Iberostar vs Sunscape Sabor

[driftwood]

Which of the two AI's would you chose. Price difference between the packages is $60 for two people. Iberostar has free Nitrox (which my wife loves).

This will be our first AI stay in Mexico. Love to hear your thoughts.

 

[cvchief]

I like Ibero when were stayed there a number of years ago. You know LOTS of people don't dive with the house dive op and use another boutique op to get a more, shall we say, personal experience. (No cattle boats, no fixed schedule, dive YOUR tank without artificial limits, etc.) And while it doesn't matter so much to you, Iberostar charges outside op to pick up there, which I find an annoying practice on their part.

 

[Skittl1321]

We chose to stay at the Sabor our first trip. Mostly due to price. It is a budget AI, don't expect anything close to luxury. It was perfectly fine but we enjoyed our downtown room more. We did not dive with house op. Those who did seemed happy, but those boats were crowded. The biggest benefit to Sabor was the easy pick up from our op on the pier. Loved that!We never went hungry but the food was only ok. Pizza was horrible. Pools were nice, no swim up bar- it got reassigned to Secrets. Beach was good. Entertainment was minimal but we were always in bed. Lobby was comfortable; wifi free there but spotty. The room was fine, but insanely humid -the ac unit just couldn't keep up. Quite honestly I think Suites Bahia provided better value. We won't do AI again.

 

[redacted]

I have never stayed at Iberostar (but have many trips to the Occidental resort next door) and it has been at least 12 years since I stayed at the Reef Club which became the Sabor after refurbishment. It does look a lot better now. I am a bit surprised the price is that close as I always though the Iberostar was a bit more upscale - maybe not.

A drawback to the Iberostar is your options for dive ops. If you are happy with their in-house op then no issue. If you want to use one of the boutique op (there are some awfully good one as I'm sure Pete has told you), the Iberostar may limit your options. One nice thing about the Sabor is it looks like Dive Palancar is their in-house op. I would not recommend them as your main dive op unless you are happy with 35 to 45 minute dives. I used small boat op for morning dives when DP was at the Occidental. But DP did 4 single tank dive every day so wife and I got a 10 dive package from them and did single afternoon dives and 6th day dives with them as well as night dives. One possible issue with the Sabor is the location of their dock. It is not clear from the pictures how far you need to go to get to whatever dock they are using. I think they share a dock with Secrets next door.

Enjoy

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Most independent dive ops will NOT pick you up from the Iberostar, and unless you want to wade out to a dive boat you are stuck with their in house operation. Nothing unsafe with them.Dave DillehayAldora Divers

 

[Skittl1321]

One possible issue with the Sabor is the location of their dock. It is not clear from the pictures how far you need to go to get to whatever dock they are using. I think they share a dock with Secrets next door.

I guess it might be annoying if you were staying in one of the rooms the furthest away (but really the complex isn't that big), but it is about a 2-3 minute walk from their main pool/lobby area (which was right where our room was). For us it was a non-issue. As you walk back from the dock, there are outdoor showers so you can rinse any sand off your feet, and a bar right as you re-enter the complex so you can pick up some drinks and a quesadilla to snack on before you take a shower.

 

[olphart]

I stayed at the Sabor a couple of years ago when it was the Wyndham. I was NOT impressed! Everything was done at the cheapest level, food was barely ok, room was fine, though you had to go into the hall to get drinking water. The stupidest thing was the 7 watt bulbs in the reading lamps by the bed...ever try reading that way? LOL I asked the concierge for better bulbs.. "No can do Senor." their excuse was that they were trying to go "green"
I had Troy from Pelagic Ventures pick me up from the dock paying the hotel $3 a pop. No biggie.

A funny incident was when I was snorkeling with my wife when I saw a scuba couple, quite shallow, maybe 6', but his gear was just about ready to come adrift of his body. It looked like he hadn't done up his straps. I was just about to go help out when I realized that it was one of the dive staff doing a discover scuba and left him to it. Again, not impressed.

 

[cvchief]

Most independent dive ops will NOT pick you up from the Iberostar, and unless you want to wade out to a dive boat you are stuck with their in house operation. Nothing unsafe with them.Dave DillehayAldora Divers

You really think most Dave? I think most SHOULD to protest the way Iberostar handles this, but my OP still picks up there. Not sure if she is passing the cost on or eating it, but they do suck for that reason and should be boycotted and people who choose to stay elsewhere should email them and tell them it is because of them not allowing their customer to step from the dock to any boat they want without extorting money from the boat. (slides out soapbox)

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

Friends of ours stayed at the Iberostar in December. They dove with Dive with Martin and said they were NOT charged the $2 dock fee.

 

[cvchief]

Friends of ours stayed at the Iberostar in December. They dove with Dive with Martin and said they were NOT charged the $2 dock fee.

Iberostar charges the OP a monthly rate (or is it weekly?) for a range of divers. Not sure of the exact number but say 1 to 5 divers that month X amount of peso. You have someone diving with you one day, you pay the same as they dive with you 7 days, más o menos. It is not the per pickup, per diver charge we see other places nor is it charged to the diver.

DWM must have paid the subscription that week. SO Ibero passes the cost to the dive op and takes the hotel guests money without their knowledge.

Either the OP charges it back to the hotel guest and they become Ibero's collection agent.

Or the OP eats it as a cost of doing business, in which case Ibero is taking money from the hotel guest and ALL the other divers with that op.

Or righteous guys like Dave refuse to deal with them, making any divers at Ibero wade out to his boat.

And there you go, I am fully on the soapbox.

---------- Post added August 9th, 2015 at 02:42 PM ----------

Update: It is minimum $60US per month for a certain amount of divers. If you have one diver diving one day that month from Ibero, you pay $60. My OP generally passes the cost divided by the number of Ibero divers she has. However Ibero, because they want to hide the charge, won't accept the money from the divers themselves. So my OP had to send someone down there to pay it.

So basically do YOUR part for maintaining the wide diversity in dive ops in Cozumel and DON'T stay at Ibero.