Is there any downside to NOT using the house dive shop?

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sup

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We are planning a trip to Coz in April and staying at an AI (Explorean). Looking at their dive shop (Dive House), reviews seem fine but the web page was sparse. The price list didn't say if it included taxes or marine fees. There was no mention of whether they do the surface interval on the water or at a beach club. There was a mention of tanks and freshwater hoses to rinse your gear, so I'm guessing they're not full service? Plus, I'm guessing a shop that services four AI resorts is going to have a revolving door of new divers, most of whom have six dives logged and someone will always be low on air after 20 minutes.

Anyway, looking on line, it looks like Aldora, Liquid Blue, and Salty Endeavors all offer what I'm looking for. I'm leaning towards Salty Endeavors because they start around 8 and we are flying from the Pacific time zone. Their price list is very transparent, and though I didn't book a package with them their write ups of the different hotels were really helpful.

All that being said, is there some kind of upside to going with the house shop that I'm not seeing? I have typically dove with the house shop everywhere else I've dove, but the beach club surface interval and full service aspect just makes Salty Endeavors so much more appealing than Dive House.

Also, if anyone has any comments on Salty Endeavors or any of the other shops mentioned here (good or bad), I'd love the input. Maybe I'm not giving Dive House enough credit? Maybe Salty runs a bunch of cattle boats? You can't trust online reviews because you don't know the expectation of the people posting them.

Thanks in advance. You guys have always come through for me!
 
Salty Endeavors is definitely not a cattle boat. I don't know anything about The Dive House crew or operation, but when I was in Cozumel last week, they definitely had the cattle boats! I use Bottom Time Divers, and think the three ops you listed are respectable dive ops. I would not feel obligated to use the in house dive op. You may not get as good of a deal, but definitely worth looking into the other ops with smaller, faster boats.
 
Dove with Blue XTSea. Loved it. Small boats, started at 8 or so (dock pickup in their boat around that time).
 
Salty Endeavors is a great decision rather than Dive House. You will get a small fast boat most likely a max of 6 divers. They offer valet service! Great crew very nice boat. Friends that own a dive shop in the northeast do a group trip of 20 divers and use Dive House. They all go on one boat. Even divided into groups, they said it gets crowded underwater. I don’t find that appealing. FWIW, we dive with Liquid Blue. We love Kami and Steve, the owners. Nice boat, valet service , great crew. We like diving with steel tanks rather than aluminum. Just about every op will pick you up at your hotel pier. There are no bad choices. Enjoy your trip!
 
Dove with Dive House. They were great. Can store your gear there. SI is on the boat. If I remember well, we did 2 tank dives in AM and 2 in PM.
Don’t remember about taxes but marine fee was separate.
 
I used to do group trips with our local dive shop, stay at Fiesta Americana, and dive with Dive House. This was 20 years and two renovations of the hotel ago. Our group always filled one of the big boats, so we never complained about our fellow divers, plus I was one of the newbies. About ten years later, I was on a trip without a group and decided to try Aldora. Have been diving with them ever since. Dive House is not a bad operation, but you won’t regret using one of the valet ops. I’ve been staying at Villa Aldora for several years, but my first two trips diving with Aldora, they picked me up at FA. It worked out very well. Using the house op provides a certain level of convenience, but the valet ops more than make up for it by keeping and cleaning your gear and providing good service.

I keep going back to Aldora because the staff is great, they do a good job of matching divers of similar skills and interests (having a bunch of boats sure helps), they go to sites hardly anyone else visits, and the HP 120s and 100s allow long dives, which I really enjoy. I have heard good things about the other shops you mentioned, but haven’t tried them. I’ve been very happy with Aldora and don’t feel the need to experiment. Aldora may be a little more money, but I think it’s a good value and worthwhile. If you get cold at 60 minutes and aren’t interested in 80-100 minute dives, you may not see as much advantage with Aldora, but I really like that kind of diving. Yes, you will surface as a group, but that has rarely been a serious limitation.
 
FWIW, we dive with Liquid Blue. We love Kami and Steve, the owners. Nice boat, valet service , great crew. We like diving with steel tanks rather than aluminum. Just about every op will pick you up at your hotel pier. There are no bad choices. Enjoy your trip!

Yeah, the steel tanks were a negative on my list, though I don't know if they should be. How much heavier are they? I only carry 6 - 9 lbs of lead depending on how much neoprene I'm wearing, and I worry I'll end up negative with a steel tank.

I keep going back to Aldora because the staff is great, they do a good job of matching divers of similar skills and interests (having a bunch of boats sure helps), they go to sites hardly anyone else visits, and the HP 120s and 100s allow long dives, which I really enjoy. I have heard good things about the other shops you mentioned, but haven’t tried them. I’ve been very happy with Aldora and don’t feel the need to experiment. Aldora may be a little more money, but I think it’s a good value and worthwhile. If you get cold at 60 minutes and aren’t interested in 80-100 minute dives, you may not see as much advantage with Aldora, but I really like that kind of diving. Yes, you will surface as a group, but that has rarely been a serious limitation.

Aldora seemed great from a service perspective, but they start really early, and I'm not terribly interested in doing stuff like devil's throat, and frankly an 80-100 minute dive is just too freaking long. People who want to do the more extreme dives seem to gravitate toward Aldora. The price difference between ops doesn't concern me much. It will be a difference of $20-100 tacked onto a ~$4k vacation spend. I just don't like places that aren't transparent about pricing.

Thanks for the inputs!
 
Dove with Dive House. They were great. Can store your gear there. SI is on the boat. If I remember well, we did 2 tank dives in AM and 2 in PM.
Don’t remember about taxes but marine fee was separate.

Doing AM and PM would be great and IMO would be the #1 benefit of going with the house shop. But my husband's sinuses can't take that so we stick with 2 a day. Even then he usually has to bow out for a day in the middle.
 
Yeah, the steel tanks were a negative on my list, though I don't know if they should be. How much heavier are they? I only carry 6 - 9 lbs of lead depending on how much neoprene I'm wearing, and I worry I'll end up negative with a steel tank.



Aldora seemed great from a service perspective, but they start really early, and I'm not terribly interested in doing stuff like devil's throat, and frankly an 80-100 minute dive is just too freaking long. People who want to do the more extreme dives seem to gravitate toward Aldora. The price difference between ops doesn't concern me much. It will be a difference of $20-100 tacked onto a ~$4k vacation spend. I just don't like places that aren't transparent about pricing.

Thanks for the inputs!

I’m not a Devil’s Throat fan, either. They try to get a consensus on dive site choices and they don’t go to DT if anybody is uncertain about it. I do like going to Islote, Maracaibo, Maracaibo Shallows, Punta Sur, and Columbia Deep, along with the occasional visit to Barracuda and San Juan. But if you are not interested in those sites or the longer dives, another shop may work better for you.

By the way, if you can get high-pressure steel tanks, the buoyancy characteristics are great. You would probably still carry a few pounds, maybe no added weight. The 100s are really nice. About the length of an AL80. Works really well for many women and for men who don’t need the extra air. I understand the LP steels are very different on buoyancy, but I have not used them myself.
 
Yeah, the steel tanks were a negative on my list, though I don't know if they should be. How much heavier are they? I only carry 6 - 9 lbs of lead depending on how much neoprene I'm wearing, and I worry I'll end up negative with a steel tank

Thanks for the inputs!
I don’t use any additional weight with 3 mil diving with steel. In the winter wearing a 5mil I add 2. With aluminum, I add 8 with my 3. I like the longer dives that the steel tanks make possible. I do not feel overweighted with them.
 
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