: OK, but I am sharing this information with the largest online scuba diving communities on the internet and will also post on my personal facebook page, Cozumel for You and on my website. Many operators have already suspended servicing guests at your hotel and we will all be discouraging our divers to stay at your resort. They are on vacation to relax and enjoy themselves and to be able to dive, fish or snorkel with whomever they choose without hassle. The fee is not even the biggest issue, it is the ridiculous procedures. By the way, yesterday, I threw away (shredded) 8 pieces of carbon backed (worthless paper) which were my copies of the vouchers for 4 guests for ONE day - this is incredibly wasteful - I can't even recycle them as scratch paper because you cannot write on the back of them with normal ink. Your policy will invariably cause you to lose guests.

So I am making it official, I will stop servicing Reef Residencias, Secrets and Sunscape until further notice. I will honor those with existing reservations.

Good for you Christi. No business needs to deal with that. Eventually it will get down to their guests only being able to dive with the pet dive shop and the guests and the policy will go away.

 

[cobra269]

Many years ago when the $2 fee was in place I witness a group of 4 divers for 5 days who didn't want to pay the fee so they waded out into the water on the left side of the pier. They would be about chest deep and then the dive boat would back up to them to pick then up and do the reverse on the return trip.