Caryn
Registered
Regarding the Iberostar in Cozumel, it is a nice hotel, and ok for non-divers, and especially for kids. But it was DEFINATELY not a good resort if you scuba dive, for the following reasons:
The dive operation onsite is mostly for inexperienced divers (although the dive shop employees were very nice.) Their boats are over-crowded, and the dive masters hover over you like you're a first time diver, i.e. every 10 minutes the dm was blowing her horn and gathering everyone together to check their air - it was VERY annoying. We went on a night dive with them, and all of their dive lights died underwater, so they had to end their dive (we had our own lights which were fine, so we finished the dive alone.) In addition, they overcharged us $15 one dive, and then didn't want to give us a refund! (They gave us a polo shirt instead, which was fine.) (FYI, we dove the rest of the days with Papa Hoggs, which was great.)
The resort meal times are not in line with the diving times. So when we came back from diving, the restaurants were often closed, and we had to wait an hour or more before the next one opened so we could eat. That was a major problem.
The specialty restaurants (2 of them) require reservations. You can only make reservations from 9-10:30 am and from 4:30-5pm - we were diving those times, and they would not make any exceptions. We were there 7 nights and never were able to eat in those restaurants, which pissed us off (we complained, but they wouldn't do anything for us.)
If you dive the day you check-out (we weren't flying that day,) you'll need a late checkout and they charge by the hour for a late checkout (anything after 12pm)
There is absolutely nowhere to hang any of your dive gear, bathings suits, etc in the room, and they ask you not to hang it on the balcony (although everyone did, because what else were we supposed to do?!)
The rooms are very small, there's very little room for your gear in general.
The dive operation onsite is mostly for inexperienced divers (although the dive shop employees were very nice.) Their boats are over-crowded, and the dive masters hover over you like you're a first time diver, i.e. every 10 minutes the dm was blowing her horn and gathering everyone together to check their air - it was VERY annoying. We went on a night dive with them, and all of their dive lights died underwater, so they had to end their dive (we had our own lights which were fine, so we finished the dive alone.) In addition, they overcharged us $15 one dive, and then didn't want to give us a refund! (They gave us a polo shirt instead, which was fine.) (FYI, we dove the rest of the days with Papa Hoggs, which was great.)
The resort meal times are not in line with the diving times. So when we came back from diving, the restaurants were often closed, and we had to wait an hour or more before the next one opened so we could eat. That was a major problem.
The specialty restaurants (2 of them) require reservations. You can only make reservations from 9-10:30 am and from 4:30-5pm - we were diving those times, and they would not make any exceptions. We were there 7 nights and never were able to eat in those restaurants, which pissed us off (we complained, but they wouldn't do anything for us.)
If you dive the day you check-out (we weren't flying that day,) you'll need a late checkout and they charge by the hour for a late checkout (anything after 12pm)
There is absolutely nowhere to hang any of your dive gear, bathings suits, etc in the room, and they ask you not to hang it on the balcony (although everyone did, because what else were we supposed to do?!)
The rooms are very small, there's very little room for your gear in general.
