First trip to Cozumel

[mattj1165]

Greetings! My fiance and I plan to spend our honeymoon in Cozumel. We are both AOW divers (I have 76 dives, she has 35) and we love to dive (just got back from a week in Bonaire). Since it is our honeymoon, we plan to splurge and stay at the Palace. Reading the threads here, it sounds like the Palace is a great AI resort where it is easy to relax. This will be our first time diving in Cozumel. Any recommendations for good, safe dive ops? We would prefer smaller boats that cater to intermediate divers rather than a cattle boat where there are dozens of new divers crashing into you. Is it important to sign up with a fast boat if we are getting picked up from the Palace dock? Also, do any dive ops store your gear over night? If not, does the Palace have a convenient place for us to rinse and store our gear? Also, any recommendations on good guide books to Cozumel dive sites? We'd like to spend a few days on the mainland and perhaps go to Holbox to snorkel with whale sharks. Any thoughts on that? And finally (whew), I noticed some people suggesting that we book the Palace through members on ebay. How can I tell if the person is legitimate? Do I need to worry about what is or isn't included? THANKS for any and all advice! I will buy you a beer when I am there (well, at least one of you .

Matt, Pennsylvania

 

[bnajdrovsky]

Welcome to ScubaBoard, Matt. If you spend some time on this board, you'll find that there are many great dive operators at Cozumel that meet your requirements. In general, the operators that have offices in town are the ones that generally have the small, fast boats and cater to the more advanced divers. Personally, I have experience with 3 dive operations at Coz. Dive Palancar, Blue XT Sea, and Dive With Martin. Dive Palancar operates out of the Occidental properties down south, and they use the big boats, so you will probably want to skip them. They're fine for beginner divers, but advanced divers are probably better off using other ops. I've been very happy with both Blue XT Sea and Dive With Martin. Both companies offer similar type of service. They have small fast boats, knowledgeable dive masters, they store and rinse your gear after the day's diving is done, and they usually do surface intervals on one of the beaches down south. Blue XT Sea pampers their divers a little bit more during the surface interval with fresh fruit, juices, muffins, etc. Dive With Martin is not quite as lavish but usually provides some type of fruit and drinking water.

Other popular operators that many folks here recommend include Aldora, Blue Angel, Liquid Blue, etc..., but I don't have any experience with them. I'm sure others will chime in. Suffice to say, there are many good operators on the island.

 

[MMM]

Actually there are a lot of dive ops with fast boats thatdon't have offices in town. Living Underwater is one that immediately comes to mind. Stores dive gear (including wetsuits, which most other ops don't), and picks up at the Palace. Steel tanks so longer dive times.

 

[BaileyM]

Hey Matt, Congrats on your wedding. I stayed at the Palace once, it's a great hotel. No doubt you will enjoy it. Gorgeous pool, good service, food is pretty good for an a/i, close to town. I don't know anything about booking the hotel through Ebay though, so I can't help you there. There are many good, safe dive ops on the island, and everyone talks about their favorite ones on this forum, I'm sure you've noticed. It looks like you would want smaller boats, and don't want to trudge or clean your own gear. I have been diving with several ops on the island, and always had good service from them, but my favorite is Blue Magic Scuba. They have very small groups on small boats and will store gear for you too. I'm not 100% sure, but they probably will pick you up at the Palace pier. My partner and I have made 3 trips to Cozumel over the last year, and we really like their service. The dive masters are awesome, and the owner, Joyce, will make sure you are happy. Plus, we hang out at their shop, it's fun, because everyone is so friendly.

Blue Magic Scuba Shop, scuba diving cozumel, Dive Packages, Scuba Lessons or send Joyce an email at: joyce@bluemagicscuba.com

She always seems to respond quickly and answered all my questions. We did the Whale Shark trip last July and it was incredible. Went with a company called EcoColors. There must have been at least 50 of them!!! We didn't have to go all the way to Holbox; took the 7am ferry, they picked us up in Playa, drove to Punta Sam (less than an hour, if I remember right), put us on a nice boat for a 30 minute ride, and then we jumped in with the guide. Gave us lunch and we made a stop at Isla Mujeres, it was so cool. Have a great time, the diving is incredible in Coz and you too will be hooked! We can't wait to go on our next trip later this spring! If you have any more questions about the Whale Shark trip, you can pm me, no problem.

 

[scubadada]

Hi Matt,

As stated, many great operators on Cozumel and everone has their favorite, mine is Aldora. Small, fast boats with divers of similar experience and interests, great divemasters, and big steel tanks with long dive times. You might also want to look into a day of cenote diving, they arrange everything and the usual DM, Mateo, is fantastic.

Congratulations on your wedding, enjoy your honeymoon and the diving on Cozumel.

Good diving, Craig

 

[gonesouthjohn]

scuba mau is awsome they rinse and store your gear treat you great and they have great reviues on trip advisor cant beat them talk to opal tell them toadfish sent you

 

[old gaffer]

Matt congratulations on the pending nuptials! Most ops will pick up at the Palace pier. My wife and I really like the Palace, great for her as a non-diver as it is close to town. Also when I stayed there in January of "09" the dive op I used kept everything but my wetsuit, I also kept my mask, fins and snorkel for snorkeling with my wife around the ocean entry area in front of the hotel. In you get a junior suite which is what I would recommend (beautiful room with an ocean view) you will have a large inroom jacuzzi and I soaked my wetsuit in there and just hung it out on the balcony after each days diving. I think there are also lockers available next to the house dive op which used to be Aqua Safari but is now an op which is more of a cattle boat operation. I believe you do get a complimentary two tank boat dive with them included with your stay but my wife and I are going back to the Palace in April and I have no intention of using them even for the free dive. I booked with BlueXTSea and am really looking forward to diving with them.

Gaffer

 

[bnajdrovsky]

I forgot to answer your question about booking Palace via eBay. I have done this on two previous occasions, and both times it worked out great. Basically, the usual process is that the eBay auction is to purchase the rights to buy a week long stay at the Palace property at the Palace member prices. These are usually significantly less than what you would end up paying to a normal vacation tour company, and the Palace membership weeks come with additional perks such as massages, pedicures, manicures, tours, etc. On both previous occasions, I paid something like $125 to the seller on eBay, and for that she booked one of her "weeks" with Palace resorts in my name as her guest. After that, I just called up Palace Resorts directly, gave them the account number provided by the auction owner and paid for the hotel room with my own credit card directly to Palace Resorts. Like I said, it worked out great on both occasions, and I'd recommend it to others, if you can find an active auction on eBay.

 

[Lenmonster]

I am a Palace member and have done this for ScubaBoarders. If anyone wants a week, let me know. I have up to two to offer this year at member price. I won't charge any premium, because Palace has a nice deal for us if people book through us anyway. It's a win/win.

 

[Lenmonster]

PS: This is not the same as using one of my available weeks. Palace runs a promotion each year where they encourage current members to have other people try out the Palace, so they allow people to book using our member number. We are limited to two such weeks per year, and last year Coz Palace wasn't one of the available options, but it is this year. This doesn't come out of our available weeks as part of our membership.