Phocea Riviera Maya

[Stine]

Has anyone ever dived with this company: Phocea Riviera Maya?
On there website they have listed:
"--- Fajitas
3 X 2T Sea + 1 X 2T Cenotes
Price: $250 US"
Sounds like a good deal to me- but what do I know, I've only ever been diving twice!

I am heading to Mexico on November 4th for some diving and can't decide on who to dive with! I will be staying at the Barcelo Maya Beach Resort and am hoping for a LDS that is nearby! I've never been to Mexico, so any advice would be loverly!

 

[marcienko]

Stine
I'm going to the Barceló MayaBeach .Can you please let me know base on you experience who is a dive operator on site in the resort, any web site with pricing information’s or feedback will be greatly appreciated

Regards

Marcin

 

[Diver Di]

We were at the Barcelo in February. During this trip we dove with Dressel Divers which was the dive shop associated with the hotel. They were a busy but professional operation. The employees were all friendly and knew their stuff.

The dive boats were pretty much full to capacity the whole time. Since they were fairly narrow, it felt crowded at times. The good news is you are broken into groups and the most we had in any group at one time was 5 divers. So it was manageable. The boats didn't have a platform so all entries were backrolls.

Three of us split a family package which consisted of 12 dives (we signed up for more later). If you pay cash, you get a 10% discount on everything so we paid cash. With the discount our dives cost $37 each.

I did have a little beef about the price of the rental equipment. WE were traveling in other parts of Mexico prior to staying at the resort so we didn't have our gear with us.

The dive shop said they charged the rental fee ($15 for the package) per dive. So if you did a 2 tank dive, you would pay $30 for the equipment. That's ridiculous IMO. I have never seen it charged that way before. The rental price is usually per day, regardless of how many dives you do. The shop, however, did say they would give us a deal since we purchased a dive package and only charge dus $15/day for the equipment. Not a deal in my opinion, but whatever. I could live with that price.

It was the first time I had been diving off there (we usually go to Cozumel) and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. For various reasons, we didn't dive the cenotes. A friend of ours did and raved about it. I'll be going next time. Have a great time.

 

[marcienko]

Diver Di thanks for the great info !!!!

Regards

Marcin

 

[Pez de Diablo]

Hi,

The Barcello's on site dive op is Dressel Divers. You also have Aquanauts located in Puerto Aventuras just a couple of miles north of you and you have Bahia Divers located 3 miles south of you. At Aquanauts we have a nice big boat - currently with only a couple of divers on it each dive I am not sure if Stefano (Bahia Divers) is running a full schedule for reef dives right now but we go out 3 times each day plus daily trips to the Cenotes.

The cost for a 10 dive package is $300.00 and this can be shared between a family

Cheers,

Dennis

 

[marcienko]

Thanks for great info Dennis.

 

[rossandmaureen]

Stine...if you follow the threads on this board you will find that Diablo Divers and Aquanauts come highly recommended by past guests...including myself who has used them for the past two years. Dennis and his divemasters are great to dive with, offer small groups and will also introduce you to the cenotes safely while showing you a good variety of dives out on the local reefs. Their shop in Puerto Aventuras is not far from your hotel and the dock is only steps away. My experiences with on-site dive ops is that they tend to be far more regimented and structured in their dive profiles than the off site independents who depend on reputation for their business.