Secrets Aura & Sunscape Sabor outcome

[bshort4]

As a past and future guest of Sunscape (this coming April) I emailed Eduardo Betancourt the E-Concierge for Secrets Aura/Sunscape Sabor on January 22 asking if I could personally pay this dock fee and not have to get it from my outside dive op. He ASSURED me that I could just go to the front desk at Sunscape and request to pay the fee myself. Maybe Senior Betancourt overstepped his bounds in telling me this but I will be bringing a copy of his email with me to show the front desk if there is any problem. I'll be waiting to hear more from TiogaTerry as his week progresses at Secrets. I wonder if they'll still want to charge me $2 for jumping off the pier to swim to my dive ops boat since it's to large to run up on the beach lol.

 

[morecowbells]

Iberostar and Secrets are the only ones charging for use of their piers. A bit of a difference too, Iberostar OWNS Dressel Divers - so they have a definite financial stake.

Secrets does not own either of the 2 dive shops onsite, they pay rent to the resort for being there.

Park Royal does not actually have their own pier, so they don't charge for pier use, it's the owner of the closest pier that does - but at least they give guests the opportunity to purchase them by the day or week. - They have a reasonable solution.

I appreciate all your hard work, time and efforts in communicating these changes. The one thing I am confused about is why the resort is not charging divers to use the in house dive op which is not owned by the resort. What interest does the resort have in promoting(or basically forcing) their guests to use their in house dive op if they get nothing out of it? I know it is not good form to speculate, but there is something suspicious about this deal and the outward reciprocation between the business. While The Dive House may be renting space, I am puzzled why the resort is so determined to squeeze out the competition and strongly push the in house dive op.

The number of dive ops standing up to this bullying is truly amazing. I am sorry that Secrets/Aura has been so disrespectful in wasting your time with the runaround. Hopefully they will learn a lesson in not taking their dive clientele for granted.

 

[tridacna]

I did not see Aldora @Dave Dillehay on the list. Or are they part of the "+ section"?

 

[Christi]

I appreciate all your hard work, time and efforts in communicating these changes. The one thing I am confused about is why the resort is not charging divers to use the in house dive op which is not owned by the resort. What interest does the resort have in promoting(or basically forcing) their guests to use their in house dive op if they get nothing out of it? I know it is not good form to speculate, but there is something suspicious about this deal and the outward reciprocation between the business. While The Dive House may be renting space, I am puzzled why the resort is so determined to squeeze out the competition and strongly push the in house dive op.

The number of dive ops standing up to this bullying is truly amazing. I am sorry that Secrets/Aura has been so disrespectful in wasting your time with the runaround. Hopefully they will learn a lesson in not taking their dive clientele for granted.

Because they already pay rent and have a contract, it's simply a benefit to the on site shop. However, I will repeat, this has nothing to do with them trying to push the in house operators.

In fact, during our meeting with Sr. Guzmán, and in a subsequent e-mail, he claimed and insisted that only 8% of their guests are divers. He was very proud of that and also stated that people come to Cozumel just to stay in their resort. He also stated publicly on Facebook as well as in our meeting that "he had no idea there were so many boats picking up divers"

So I will repeat, in this case, pushing the onsite shop has nothing to do with this. There is much more to it.

 

[Ron Lee]

I did not see Aldora @Dave Dillehay on the list. Or are they part of the "+ section"?

I believe they were on the initial listing.

 

[Dogbowl]

I believe they were on the initial listing.

Haha yeah, I thought I saw them too the first time I read it.

 

[tridacna]

Apparently not on the LATEST listing...

 

[gotdogs?]

I hear some crickets chirping.....

 

[Christi]

I did not see Aldora @Dave Dillehay on the list. Or are they part of the "+ section"?

“+1 section” they still support the cause as stated by Dave more than once on this issue, I was asked to remove their name from the public listing so I did.

 

[TiogaTerry]

Just finished my week of diving and will say as a guest, this issue has been very transparent with business as usual. If it weren’t for the forum, I’d know nothing was out of sorts. One dive op did have their 2 some wade out into the water to get in the boat yesterday. But again, the uninformed wouldn’t have known why.

A few thoughts. Acumen might suggest that the customer be left out of things and you two figure it out. I’m not sure that’s the right play here. Yesterday I went to the desk asking to buy a pier pass and was told no, the dive op needs to buy them as the hotel customers don’t have to pay fees as it’s an AI. I pressed the issue on the notion that I was going to pay as the end user by way of trickle down and my dive op, as nice as they are, are not going to absorb this expense so let’s cut to the chase. It’s a lousy 2 bucks a day and if it’s necessary, make it easy on the end user, not hard on the middle man dive op. He really had a hard time agreeing, and after a few calls, I was issued my bracelet. As he took my 2$, I said it will be my understanding that tomorrow the pier guy will be there and nobody without a bracelet gets on right....? He handed my 2 bucks back to me and said no, nobody is enforcing this. I kept the bracelet.

I’m not sure the 2 on site house ops can absorb all of the dive demand at the resort. The demand seemed more than what supply they have. Their boats were plum full all week long. Thus, the need for other dive ops.

I would stay at Secrets again and would say here to all concerned to focus on the big picture as to why you considered Secrets to begin with. This is the travelers choice to stay here and to either incur the cost or not. For some of us, it’s a no way, not one penny. For others, it’s a whatever they charge, they charge. And for the rest of us - well, we fall in the middle and will weigh that into the final where do we stay equation. For the dive ops reading this, continue to keep your clients informed and let them understand that it may mean going out waist deep to jump aboard if this stalemate continues. Again, my experience this past week was nothing out of the ordinary past - I love Coz, and very much look forward to my next return trip.