cjames
Contributor
Hi all,
Before I start, I just want to send a huge thank you once again to Christi for loaning me the back for one of her strobes when mine failed. She is such a class act and I can't say enough good things about her for doing that.
Our group normally goes to Cozumel over Cinco de Mayo, but went later this year to accomodate kids. We had 18 in the group at max capacity, so it was quite the crew.
The trip overall was good, details below...
How we got there: All of us came from Austin, so its a quick easy flight down. We had some on American, but most on Continental. All flights were on time and all baggage was accounted for.
We are looking forward to trying the discount airline that says it will be flying direct to Cozumel from Austin for a low fare.
Accomodations: We all stayed at the Iberostar. We've stayed there a number of times before because we like the property and its proximity to good dive sites. Its all inclusive.
Pros: Service is always good, staff is friendly. You are 10 minutes away max from Palancar. It has a great beach for hanging out and napping after diving.
Cons: This year only, Montezuma's Revenge took out 8 of our group (see my earlier post). The beds are hard, the rooms on the small side. The food is just OK. This year, there were a lot of very drunk people running around and normally, I wouldn't care, but we had some kids see some things that they shouldn't have. For that matter, I saw some stuff that I shouldn't have (old, fat, drunk, sun burned bubbas in speedos, the horror of it <<shudders>>).
Bottom line, this was my last time to an Iberostar property.
Diving: After a lot of discussion and research we decided to dive with Living Underwater (Living Underwater offers a personalized, fun and safe Cozumel diving experience!). We have dove with a number of great shops including Blue XTC, Blue Angel, and Palancar Divers. Our choice was based on availability, price, the size of the boat and the fact that Jeremy dives with steel 120s to give lots of bottom time.
Our group consists mostly of experienced divers, but we had a couple on board that is relatively new.
We stayed on the south side of the island for the entire trip with the exception of a dive on the wreck (C-53 I think). We dove a total of 11 tanks over 5 days including a night dive.
Our best sites were Palancar Gardens (lots of life, monster turtle), Columbia (always dramatic) and the wreck. There is a sardine ball on the wreck right now that is very cool.
We dove Delilah again this year and it is still nothing like it used to be. Paseo de Cedral was a bit dissapointing as well.
Our boat, the Jewfish, was always on time and very nice to dive out of. We never had more than 8 divers. Jeremy's guys do a fantastic job of making life easy including keeping your gear on the boat so you don't have to pack and unpack every day. The thing that really sold my wife was the fleece jackets they give you when you come up. Jeremy (aka. Chile Seko) is a great guide and a great guy as well. He did a fantastic job of balancing the need to maximize bottom time with keeping our newer guys safe and happy. We were the only folks on the boat that hadn't dove with him before.
Bottom line...Living Underwater is an absolutely fantastic shop and I highly recommend them. I will dive with them again.
I'll put some pictures on an additional post.
Before I start, I just want to send a huge thank you once again to Christi for loaning me the back for one of her strobes when mine failed. She is such a class act and I can't say enough good things about her for doing that.
Our group normally goes to Cozumel over Cinco de Mayo, but went later this year to accomodate kids. We had 18 in the group at max capacity, so it was quite the crew.
The trip overall was good, details below...
How we got there: All of us came from Austin, so its a quick easy flight down. We had some on American, but most on Continental. All flights were on time and all baggage was accounted for.
We are looking forward to trying the discount airline that says it will be flying direct to Cozumel from Austin for a low fare.
Accomodations: We all stayed at the Iberostar. We've stayed there a number of times before because we like the property and its proximity to good dive sites. Its all inclusive.
Pros: Service is always good, staff is friendly. You are 10 minutes away max from Palancar. It has a great beach for hanging out and napping after diving.
Cons: This year only, Montezuma's Revenge took out 8 of our group (see my earlier post). The beds are hard, the rooms on the small side. The food is just OK. This year, there were a lot of very drunk people running around and normally, I wouldn't care, but we had some kids see some things that they shouldn't have. For that matter, I saw some stuff that I shouldn't have (old, fat, drunk, sun burned bubbas in speedos, the horror of it <<shudders>>).
Bottom line, this was my last time to an Iberostar property.
Diving: After a lot of discussion and research we decided to dive with Living Underwater (Living Underwater offers a personalized, fun and safe Cozumel diving experience!). We have dove with a number of great shops including Blue XTC, Blue Angel, and Palancar Divers. Our choice was based on availability, price, the size of the boat and the fact that Jeremy dives with steel 120s to give lots of bottom time.
Our group consists mostly of experienced divers, but we had a couple on board that is relatively new.
We stayed on the south side of the island for the entire trip with the exception of a dive on the wreck (C-53 I think). We dove a total of 11 tanks over 5 days including a night dive.
Our best sites were Palancar Gardens (lots of life, monster turtle), Columbia (always dramatic) and the wreck. There is a sardine ball on the wreck right now that is very cool.
We dove Delilah again this year and it is still nothing like it used to be. Paseo de Cedral was a bit dissapointing as well.
Our boat, the Jewfish, was always on time and very nice to dive out of. We never had more than 8 divers. Jeremy's guys do a fantastic job of making life easy including keeping your gear on the boat so you don't have to pack and unpack every day. The thing that really sold my wife was the fleece jackets they give you when you come up. Jeremy (aka. Chile Seko) is a great guide and a great guy as well. He did a fantastic job of balancing the need to maximize bottom time with keeping our newer guys safe and happy. We were the only folks on the boat that hadn't dove with him before.
Bottom line...Living Underwater is an absolutely fantastic shop and I highly recommend them. I will dive with them again.
I'll put some pictures on an additional post.
I tried the resort food again a day later, with nearly the same results. We went to town after that for every meal (which is a waste for AI). The front desk said that " snacks" were available between lunch and dinner, which turned out to be the lunch buffet left out all afternoon.
