Staying at Paradisus Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and looking for Op and dive spot

[snoballz]

I scoured the forum and looks like Scuba Fun in Bayahibe is the Op and to use and place to be.

However, given that I'm staying at Paradisus Punta Cana only for a few days, I was hoping something more local without what seems like a crazy and expensive drive to Bayahibe.

From what I've researched, Scuba Caribe is the Op out of Paradisus Punta Cana. They offer a special excursion trip to Catalina Island, which seems like the best bet compared to the other offerings, which seem rather "tame". Any insight from those that used this Op for a dive in Catalina Island?

Also, I read that Dressel Divers is a good Op. They operate out of Iberostar Punta Cana. Anyone know whether they have better selection of dives than Scuba Caribe and whether they pick-up/drop-off at other hotels (specifically Paradisus)?

TIA.
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[aymanme]

I am going to the Paradisus and was wondering if you had ever gotten an answer to your ???? or what you ended up doing?

 

[snoballz]

I've been dealing with Scuba Caribe. Since the dives at Paradisus is free, its limited to one dive a day. I'm only there for four days and plan to dive for two allowing my enough SI before my flight home.

With that said, my plan is to dive in the AM on the first day for free and I'm paying for my PM dive out of Bavaro Princess, which apparently is located next to the Paradisus. On my second day, I'm booking their special excursion trip to Catalina Island, which includes two dives.

My trip is in the first week of July and will report back.

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[vhs]

I do know that Dressel divers do not pick up at hotels. I will be in Punta Cana in August and I am also looking for suggestions of a dive operation. I will be staying at Secret Excellence.

 

[snoballz]

I did 5 dives in 3 days while at Punta Cana. I used Scuba Caribe since the Op was located at the hotel.

For the most part the op was decent. Here were the issues. They were disorganized. I booked my dives in advance and was provided a voucher saving me 5%. However, when I arrived, they did not have my reservations. Luckily, I was able to book my dives. It would have been another story if the one or more of the dives were solidly booked.

Then they did not know how to apply the voucher. That took about 45 minutes to square away. They then pushed an AOW class on me since the were running a special. However, because of some issues (I won't bore you with the details) I did not pursue it. The supervisor was not helpful and it seemed there was a divide between the Op and the "main office", which provided my voucher.

With all that said, all but three were inclusive of the hotel stay. The first day dives were nice. The first dive was at a wreck (Astron). There were 3 (including me) in my group and one other person who was an experienced diver plus the DM. Dive was about 40 minutes. DM was very pleasant.

The second dive was at a spot called Cavernas. This was a paid dive since we were only allowed to have one free dive per day. The odd thing was that we were willing to pay, which we did but had to leave from another location. We had to dive out of the Scuba Caribe op at the next hotel, which was only a few hundred feet away.

Anyway, this dive lasted almost an hour. This dive was just my party of 3. We did some light penetration through some "caves".

The third and fourth dives were out on an excursion to Catalina Island. Unlike all the other dives, where we had to jump into a small motor boat, we boarded a big dive boat with about 30 others. The first of two dives was at a wall and the second at a shallow reef.

Then there was the last (fifth) dive. This was horrible. The viz was murky because of the churn created by Hurricane Bertha. Also, there were a couple of people in the group that we new and was probably not expecting the undercurrent. One guy was just flailing and kept standing on the coral. The DM was horrible. He had no control.

Anyway, Scuba Caribe is a decent op. It was conveniently located at the hotel, which is the reason why I went with them.

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[DRsharky]

My friend and his girlfriend used to work at Promarine dive shop, at the hotel Catalonia, don't know how far it is from your hotel. People usually complain about big dive shops, as they luck the personal touch, this one is smaller one and the service was good when my friend was there.
Diving on Catalina is nice, but again you go with big group of people and have to follow the their schedule.
Sometimes the weather can be a factor in Punta Cana / Bavaro area, some dive shops arrange diving in Bayahibe, where the weather is usually more stable.