Open water referral in Cozumel

[jjach]

My wife and I are going to do our classroom and confined dives here in the Chicago area, then go to Cozumel for our open water dives. I have looked on the internet to find a dive shop down there to go through, but there are so many to chose from. I did find one that sounded pretty good. It is called Aldora Divers. Has anyone heard of them, or can someone suggest a good shop that will give us personalized attention, and actually teach us what we need to know? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[UWupnorth]

My wife did hers with Aqua Safari, they seem to be a good shop. We have no complaints.

 

[xiSkiGuy]

Try Christi at Blue XT Sea. You won't be sorry. http://bluextseadiving.com/

 

[jmps]

Blue XT Sea or ScubawithAlison would be great. Small fast boats and great personal attention.

 

[Gradyk]

Just got back from Coz. My wife and me both dove with Aldora, and stayed at the Villa Aldora, for 7 days. 6 max on the boat, with 4 more likely. First class operation, IMO. They sort divers by experience. My wife is a new diver, and as such has a pretty high air consumption. They use large tanks 100s or 120s. We did 15 dives with them on our stay and total bottom time exceeded 15.5 hrs. (shortest dive was 53 min. and longest was 82). All DMs are also Instructors. I also saw two instructors come to the Villa on a couple of occasions for instruction, (one Nitrox class and the other was to an advanced class). I was VERY impressed, pretty obvious they were not just going through the motions, if you know what I mean. During the surface intervals which were typically around 2 hrs., due to the pretty aggressive profiles we dove, we usually went to Playa Mia <sp>?. I can't recall a single day that during that interval Dave or Memo didn't stop by to check that we were happy. On Wednesday, during the surface interval, Dave asked me if we were doing the night dive? I told him I didn't think we could get enough people together. Dave said, "You don't understand. We night dive on Sat, and Wed., on these days if one diver wants to do a night dive...we go." I could go ON an ON. I'll just stop by saying, there isn't one thing I can think of that they could have done to make my diving better or more enjoyable, and WHEN I go back they will be the only operator I'll use, period!

 

[halocline]

You might post this on the Cozumel forum, or search that forum for similar threads; there are hundreds. What you'll find is that lots of people have their favorite dive op and you'll hear very few complaints. My personal favorite is Roberta's Eco-dive Cozumel, a small dive op that's right next to Casa Del Mar, a couple of miles from downtown. I'd be almost certain that your OW cert dives with them would be just you and your wife with the instructor, although there would be a few more people on the boat. There are lots of good dive ops that do what you're looking for, and while it is possible to get a bad one, there are many that you'd be really happy with. Aldora is a dive op that has some very loyal customers on the Cozumel forum. If I remember, shortly after Wilma Aldora was kind of in the middle of a big controversy regarding reports of dive ops going out of business and the general state of things in post-Wilma Coz. You might go back through the Cozumel forum to find those threads if you're looking for a way to kill several hours!

Oh, BTW, a short hitchhike here. IMO, the use of larger capacity tanks should be more for advanced divers who fully understand that increasing tanks capacity directly increases DCS risk. Of course an experienced diver can dive in such a way to minimize this risk, but if I were you just doing your cert dives, I'd stay with AL80s or similar. There's a reason that thousands and thousands of new divers can dive safely in Cozumel (or elsewhere, but Coz is a good example because of the combination of new divers and fairly deep dives) down to 90-100 ft routinely, with all sorts of different computers or just following the DM's profile. (Believe me, it happens all the time) Many of these divers don't have great buoyancy skills or the experience to really control ascents and overall profiles. Using a AL80 limits your bottom time and so provides an added safety feature against DCS. If large capacity tanks become the norm in Coz, I would almost guarantee that an increase in DCS incidents will follow at some point.

Okay, sorry for the hijack!

 

[gorey1]

I did my OW checkout dives with Aldora in June this year and I really enjoyed my experience. First, for the checkout dives there were only a couple of other divers so it was a great learning environment. They allowed my husband to come along. My instructor was very calm and patient, which really helped me because I started out very nervous. He was also was good at pointing out what I needed to work on. My divemaster and the staff at the shop were very organized. Once I completed the OW dives my husband and I dove the next few days, with only one or two other people in our boat. Overall, I highly recommend completing your open water dives with Aldora.

 

[Jarrett]

Try Christi at Blue XT Sea. You won't be sorry. http://bluextseadiving.com/

Ditto.

 

[scubamarcp]

my wife and i dove with dive with martin they were excellent very freindly, brought you to nice beaches for surface intervals the prices were unbeleivable, and best of all they were very safety orientated people. They picked us up at the iberostar every day which is the farthest resort on the island they had nice fast boats. ps. What ever you do do not dive with dressel divers they suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[trucker girl]

I was in Cozumel with my best friend 2 and 1/2 years ago and dove with Papa Hog's... a small outfit- maybe 6-8 customers on a boat. They are across the street from the Villa Blanca Inn and they have a small beach area adjacent to them. We did a shallow shore dive from the beach (unlimited shore diving was included with the package- I don't know if that's changed) and it was wonderful.

I can't even begin to express to you how wonderful they were. My friend and I were relatively new to scuba- she got certified specifically because we were planning this trip. I had only done my check out dives at the quarry and two other dives in Florida prior to the trip. I took a refresher right before we headed down there, but I was still relatively dry behind the ears- as was my friend.

They took care of us in every way imaginable (not THAT way- get your minds out of the gutter!). We even did a night dive at Paradise Reef that I thought was going to be scary and it was just wonderful, too.

www.papahogs.com

I don't have experience with any other dive shops down there but after my trip of a few years back, I don't WANT to experience any other dive shops there! If you want personal attention they are great. And if you are a "new" diver like I totally was (I really felt like I didn't know enough at all) they take care of you and help you and never make you feel dumb or like you're holding everyone else back.

Highly recommended.

And they have a nice dog, too.