Coz Sally:I'm just going to throw my two cents in here.
A 4 day trip to Cozumel with little planning is just not giving Cozumel a chance and should not count as "been there, done that". Your trip report is exceptionally detailed and many will find your experiences helpful. It's a shame that you weren't able to gather good recommendations from this board before your trip. Before you completely mark Cozumel off your list of dive destinations, consider one more trip, with some planning. It's amazing what you can learn from others' experiences.
Just one more note for everyone: when you are on vacation, it is exceptionally difficult for dive operators and other Cozumel businesses to reach you by phone. For some reason very few of you seem to spend your vacation sitting in your room waiting for the phone to ring! Messages taken by the front desk personnel rarely make it to the guests and automated answering services are tricky at best, as Geoff learned. Please do not ask or expect your dive operator to reach you. It is up to you to make contact, and to do so in a timely manner.
Geoff, after reading how much you spent on food and lodging, I had to wince when I read "I did have to grind on her to give us both 1 hour massages for $100 instead of the $120 they were asking". I hope you made up for it with an enormous tip!
Sally
Barefoot in Cozumel
Sally, can you please elaborate on what makes you think I didnt do any planning? I asked on here quite a bit regarding lodging, and the presidente was recommended by quite a few people that had stayed there many times. In fact, while at the resort I met a couple that were on their 14th (!!) trip there. I also had to find o2 fills ahead of time, as well as dive ops that would didnt have any restrictions regarding my rebreather.
As far as someone else that replied that because I had planned diving with 3 ops that I didnt plan it out earlier, I dont think they understood. I booked my first day with scuba -du since it was at the hotel i was staying at and figured it would be the easiest to start out with. I booked Dive Paradise on a recommendation from a friend I tech dive with back in california. And I wanted to dive with Dive Cozumel since I knew my gf wouldnt dive every day and this was a good chance to get some nice 1.5 hour or so dives in. Im not sure where you get the idea I didnt plan this out. I searched air fares for over 5 days watching and seeing what kind of deal I could get.
And as far as the massage goes, I dont care how much money I have, when you are on that main street in cozumel, everything is overpriced, and since the massage was more than what I pay in the states by someone certified, I highly doubt I should fork over even more money for a massage from someone that is not a CMT. I tipped her $10 for both of us. I felt that was fair.