Guitarcrazy
Contributor
My wife and I returned to Cozumel on April 5th, staying at the Casa Mexicana. We arrived at the Cancun airport at 2 PM, and met up with Jhony from American Transfers. We prearranged the transfer with them because of CVChief’s recommendation. Jhony immediately answered my texts and was waiting when we stepped outside of Terminal 3. The cost was 800 pesos each way, and we paid for the round trip when we met him. The ride was very comfortable in a large van with air conditioning and cold beer. On the return trip they were waiting at Senor Frogs so we met the driver as soon as we exited the pier. It couldn’t have been easier.
We purchased round trip ferry tickets and only had to wait 20 minutes or so to catch the ferry. There were metal detectors in place, but they went off for every passenger who went through. It was clearly only for show. They did have tables and officers present to presumably check your bags if you alerted, but I did not see anyone get selected for screening.
The ferry ride was uneventful and we retrieved our bags at the Cozumel pier as usual. We had more bags since my wife and I both have all our own gear now, and we elected to use a Sherpa to wheel us to the cabstand. At the end of the pier he said he would take us all the way to the Casa Mexicana so we elected to ride on the bicycle with our bags. For $10 it was worth it, and it was amusing to the other tourists to see us perched on top of the bags on the front of a bike.
Casa Mexicana was just as advertised. It was very clean and nice, and the staff was great. We had an ocean view room on the second floor, and we were happy we chose to stay there. We were right down the hall from breakfast, which is excellent, and had a great view of the water.
On Friday the 6th we met up with Salty Endeavors at the Aqua Safari pier, almost directly across from the Casa Mexicana. My wife decided to do her advanced on this trip, and we were with Raymundo for most of our dives. He is an excellent instructor and provided very attentive, individual instruction to my wife, which she really enjoyed. He has a great personality and is great at putting everyone at ease. My wife loved diving with Salty Endeavors and we will use them again on our next trip. We are looking to return in December with our college-age kids and get them certified with Raymundo. He seemed to know where to dive in order to miss other groups of divers. This is the first trip where we didn’t run into another group of divers. I think we came in contact with other divers on every day of our other two trips, and on this trip we never saw another group. It was great being a bit more separated from the packs of divers you usually see.
We dove all the usual spots, and saw one Nurse shark, one Eagle ray, tons of fish, and on our night dive saw lots of octopus. We did our night dive at Villa Blanca Wall to get away from the other divers at Paradise, and it was great. We didn’t see another diver all night, and tons of animals were present. We dove the wreck at Chankanaab, and while there isn’t a lot of coral or tons of animals on the ship, it was still very enjoyable.
Henry runs a great operation and he was always very easy to contact. I felt like we got exactly what we were looking for; small boat, attentive DM and Instructor, and great service. They kept our gear for the duration of the trip, and made it very easy to just enjoy being out on the boat and under the water. We can’t wait to go back.
We purchased round trip ferry tickets and only had to wait 20 minutes or so to catch the ferry. There were metal detectors in place, but they went off for every passenger who went through. It was clearly only for show. They did have tables and officers present to presumably check your bags if you alerted, but I did not see anyone get selected for screening.
The ferry ride was uneventful and we retrieved our bags at the Cozumel pier as usual. We had more bags since my wife and I both have all our own gear now, and we elected to use a Sherpa to wheel us to the cabstand. At the end of the pier he said he would take us all the way to the Casa Mexicana so we elected to ride on the bicycle with our bags. For $10 it was worth it, and it was amusing to the other tourists to see us perched on top of the bags on the front of a bike.
Casa Mexicana was just as advertised. It was very clean and nice, and the staff was great. We had an ocean view room on the second floor, and we were happy we chose to stay there. We were right down the hall from breakfast, which is excellent, and had a great view of the water.
On Friday the 6th we met up with Salty Endeavors at the Aqua Safari pier, almost directly across from the Casa Mexicana. My wife decided to do her advanced on this trip, and we were with Raymundo for most of our dives. He is an excellent instructor and provided very attentive, individual instruction to my wife, which she really enjoyed. He has a great personality and is great at putting everyone at ease. My wife loved diving with Salty Endeavors and we will use them again on our next trip. We are looking to return in December with our college-age kids and get them certified with Raymundo. He seemed to know where to dive in order to miss other groups of divers. This is the first trip where we didn’t run into another group of divers. I think we came in contact with other divers on every day of our other two trips, and on this trip we never saw another group. It was great being a bit more separated from the packs of divers you usually see.
We dove all the usual spots, and saw one Nurse shark, one Eagle ray, tons of fish, and on our night dive saw lots of octopus. We did our night dive at Villa Blanca Wall to get away from the other divers at Paradise, and it was great. We didn’t see another diver all night, and tons of animals were present. We dove the wreck at Chankanaab, and while there isn’t a lot of coral or tons of animals on the ship, it was still very enjoyable.
Henry runs a great operation and he was always very easy to contact. I felt like we got exactly what we were looking for; small boat, attentive DM and Instructor, and great service. They kept our gear for the duration of the trip, and made it very easy to just enjoy being out on the boat and under the water. We can’t wait to go back.
