Pro's or Con's of SCC

[GotAir]

I saw online a place in cozumel called Scuba Club Cozumel. It looks like a diver's paradise! has anybody ever been there ? I'm thinking of going in Oct this year to it.

GotAir

[jlyle]

My favorite place in the World! We are headed back for our 20th trip. Check out my trip reports by clicking on the links below. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send me a PM.

Jim (jlyle)

[awap]

I've been to SCC 6 times in my 14 trips to Cozumel.

Advantages:
very clean, large, well maintainted rooms
good plumbing & large showers
designed for divers (will not accept pairs of non-divers)
Very good, fresh food with enough variety for a 2-week stay
meals served around diving schedule
Clean towels twice a day
Fairly small operation
Large, well fitted diveboats - not too crowded
good DMs
reasonably long bottom times
very adaquate shore dives - tanks readily available
Great service - they work for their tip
Plenty of spacious gear lockers (BYOL)
Everything you need close by
Very relaxing diving vacation

Disadvantages:
It's not cheap - tips and drinks extra
Cement beds - you got to like it firm
Don't do far dive sites - you can push for punta sur
You will see lots of Paradise & Villa Blanc reefs
Southern reef 2nd dives very rare
It might take a couple trips before you get the better rooms


I plan to continue staying there once a year. If you get tired of their shore dive, take a taxi south & drift back. Or try it at mid-night (get your tanks before 7pm).

[Charlie99]

Pros: Dive oriented resort. Virtually everyone there is either a diver, or accompanying a diver. I particularly liked this when traveling solo --- very easy to meet and socialize with other divers.

SCC has several boats, and the staff do a good job of attempting to group divers with similar experience level on the same boat.

Long term, dedicated staff with GREAT attitude -- not only in the dive shop, but also the waiters, housekeeping, and front desk crews.

Gear lockers near the pier.

Unlimited tanks for shore dives.

Lots of character. Definitely NOT a chain hotel.

Convenient location just down the street from Chedraui (sp?) department store. About 10 minutes walk to town.

---------------------------

CONS: Room tend toward smaller size, hard beds, all tile (my room even had a nightstand built out of tile). Clean, basic.

Food is plentiful and good, but basic.

No beach. shore is ironshore/petrified coral.

Shore dive is so-so, like most Cozumel hotels.

Long boat rides to the reefs (perhaps that belongs in the Pro column, since the boats are comfortable and the ride enjoyable).

[JenM]

I saw online a place in cozumel called Scuba Club Cozumel. It looks like a diver's paradise! has anybody ever been there ? I'm thinking of going in Oct this year to it.

GotAir

Just spent 10 days at Scuba Club earlier in July. Plusses:
-close enough to town that you can either walk or the taxi is cheap
-Chedruai is only a 10 minute walk away
-food ranges from decent to really good
-the meals are synchronized with the dive schedule
-everyone there is a diver so it is very easy to meet people
-staff was excellent and friendly
-we had a small fridge in our room for essentials like drinks and snacks
-Dive shop, gear lockers, etc right by the ocean so you can jump in for a shore dive anytime with good, safe ladders/steps to exit
-the shore night dive is really great and you can do it anytime. We did five night dives on 8 diving days
-Boats are very comfortable with marine heads and the staff does try to group you by ability if they can. They have larger boats for groups of 16-25 who want to dive together but they also have several smaller boats which they limit to 8-10 people.
-They try to keep the ratio of diver to divemaster at 8 to 1 and if you are on a large boat, they drop you in smaller groups so everyone isn't right on top of each other.
-The divemasters gave a standard (shorter) profile in the briefing, but never actively limited our bottom time. We usually stayed down for an hour or so with no problems or complaints from them.

Minuses:
-Boats are slooooowwwwww. Consequently boat rides are long. We went to Punta Sur and Columbia several times but it was a 1hr 20min. boat ride.
-Second dive is always at a reef closer to town. That's not a bad thing since we usually went to Yucab, Tormentos or Las Palmas (all very fun dives), but I would have liked to have done Columbia or Palancar shallows for a second dive.
-Beds are hard but I understand this is common in Cozumel
-Drinks are not included in the price and were quite expensive ($2.20/softdrink, $3.30/beer). We got around this by stocking up at Chedruai but it seems like they would make it up in volume if they lowered the soft drink prices.

All in all, we really liked it. Next time, we are going to either stay farther south or go with an operator with a faster boat, but that's really the only issue we had with Scuba Club. We would definitely go back and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

[zinmaker]

Hello Gotair,

I must agree with everyone else, as I just stayed there from July 10th to the 17th, and you can read my trip report as well. The divemasters are great, and think the food is a step up from the typical buffet style of the other all inclusive places. Plus you are still very close to town. The only other thing I might add is they charge an extra $40 or $50 for a one dive extra trip to the C-53 shipwreck, however we did get a good tour of the wreck. Other extra charges are the $2.25 per day reef tax for any boat dives. http://scubaboard.com/t64651.html

Bruce

[jlyle]

Bruce (zinmaker),

Where is your report? Would you please post a URL?

Thanks,
Jim

[Christi]

Hello Gotair,

I must agree with everyone else, as I just stayed there from July 10th to the 17th, and you can read my trip report as well. The divemasters are great, and think the food is a step up from the typical buffet style of the other all inclusive places. Plus you are still very close to town. The only other thing I might add is they charge an extra $40 or $50 for a one dive extra trip to the C-53 shipwreck, however we did get a good tour of the wreck. Other extra charges are the $2.25 per day reef tax for any boat dives.

Bruce

The marine park fee is $2.00 or $20 pesos per diver per day. If they were charging you $2.25 for the marine park fee, they are profiting from these any way you look at it.

Current exchange rate on the island is 11.2 pesos to the dollar

$20 pesos is equal to $1.78 at this exchange rate, although we are to keep a standard 10 to one for the marine park and charge $2 USD or $20 pesos per diver per day

$2.25 is equal to $25.20 pesos

If what you say is true, they are making a 5.2 peso/.47 cent profit on each marine park ticket. I sure hope you are mistaken!

[NDH]

We had a great time in April when we were their. I don't remember if it was $2 or $2.25 so I can't comment on that. I just wanted to add that it was great to come in after diving and the food was their for you and not 2hrs old like some hotels. Also some of the dives out front was great octo's at night and even a large grouper during one day dive. Have fun and enjoy the hammock by the water they are great.

[HammerNoMore]

Aside from the beds that actually make cement look soft, what I didn't like about the place was:

1) Tipping. They really hit you up for tipping. Leaving little tip envelopes everywhere, reminding you when you check in, etc. I'm a good tipper but I don't like to be baraged with hints.

2) Rooms. Every room is different so YMMV, but ours was a horrible layout. Bed on the lower floor, bathroom upstairs. Did I mention that the stairs were tiled and had no safety rail (i.e. completely open on one side.) Not good for middle of the night bathroom trips.

3) Diving. Already mentioned. Big slow boats that won't go far and won't take suggestions.

4) Food. Lunch is a buffet. We're not big lunch eaters and preferd just to have some chips and guac. We had to pay for all of our lunches (well a couple, after that we started going out for lunch).

We ate dinner there 1 time. It was a barly cooked chicken breast with canned cream of mushroom soup on top. Never ate there again. Oh yea, the service was horrible.

5) Did I mention the beds make concrete look soft? I really ment it. I like a hard bed and sleep on the floor when my back is bothering me, I couldn't sleep on those beds.

Some of the things cannot and will not be fixed there, but I get the impression that if you come back 5 or 6 times they may actually start treating you decently. It's like you have to earn good service there, not the other way around.

James