Is Cozumel cheap?

[kmarks]

Scuba Club is the only website I've seen mention shore diving, Dive With Martin and Aldora don't mention it.

There's not a lot of shore diving in Cozumel. SCC has a little bit of a reef that you can shore dive on, and there may be one or two other resorts that do the same, but that's not the draw. Aldora and Dive with Martín are both boat operators - they don't get anything out you shore diving. The best way to do Cozumel, in my opinion, is to stay in one of the inexpensive places downtown like Suites Bahía, Suites Colonial, or Casa Mexicana, get yourself on a dive boat, and enjoy the restaurants in town.

 

[ReefHound]

Cozumel is one of the cheapest places in the Caribbean for the average person seekig a well-rounded vacation. Scuba Club isn't the cheapest way to do Cozumel. For the dive nut, you can get a lower cost per dive going somewhere like Bonaire or Roatan. And once you cover the cost and time of getting to Egypt or Asia, there is no comparison. Those can be much cheaper.

 

[ReefHound]

Scuba Club is the only website I've seen mention shore diving, Dive With Martin and Aldora don't mention it.

Boat ops are not going to promote shore diving. For shore dives, which are very different from the boat reef dives but can still be quite interesting IMO, you could stay at a location on the shore like Hotel Barracuda, Hotel Cozumel, Blue Angel, or Villa Tan Kah. We have stayed a lot lately at Villa Tan Kah which is owned by Roberta's Scuba Shack. It's a small dive shack with gear room, rinse tanks, and boat dock in one small area. Best shore dive IMO. You could easily add in 2-3 shore dives after a 2-tank boat trip if you wanted.

 

[MMM]

Scuba Club is the only website I've seen mention shore diving, Dive With Martin and Aldora don't mention it.

There is shore diving to be had in Cozumel. Blue Angel is one location I particularly like. I am pretty sure Aldora still offers shore diving to people staying at their facility north of town. Probably other locations up north also, if you can find operators willing to rent tanks and weights to you. (The first time we went to Cozumel, we stayed at a hotel up north and at the time we booked, their website said there was a dive shop on the premises. When we arrived, we found out there was nobody and were told that none operated out of the northern part of the island.) I have heard people mention shore diving at a location called Tekila but I have never done that. There's a Tekila at the south end of the island and a Tequila at the north end.

 

[Kimela]

Do you mean one "2 tank" dive? Or 2 separate boat trips for 4 actual dives? I see a morning 2 tank dive included in packages and an afternoon boat trip that seems to be a separate add on. If the packages are set up this way, I doubt anyone buys a weekly package and adds on the afternoon trip every day.

Scuba Club is the only website I've seen mention shore diving, Dive With Martin and Aldora don't mention it.

I'm pretty sure the afternoon dive is an add-on cost. The morning dive is a 2-tank dive. There are places that have shore dives, but you have to pay for a tank. I think at Cozumel Palace, for instance, it's $10 for a tank. At ScubaClub there are no additional fees for shore diving (maybe extra if you wanted nitrox?). And yes, there are people who will pay for the extra afternoon dive (and traditionally, it costs extra at other places too) but maybe not for every day they're there. If you go to Anthony's Key in Roatan, Honduras, they include 3 boat dives per day in the package. Never figured out the shore diving there and don't remember if it was included (I think it was?).

Maybe you could put together a spreadsheet to determine what the cost per dive is, assuming you do every dive offered in a package, for each trip you're considering. It may turn out that going to the other side of the world yields you a cheaper cost per dive. I.e., if you think you're going to get 20 dives during the week, and Cozumel will cost you $2,000 for the week, including meals, flights, lodging and diving, your cost per dive will be $100. If you came to the exact number for going to Egypt, ($100 per dive) but it also meant 70 hours of travel, roundtrip, would it be worth it to you? If it cost you $75 per dive to go to Egypt would it be worth it to you? At what point would/wouldn't it be worth it to you? It's a personal decision that will include things like how much you value a safari and seeing a different culture, etc.

 

[bvbellomo]

It is looking like Cozumel is much cheaper -Tan Kah would be about $1000 + food for an entire week, probably less than airfare to Egypt alone. That's $100 / dive doing only the morning boat dives and it probably gets cheaper with more diving or a longer stay.

It is nice to have budget trip options. The cheapest diving I do is freshwater quarry diving in Ohio, roughly $100 + food for a weekend, or $12.50 per dive. I am looking for the next cheapest options - if that isn't Cozumel, I will still go once just to see a few Mayan ruins and find out if the food is as good as everyone here says - but it won't be my next trip and it won't be this year.

Blackbeard's was an awesome budget choice, roughly $1600 with airfare and food (roughly $80 / dive) - although I am not sure I want to go back so soon.

Egypt on my own the way I planned would be about $125 / dive.

 

[arew+4]

Shore diving is not a big draw for Coz, I would guess because of the currents once you get away from shore a bit. That's not to say it cannot or is not done. I've also heard there are very few places to get tanks for shore diving. I would not consider Coz a budget destination. It is cheaper to get to and to stay than many places in the Caribbean but not cheap. Places like Bonaire can cost more to get to but your per dive cost can be as low as $20 excluding air fare and accomodations. In Cozumel you are at roughly 40-45 a tank, on Roatan you are at roughly 30-35 a tank. Caymans and T&C are considerably more. Curacao may be the best bargain relatively cheap airfare from east coast I got a truck for around $500 for ten days, and a tank at most all of the site dives was around $13 on average.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I have long said that Cozumel is to North American divers as the Red Sea is to European divers. It's the most bang for your buck/euro, unless you're talking shore diving, which is pretty limited. So, yes, in my opinion Cozumel and the Red Sea are both cheap. The Red Sea has the advantage of lower fuel prices, which seems to keep the boat diving prices down. Red Sea liveaboards can be a great value.

 

[ReefHound]

I'm pretty sure the afternoon dive is an add-on cost. The morning dive is a 2-tank dive. There are places that have shore dives, but you have to pay for a tank. I think at Cozumel Palace, for instance, it's $10 for a tank. At ScubaClub there are no additional fees for shore diving (maybe extra if you wanted nitrox?). And yes, there are people who will pay for the extra afternoon dive (and traditionally, it costs extra at other places too) but maybe not for every day they're there. If you go to Anthony's Key in Roatan, Honduras, they include 3 boat dives per day in the package. Never figured out the shore diving there and don't remember if it was included (I think it was?)..

Not that it's relevant but since it was brought up, the shore dive at AKR is included. We did it a few times. It's hard to fit in as it closes at 4pm and the dive 3 boat doesn't get back til 3pm. It's at the far end of the key. They have tanks and weights there but you still need to lug your gear there. The dive is decent, about like the other dive with depths to 100'. In fact, the boats usually hit that site once in the week.

Nitrox on Cozumel shore dives is pointless as you won't be deeper than 25-35 feet.

 

[Kimela]

Not that it's relevant but since it was brought up, the shore dive at AKR is included. We did it a few times. It's hard to fit in as it closes at 4pm and the dive 3 boat doesn't get back til 3pm. It's at the far end of the key. They have tanks and weights there but you still need to lug your gear there. The dive is decent, about like the other dive with depths to 100'. In fact, the boats usually hit that site once in the week.

Nitrox on Cozumel shore dives is pointless as you won't be deeper than 25-35 feet.

Thanks for the info for AKR. I'd heard it wasn't worthwhile, but never asked why. We did try to find the spot one day and I think we did? Glad we didn't invest the time and energy into it.