Thoughts on Aqua Safari Dive Op?

[Guitarcrazy]

We usually dive with a small dive operator every time we go to Cozumel, but this trip we are staying at Cozumel Palace with friends. Part of the Palace amenities is $1500 of resort credit, and you can use it for diving with Aqua Safari. You still pay the tax, but that makes a two tank dive approx. $15 per diver. I am thinking it is probably too cheap to pass up. Otherwise I don't know how I will spend the resort credits. Anyone dove with them recently? Communication is turning out to be a bit more difficult as apparently their email server is not working right now. Thanks.

 

[rick00001967]

for $15 how bad could it be right ? haha

 

[brownie]

I've done close to 30 dive trips to Coz over the years and most of my diving has been with Aqua Safari. I like the logistics: Casa Mexicana (my hotel), Aqua Safari Dive Shop, and Aqua Safari Pier (for boarding the boat) are all within very close proximity of one another (a 30-second walk). I have never stayed @ Cozumel Palace but when I chat with other divers on the boat, they seem to love it.

I have much admiration and respect for the Aqua Safari crew: the skippers (Jorge, Nemesio, Roger) and the DM's (Mariano, Walter, Miguel, Sergio, Jose, Porfirio) have always been great both in the water and on the boat. From trouble-shooting gear problems to fixing my sunglass hinge with a paperclip, these guys are highly skilled, humble and very hard-working. I have dove with smaller ops on the island as well--and have been happy with them.

Yes, the boats are sloooooooow.......but I don't travel to Cozumel to rush.

One sweet perk I particularly enjoy: In addition to the morning 2-tanker, I often do the afternoon single-tanker on Paradise Reef--very relaxing dive. Occasionally there is not sufficient time for me to enjoy a lunch between the morning dives and the afternoon singleton. I look for someone in the Cozumel Palace group who is fleet of foot and up to the challenge of racing into the buffet luncheon at the Palace, filling a plate of food for me, grabbing cutlery, and racing it back to the boat before it departs for my usual drop-off. And the skipper is in on the ruse--he'll wait the extra few minutes for me to receive my plate of goodies. After enjoying a delicious lunch, I always wash the plate and cutlery before returning it to Palace staff. Shhhhhhhhhh........please don't rat me out.

 

[Guitarcrazy]

That is funny. I always bring food for the crew when I am at the all inclusives. We stayed at Grand Park Royal again over Christmas with my grown kids and the crews always appreciate the sandwiches and snacks we bring them. We also stay at Casa Mexicana frequently, and you are correct, the location is perfect for Aqua Safari. Our usual op picks us up at that same pier, so it is a very convenient place no matter who you dive with. Thanks for the info.

 

[willmann_nc]

I have used Aqua Safari from Cozumel Palace before, they're fine but as already stated large slow boats, usually with 18 to 20 divers in the group. If you're going during high season, it would be good to contact the resort and book your divers before arriving, I've seen people not being able to dive with them because the boats were full.

 

[deepsea21]

We dove with AS back when Bill Horn owned it and we were staying at the Casa Mexicana. It was a great dive op for us as new divers and then we stuck with them because we came to know the entire staff so well. However, after he sold AS to Palace Resorts it went down hill immediately. I don't remember the idiot's name that Palace hired as the general manager of AS but one dive trip with him in charge was our last with AS and we moved on. Luckily, that idiot didn't last long in that position and it was great to hear that Palace management got a clue and put Gustavo in charge.

If you're staying at the Palace and have resort credits you can use for diving and have no other use for them, I would definitely go with AS. Book EARLY as another mentioned because those who fail to do so are often told when they get there the boats are fully booked. The Palace is a BIG place and AS only has so many cattle boats to serve all the diving guests. With AS you won't get the freedom other boutique dive ops offer... You'll generally all drop at once and a DM will lead the group with another trailing in the rear. Bottom times will be short and probably be around 45 minutes on both dives. You won't get to some of the best dive sites due to the slow boats but, then again, who's to say what is really the best day to day. Our current dive op often picks up Palace guests who chose to spend their resort dollars on other offerings but as you aren't interested in other offerings I'd burn the resort dollars up on diving with AS. Overall, Aqua Safari's DM's are great, the op's style of diving is very safe, and for the $15 of tax you have to pay, it makes perfect sense to dive with AS unless you're made of $ and could care less about letting the resort dollars go unused.

FYI... In my opinion the best DM Aqua Safari has on staff these days is Walter (since Chino's departure several years ago). Walter can find VERY unique and rare critters other DM's can't. He found me my first AND ONLY frog fish I've ever seen on Coz in over 17? years of diving it. He knew we liked smalls and rares and waved us over and pointed at something... I saw nothing. He kept pointing and his finger was within 6" of it... I still saw nothing. Then he waved his hand back and forth and a Frog Fish that was about the size of a 50 cent piece perfectly blended into the sand became apparent. How he spotted that thing I have no idea. I also remember when I bet Walter I could find more Painted Elysias on a dive than he could as I knew where to look and what to look for. Well, I lost that bet as I was at 2 when he was at 4 and then I was at 4 when he was at about 12 and after he pointed out a patch of tiny seaweed that had about 8 on it I waved him off as enough was enough. Was such a great time diving with Walter.

Back before Palace took over the AS boats weren't so loaded with people, Bill would send boats out with only 6-10 divers on board or something and split up the divers for the day so all employees were employed and making $. Under his management the DM's could really shine. These days, that doesn't happen anymore under Palace management and the boats are stuffed to capacity. I've heard the op's management has been scolded by Palace management for their DM's not pointing out and finding enough "Big Things". Palace management wants more turtles, rays, sharks and morays 'cause bigger is better in their and I guess in their guests eyes as well. It is sad to see such DM talent go unused but we all have to remember for these DM's this is their career and how they put food on the table... What the boss wants, the boss gets. While we show up as dive tourists on a dive vaca, it is just another day of getting wet for the DM's and, rest assured, there are plenty of days the last thing a DM wants to do is get wet again but they do it day after day with a smile on their face because that is their job and most do it very, very well. I wouldn't skip the afternoon dives on Paradise as maybe the boats won't be so full for those dives and you'll get a chance to see what the AS DM's are capable of finding when they aren't overseeing such a large group of divers.

 

[ReefHound]

I can't reconcile spending the $$$$ to stay at Coz Palace and then dive with a low quality cattle boat. Why spend $3000 for the week then pass on a better dive op to save $300? No offense to Coz, but for that kind of money there are better places to go.

 

[NDL_Diver]

Aqua Safari does have fast 6 pac also but at a premimum. i don't think you can use resort credits for fast boats.

If you like slow boats with alot of people and don't mind not going to the southermost reefs ( but they will do Palancar) than go for it. You can contact them and ask about there fast boats and credits because my intel is years old.

 

[eleniel]

I've done several night dives with them and those were fun - the boats are super slow, but the night dives tend to be much smaller groups than the daytime cattle boat style diving. That said, they didn't do anything regarding really s**** buoyancy issues with divers in the group (one lady was so overweighted she dropped like a rock into a coral formation and spent the entire dive bouncing and rolling along the bottom).

My only experience with them during day dives was when one of their groups drifted through our dive (we were diving with another op) - the divers were really rude (one guy crashed into me because he was too busy drifting backwards/down with his gopro to pay attention to his surroundings) and others were bouncing off the reef and kicking up sand.

As far as the guides and crew - they were good and I'd dive with them again - but be prepared for an assortment of really less than aware divers in the group. I don't know that there is anything the could've done so I don't hold that against them - just be aware that they do cater to a lot of divers that dive once or twice a year and it shows.

 

[Guitarcrazy]

We just returned from our week at the Cozumel Palace, so I thought I would post our experiences with Aqua Safari. To begin, they are very communicative. I emailed to schedule dives before arriving as I did not want to take a chance that they were full when we arrived. They were very good about responding quickly to all of my inquiries. Once at the resort, they showed us the locker room area to store our gear, and explained when to arrive for dives, and what to expect.

The first day was a windy one, and the boat was moving around a lot at the dock. They were very good about helping everyone board safely. They would load your gear on the boat from the dock, but they do not help setup your gear for you. Once on board, they pointed out where they wanted you to sit, and you then had to setup your rig. For some reason they have my wife and I seated in the stern all week, which isn’t my favorite as it gets the most sun, and you can smell the diesel exhaust. I would spend a lot of the cruise up towards the front to get away from the diesel smell and carbon monoxide. Once underway I setup our gear, which was no rush as the boats are slow. Very slow. They have a large camera bin with freshwater, and two buckets of fresh water for masks. The boats are large and have a head onboard. We had wind most days, and we lost two days of diving to port closures. (Side note, this year it seems like there are more port closures than in past years. This was our third trip since September 2019, and we lost 2 days most weeks).

Once arriving at the dive site they gave thorough briefings each time, making sure everyone knew what to expect, and what they expected of us. We typically had a dive master leading the group, and another at the tail end to wrangle stragglers. We typically had 12 divers on the boat, and they usually broke us up into two groups.

The dive masters were all very good, but not as willing to point out wildlife as some other DMs we have been with. The exception is Mariano. We did a night dive with Mariano, and there were only 5 of us, and he found so many animals it was amazing. I think he found 5 octopus and so many splendid toadfish that I stopped counting. He even found a batfish, which I had never seen before. I have heard he is also very good on day dives, but we never had the chance to dive with him in the day. We had a smaller group for the night dive, and we were all experienced, so maybe that allowed him to do more hunting for critters, and not spend so much time trying to keep us safe.

During our day dives we had great luck finding Eagle Rays. I have never seen so many Eagle Rays in a week before. A few were actually less shy than usual, and I got some good photos and video of them, to include some frontal views which I have never been able to get before. On the flip side, we didn’t see one turtle the whole week. Not sure why, but hoping that is just an odd coincidence, and not a sign of something happening with the turtles.

We dove with AS because Cozumel Palace provides resort credit which you can use on diving, spa, food experiences, etc., so it was almost free to do the morning 2 tank dives. They charged $85 of resort credit for the 2 tank dives, and you had to pay 16% “tax” on that, making the cost about $14 per diver, per day. The afternoon dives and night dives are not included in the resort credit options, and those were $60 for one tank afternoon dive, and $50 for night dive.

I would dive with AS if I stayed at Cozumel Palace again, as the included dives are very inexpensive, but I definitely didn’t enjoy the experience as much as our usual small operator with valet service. It is definitely more relaxing to get on the boat and have our regular guys take care of everything. The smaller boats are so much faster also, which may be a factor for some. When we dove southern sites with our usual operator we would typically still be back at the dock around noon. With AS, when diving the southern sites we wouldn’t be back at the dock until 1:15 or 1:30. Not a big deal, but might be a decision factor for some. All in all, still a very enjoyable trip diving in Cozumel.