Dive with Del Mar Aquatics in Cozumel?

[Sherald]

We are going to Cozumel to dive for the first time in about 10 days. Has anyone ever dove with Del Mar Aquatics and if so how was it? Are there other recomendations or operators to avoid?

Thanks,

savjrv

 

[scubawife]

sherald, I don't have any info for you about Del Mar Aquatics, but if you post on the Cozumel board I'm sure you will get some replies. The Coz board is under Mexico in the North American destinations.

The diving in Coz in great! Enjoy your trip.

 

[DiverMo]

Yes, please go to the Cozumel forum. You will learn much there - what restaurants to visit (and avoid), how to deal with the cabbies, shopping, did I mention eating? But right off the bat, I will tell you the big faves on the forum are Blue XT Sea, Liquid Blue, Dive With Martin, Bottom Time Divers, Papa Hogs, Aldora, and there are more. Christi at Blue XT Sea seems to be the runaway favorite, but she is usually booked months in advance. Just check out the forum, you will be overwhelmed with info! Good Luck and have a great trip (I'm jealous)!

 

[sharky60]

Del Mar Aquatics used to be on of the top notch dive ops on the island, I don't have any personal experience with them but now-a-days they seem to cater more to the cruise ship crowd, not that that's bad, it just means that they are more of a 'cattle boat' style dive op, using larger boats and having a lot of people on them. I don't know much about thier safety record or DM's, this is just an observation as I stay at a hotel right next to thier pier and see the coming and goings of the operation.

These days the top 3 recommendations I have for dive ops are:

1.) Dive with Martin, the dive op I've been personally using for the past few years, good DM's and captians, well maintained boats 6-8 divers max per boat, usually 2 dm's if the # is above 6 and some of the best prices on the island with free videos and night dives with multiple bookings. he is also collecting used prescription glasses and hearing aids for his charity and will give a discount or free night dive with a donation. visit the website for more info www.divewithmartin.com

2.) Blue XT Sea Divers, Christi has built a very fine dive operation in just a few short years, everyone that has used her services raves about the DM's, captians and services. www.bluextseadivers.com

3.) Bottom Time Divers, Raul Plates was my DM when I used to dive with Blue Bubble Divers, he has gone out on his own and is starting to build his business. He is a wonderful DM, VERY safety minded and really good at finding critters.
www.bottomtimedivers.net

all these folks will give you much more personal attention than a service that has large boats with lots of people on them.

hope this helps, happy diving!!

 

[alaity47]

We dived with Del Mar in April '03, and absolutely loved them! I was still a brand spanking new diver, and very nervous - especially when we pulled up to the first dive and it was a drift with a max depth of 80'. Eeks! The DMs were absolutely fabulous, and paid extra attention to me and anyone else who was new. The DM/diver ratio was great, the rental equipment was in good condition, and we liked the boats. Can't recommend them enough, at least as of 2 years ago!

Best thing about diving with Del Mar; where we were staying (La Ceiba), we walked past Ernesto's Fajita Factory to get back to our room after the dives. YUM!

We liked their prices, also.

 

[wcl]

Has anyone gone diving with them. If so, how was it? Who would you recommend and who would you avoid?

Hi,

My wife and I love Del Mar.

My LDS runs trips to Cozumel twice a year (Mar and Nov) using Del Mar (for years), and we have been on two of these.

We do get pretty much the whole boat and dedicated service for the 4 days of the trip, and the LDS has a long-standing relationship with them. Knowing our LDS owner, if the service is not up to par, he would dump them (he has high standards, and has walked away from poor trip partners).

We've been on two sizes of boats, one big (~20 divers), one smaller (~10). There were plenty of DMs, no problems on or off, good service, and not a cattle boat feel to us. We are newish divers, of course, YMMV on that. The have some other small boats also, I believe.

The DMs are great guides, and will find fun things, and they are kind to the reefs.

The guys there are also fun to have a beer with later!

Cheers,
Walter

 

[Lawrence914]

Has anyone done the shore dives with Del Mar? I'm curious how they are.

tia,
Lawrence

 

[britusa]

Unfortunately, I think I saw this post too late to help the original poster. I came back from my first Cozumel Trip in June 05. We stayed at Casa Del Mar and dove with Del Mar Aquatics. I found the shop to be really nice. The three dive masters we had on our boat were fantastic. The first day, they took the time to find out the diving skills of everyone onboard and then broke the 26 of us up into 3 groups by skill level. This way, the newer divers didn't feel like they were holding the more experienced divers back and the more experienced divers weren't coming up too early. They would drop the most experienced divers in the water first with one dive master, then about 5 minutes later the next group, followed 5 minutes later by the last group (the newbies). The newbies were always back on the boat first and the experienced divers last with no group bobbing on the surface too long. Shore dives from Del Mar were fantastic and some of my favorite. The shop was very accomodating for the night dives. They gave our group leader the key to the locker room on the nights we did group dives so equipment retrieval was really easy. Even for lone night divers, they made sure you had tanks out. Having the hotel just across the street, accessible by an overhead walkway, made coming and going excellent. I'd go back to them again.