Wow I totally forgot to reply to my own thread!
So anyways, back over July 4th 2011 I stayed at the Park Royal and dove with Robertas/Blue Bubble/Scuba Shack. If you are staying at the PR - this is a super convenient shop to use! I like they are on the water, with an actual shop. They share whats left of their doc with the snorkel tour op that has all the big white catamaran boats. I thoroughly enjoyed showing up early everymorning and watching the hustle and bustle of them and robertas people gearing up for the days work. Roberta runs a great dive shop, great staff and I really enjoyed them.
She reminded me a TON of Margaret from Papa Hogs - without the yelling/screaming over reacting second half.
Great lady and she was great to deal with, great communication and she makes the best breads/cakes that she sends out for a snack during the SI's!!!!
Dive shop has plastic bins with chains and locks - I brought my own combo lock. Was super convenient to not have to drag my gear back and forth to the hotel every day. Rinse tank right outside the storage room and a drying rack outside as well to let your stuff drip dry.
They allow you to dive your computer/air. 700 #'s and you head up to safety stop then out of the water with your dive buddy. Very casual and relaxed atmosphere, they let us pick out dives by consensus and they had no issues going to the southern sites. Boat crews were great, all baots are small 6-8 passenger panga styles - all with covers! (YAY!). They provide water and snack and pop at SI. As I said before the cakes/breads Roberta makes are to die for!
My ONLY semi complaint was one DM i got stuck with for several days.....he seemed more interested in hunting lionfish that anything else, but he was a good DM, I just felt bad for some of the noobler divers who didn't get a whole lot pointed out for them as he was busy killing lionfish. I personally didn't care as I know how to find my own critters and generally like to float alone on my own. So by no means a major issue as the DM i had on day one was really really good.
Was a great week of diving, I will not hesitate to use them again, the last day I picked Columbia Shallows as 2nd dive and we all (5 divers I think) pulled almost an hour and a half - had a great group the last day and 90 minutes on shallows is just amazing!!! DM called the dive as HE got cold lol! During the week we saw TONS of turttles, nurse sharks, lots of DEAD lionfish (thanks the the over zealous DM - he was really good at killing them lol!), I got to see the ballast stones and anchor down by palancar/columbia again which is super cool.
So all in all, great shop, great owner, great boats, great diving. If I stay at the PR again, this will be my op of choice for sure!