Really confused about Kona, Hawaii vs Cozumel???
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Gdog
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A couple years ago, during the great recession, airfare was really inexpensive, as were the hotels and condos as they were struggling to fill rooms. Now, post GR, back to normal pricing plus some.
Sideways
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Funny, I just for the heck of it looked at travel to the big island last night. Yeah, no joke...airfare is NOT cheap. Cheapest on a quick search was $900 from LAX to the big island. I'll just tack on a couple hundred more and go to Fiji....:cool2:
Skittl1321
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It is cheaper to fly from western Canada than LAX! Wow!
I'm seeing midweek fares on United (LAX-KOA) for $728. Not that $728 is cheap, but it's less than $900.
---------- Post added March 6th, 2014 at 05:48 PM ----------
---------- Post added March 6th, 2014 at 05:48 PM ----------
Dayum. Tax day special, Vancouver-Kona for $497 (4/15-4/22), but there's a stop in SF. If you fly direct from SF on those dates, it's $815. Frickin' weird!
spoolin01
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I don't find Kona that expensive. $150/week for a rental car. $90-$100/nt for a nice 1BD condo on the water, with nice diving right there. Giant delicious papaya 20c each, apple bananas cheaper than Chiquita, fresh local mahi/ahi for $12-$15/lb, everything Costco for about the same as mainland. Boat diving is expensive, but shore diving is everywhere, as good as the boat sites (mostly the same sites), and cheap. With two, and 2-3wk stays, it runs around <$150/day/person for everything, flight included (West Coast!). That's with very little boat diving, but 2 tanks and weights for each day.
There are lots of fish, turtles, and friendly dolphins, but it's true the reef is relatively simple and not much in most places (with spectacular exceptions here and there), and visibility while pretty good (hey, I'm from California!), could be better.
Guess it's time to try Cozumel for some perspective...
There are lots of fish, turtles, and friendly dolphins, but it's true the reef is relatively simple and not much in most places (with spectacular exceptions here and there), and visibility while pretty good (hey, I'm from California!), could be better.
Guess it's time to try Cozumel for some perspective...
marcus8
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As a rule of thumb, of course Coz is going to be cheaper. But amazing deals are possible for Kona. In '12, we managed to piece together a deal for $900 each(2 of us for 9 nights) that included flight from San Jose CA, a very nice large condo on a golf course (7 miles from the ocean) and POC little car. Alaska had promo flights for $259 and Orbitz had amazing coupons for booking things together for 7 nights plus to Hawaii. Timing is everything!
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Hi,
We are planning to take a 1 week diving trip from San Francisco mid April, and we were considering either Kona or Cozumel. Looking at the comments / posts here (people saying Cozumel is much better), we have started looking at hotels / flights / diving packages for Cozumel and I got confused, so let me summarize my thoughts so far:
1. Dive Quality: People say Cozumel is way nicer than Kona for scuba, but looking at the videos posted on Youtube, I could not see the WOW effect for Cozumel? I mean, reefs look washed out, there are different species but you don't see much life (like a few fish here and there), etc. Kona videos have much wider range of corals and again much more lively than Cozumel? I have checked out dozens of videos for each, and as I was saying Cozumel looked pretty bleak to me? Ah, also, not to mention Kona has that spectacular manta dive
2. Prices: Again, people were saying Cozumel is much cheaper / affordable / etc. Again, looking at hotel + dive packages in Cozumel, you can't get anything less than 2.5-3K USD for 6 days dive + 7 days hotel in something like Presidente or Park Royal (basically any 4+ star relatively nice hotel), and diving is around 80 USD per day in Cozumel (2 tank dive) with scuba du or h20. Looking at Kona, you can get Sheraton / Hilton or condos for ~ 200 USD, and dives are a bit more expensive (like 100 USD instead of 80). So, I don't see how Cozumel is cheaper, leave aside much cheaper?
3. Flights: Much more painful for Cozumel and definitely more expensive, i.e. you have to fly thru' Houston, waits between flights are like 5 hours, etc.
Am I missing something obvious here? Would appreciate it if you can shed some light here...
I apologize in advance, I did not read any of the other 6 pages of posts, but, you've got to be kidding regardiing the quality of diving. This is a no brainer. I have found myself on Oahu, Maui, and Kuaii for a number of reasons and have enjoyed the diving very much. On the other hand, I have chosen a dive vacation to Cozumel and it met high expectations. If you want to stay in the US, Hawaii is is fine choice (with chilly water). If you are more adventuresome, there are many fine Caribbean options, Cozumel being only one of many.
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