My wife and I just (ok, actually it feels like we were there a year ago, but the next vacation is coming soon) came back from a week long trip there in December. The lay-out of the hotel was pretty strange, a majority of the rooms face eachother instead of the water. This sucked for me, since I love sitting on the balconey with my wife, a cuban, a book, and a coke after a day of diving and watch the sun go down over the water. The beaches were fine.
The food was ok, definitely nothing special, but I was not expecting much. Eating in the italian restaurant for dinner improves your food quality quite a bit (reservations and long pants required), but the menu does not change at all, so you end up with the same 6 choices (plus several pasta dishes) each night. We like to eat in town half of the nights, so this wasn't a huge concern.
The rooms were fine (except for the view). Large, clean, comfortable. We had a jr. suite so it included fridge, coffee maker, microwave, etc.
Sanddollar is a decent op. I have had great and terrible dives with them, but very few terrible ones. As long as you have your own group or get in with another non-begginer group, the dives are great. I did spend one dive almost exclusively dodging people instead of enjoying things. I also had a slight run in with one DM who got on me for "not listening to him". This meant that I did not go right up to 15' after I reached 1000 psi. After I explained to him about why I was hanging out at 40-45' (ie. making a deep stop) he was fine. Anyway, I usually try a bunch of DM's until I get one I really like then dive with them for the rest of the week.
The only op I would not recommend if you are a begginer is Black Shark. We dove our first ever ocean dive with them and it was not a good experience. If we were experienced divers, it would not have been a problem, but lets just say that even knowing that we were recently certified, we were naive enough to let them take us well "over our heads" so to speak. Late.
charlieo:
I,ve stayed at the Reef Club twice, Iberostar once and several hotels closer to town. The Reef Club was a good value. A lot of younger couples and groups stay there because of the price. So, there is a lot of non diving activity on the beach and around the pool. The food was adequate, but nothing to write home about. The dive operator, Sand Dollar, I don't like. The first time I used them I just thought they were having a bad day. The next day didn't get any better.Better operators can easily be found.
