Trip report OC Grand Nov 8th-18th 04

Randy-S · Nov 25, 2004

Because this board was such a great tool on booking my trip. I wanted to share our experiences in Coz, with everyone on the board.

Our trip starts in Portland, OR. We book this and many trips with Renee at http://www.unforgettablehoneymoons.com/ She is located in Portland and has always given me sound advise and the best price. If we wanted to fly directly into Coz we would have had a 6 hour lay over in Dallas. So instead we decided to fly into Cancun and make the trip over.
To get from Cancun airport to the OC Grand I booked transfers in advanced on the web at http://www.cozumel.net/tours/transfer.htm. It was very smooth, when we arrived and got our luggage and made through customs, they were waiting just outside the airport entrance with a sign with our name on it. We had a new private van trip down to the ferry were they helped us with our luggage. gave us our ferry tickets. Upon arrival in Coz another person with our name on a sign gave us taxi transfer helped with our luggage and sent us on our way to the OC. It was very quick and smooth event. Just a note they do give you all your return transfers at this time so don't loose them.

Once at the OC Grand I must say the resort is very nice. We enjoyed the staff who made an effort to know our names. We enjoyed all of there food including the out door pizza bar. Located on the roof of there main restaurants. There speaility restaurants being Mediteranean served with white gloves, steak house, and Mexican were all very good. :11ztongue
There nightly buffet was also very good.
The only note on there food is between 4pm and 630 pm there is no were to get a snack as all food serving areas are all closed. So if you are just coming back from some afternoon dives and you are hungry you got a little bit of a wait. :11:

The grounds, beach and pool areas are all very nice. The beach and waters are nice and sandy no rocks to get through like in front of the Iberostar. Snorkeling is very limited in front of the hotel due to it being mostly sand. It is very nice to swim and play in.

The rooms in the hotel are nice the AC works too well it will freeze you out of a room. That's a nice feature when in Mexico.

the bath rooms are nice and you have plenty of water, pop and beer stocked in your mini bar. They also have coffee makers and hair dryers in the room. I am a big fan of in room coffee.
Beware that they only have king beds in one out of every eight rooms so it may take a day or two to get a king. All other rooms have two twin beds.

Diving, I did most of my dives with http://www.liquidbluedivers.com I cannot say enough on how much I enjoyed diving with them. I am a newer diver and not only was I conformable with them I feel I am a better diver now that I have dove with them.
Here is some of the reason I liked diving with them.

First they pick you up at OC dock at 8 am and you are in the water at 820am. Well, before most other dive ops. This means you can choose your dive site on were you want to dive not were are there the least amount of divers at.

Second they let the customers choose the dive sights.

Third after diving they keep your gear and have it ready for you on your next dive day. No hauling it back to your room between dives.

Roberto the owner and my dive op for the trip was very safety conscious, able to find all the things you wanted to see. Helped me become a better diver with working on my air consumption, without limiting other divers dive time.
Note on there dive times. http://www.liquidbluedivers.com uses steel 120 tanks with that our fist dive of the day was on average 60+ minutes with our second dive going 75+minutes.
On one day diving we had a couple of other divers sharing Roberto's boat. From another OP, Anyway they use standard 80 tanks and on our second dive of the mourning I think the waited for over 20 minutes in the boat for us to surface. Our second dive of the day hit 80 minutes :crafty:

Christi · Nov 25, 2004

Randy-S:
Note on there dive times. http://www.liquidbluedivers.com uses steel 120 tanks with that our fist dive of the day was on average 60+ minutes with our second dive going 75+minutes. On one day diving we had a couple of other divers sharing Roberto's boat. I believe they were from XTdiving? Anyway they use standard 80 tanks and on our second dive of the mourning I think the waited for over 20 minutes in the boat for us to surface. Our second dive of the day hit 80 minutes . That's a big difference in bottom times.

Nice report Randy. Liquid Blue runs a great operation and are very good friends of mine. We often share space to help each other out.

For the record, I am looking at the reports for those days we shared the boat with Liquid Blue. My divers did 60 minutes on the first dive and 70 minutes on the second dive the first day, and 58 minutes and 64 minutes on the second day. The divers on my boat did 70 minutes, 82 minutes, 55 minutes and 75 minutes respectively on the same days. My point is that you can get lengthy bottom times with an AL 80 as well. Your claim that my divers waited on the boat for 20 minutes for you to surface is an exaggeration. However, I am glad you had a good time.

Randy-S · Nov 25, 2004

Actually I was just going off of what the people in the boat said?? However I should not have mention your operation since I did not use you and I only wish this thread to be a report on my experiences in Coz. Since I did not use you I apologize about mentioning your operation and I edited out of this and other trip reports I posted.
Randy

Christi · Nov 25, 2004

Randy-S:
Actually I was just going off of what the people in the boat said?? However I should not have mention your operation since I did not use you and I only wish this thread to be a report on my experiences in Coz. Since I did not use you I apologize about mentioning your operation and I edited out of this and other trip reports I posted.
Randy

No apology necessary. I just wanted to clarify and point out that there is not that much difference in the bottom times and that of course my divers were not waiting that long on the surface.

Happy Thanksgiving and again, I am glad you had a great trip! Thanks for sharing it with the board.

Trip report OC Grand Nov 8th-18th 04

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Randy-S

Contributor

Christi

PADI MSDT/Former CZM Dive op owner

Randy-S

Contributor

Christi

PADI MSDT/Former CZM Dive op owner

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