What About Playa del Carmen?

[Dyan]

I've been to Cozumel several times and loved it. Now I'm looking at Playa del Carmen. Has anyone been diving there? How does it compare to Cozumel - is it good diving? We're on a very-y-y-y tight budget at the moment and want to get in a dive trip and looking for the best deal we can find. I'm thinking Playa may be less expensive than Cozumel. Any/all feedback and thoughts welcome. Any suggestions on hotels/dive shops?

Thanks!

 

[paulw]

Playa has some very good diving but only if you pick a good shop (JMHO). I won't say who I have not liked but here are two shops in Playa that will please, The Abyss Dive Center and ask for Todd or Fantasea Dive and ask for Jason. I hope this helps.

 

[driftwood]

Playa isn't that much less than Coz. If its the air fare that is driving the decision, fly into Cancun (CUN), take the ADO bus to Playa ($8) and the ferry to Cozumel. Otherwise prices are going to be about the same.

 

[Scott M]

The diving between PDC and Coz are night and day. Both have good diving but Coz is just really hard to beat. PDC does not have the spectacular reefs and color Coz does. In PDC it is all walking out to the boat through the surf which most of the time is a non-issue but on those days when the wind does nto want to cooperate it can be a bear. Coz is dock to boat back to dock. PDC seems to get more of the constant winds Coz does not see. PDC has the Cenotes which are my favorite dives.

With that said I much prefer staying in PDC hands down.

Price wise I can get tickets to Coz cheaper than Cancun and both offer very reasonable accomodations but they are a little harder to find than the resort type stuff.

For diving I use Tank Ha in PDC and Aqua Safari in Coz both have never let me down.

Regards

 

[Dyan]

Thanks for the input. Very informative. Based on all this, I think I'll stick with Cozumel. I've dove Cenotes in Akumal - and for all their beauty, nothing beats the open ocean for me!

Thanks again.

Dyan

 

[jaybob217]

Just returned from there last weekend. We dove with Jason from fantaseadive.com. Great experience. We just emailed him, met him the morning we scheduled down on the beach, end of Calle 2 in Playa where it hits the beach. His boat is there and picks you up and off you go. Great experience.

We dove the Barracuda and Mocha-Shallows reefs. Saw a lot of turtles and this incredible swim through filled with glass fish. It was amazing.

 

[jaybob217]

Correction, Fantasea dive is at Calle 4 not Calle 2

 

[CWSWine]

Just returned from there last weekend. We dove with Jason from fantaseadive.com. Great experience. We just emailed him, met him the morning we scheduled down on the beach, end of Calle 2 in Playa where it hits the beach. His boat is there and picks you up and off you go. Great experience.

We dove the Barracuda and Mocha-Shallows reefs. Saw a lot of turtles and this incredible swim through filled with glass fish. It was amazing.

I never dived with Jason but we had dinner with him and some other peeps from Playa del Carmen, Mexico's Virtual Guide Book : Playa.Info - sure seems like a nice guy!!! Was willing to out of his way to do discovery scuba with us but we never got around to it.

 

[PlayaCountryBoy]

Hey guys! Thanks for all the good words! Much appreciated! And Jaybob you had it right the first time...we're located where Calle 2 dead ends with the beach. And hey ..those millions of glass fish shrouding that swim thru was quite a site, eh?!

 

[Byte Me]

In May I dove both Coz and Playa w/ Jason - the current was ripping in both places and Coz was really nice but the current was bad enough that visibility was severely reduced due to the sand being kicked up. Playa was still very nice and short of the wall we dove I thought the animal life was pretty similar.

Have to say though, I've done three times as many dives in Playa as Coz.

Cenotes were great too!!