Puerto Vallarta Chico's dive shop

[martzak]

Just got back from a week long trip to Puerto Vallarta. I did two dive trips with Chico's dive shop, one to Los Arcos and another to Majahuitas. The visibility was >40ft at los arcos canyon and ~30ft at majahuitas, temp. ~75F at 50ft. Although we did not run into any breathtaking pelagic creatures such as whale sharks or giant manta rays, we did get to swim through some interesting underwater canyons and other rock formations. There was no shortage of puffer fish, sting rays, moreys and other smaller creatures. The dive boat (Chico's) offered excellent service at a very reasonable price (compare to other local dive shops). All equipment (older but functioning properly) was included in the price; most of the regs were genesis yukons and BCs either scubapro or sherwood non-weight-integrated. Ham and cheese sandwiches, soda and water was provided for lunch, just enough to refuel between dives, but not so much that you would get sea sick. The boat is an open deck catamaran with a canvas roof. the only fully covered area on the boat above the deck level was the head. The crew may not have been very talkative (all mexican muchachos), not necessarily a bad thing, but they were very friendly, helpful and accomodating. I used my own regulators and they took care of them as if they were their own.
I highly recommend this outfit for any divers planning on doing diving in Puerto Vallarta. I will definitely dive with them again the next time I'm in PV.
If you book your trips via their website you can save additional money.

FYI, I do not work for or am in any way affiliated with Chico's dive shop. I had a great time diving with them and thought I should share my findings with the SB community.

 

[scubaswenson]

I'll second the recommendation. I dived with Chico's Jan of 2009. Good operation, fair price. I even left my fins and the owner shipped them to me in Utah. I paid for shipping but my fins were worth more than many of those guys make in a month. I thought for sure they would have disappeared. I also dove los arcos, but to be honest the afternoon dive sucked! It was so bad we opted to not do our second tank and asked for a refund. They gave it to us on the spot. I was pleasantly suprised. I have only dove Puerto Vallarta the one time so this is in no way a representation of what it is like but from doing a little research it seem this place is not so hot. Our viz was about 20 feet when we got off into more canyon areas with colder current the viz iimproved to about 40 ft. but we spen most of the dive in shallow murky lifeless water and not until the end was it decent. I wondered why did'nt they take us straight to this spot. It would have been worth doing. the little bay Chicos has thier sattelite office is is spectacular, the operator was great, but the conditions sucked. Probably worth trying again, but I am pretty sure this isn't a great dive location. But hey a bad day diving is better than being with drunk Americans on a cruise boat.

 

[ReverendSteve]

I'm going down to Puerto Vallarta in a couple of weeks and have been considering Chico's. I travel with my own equipment so that's not an issue. My biggest concern is always the operator's knowledge of and ability to hit the right spots for the conditions. If anyone else has information on Chicos, please post up.

 

[yaeldiver]

hello i have a dive shop in puerto vallarta my name is rodolfo I am a master scuba diver trainer and we have brand new equipment, new boat and engines ( 2 yamaha 115 hp) and very experienced staff (multilingual) if you want this is our offices phone (322)2256750
have a nice day!

 

[ScubaMike05]

I did a dive with Chico's yesterday at the Los Arcos dive site. Overall, the staff was professional and good to us. Skippy, our divemaster, gave a good briefing and helped out with setting up our gear and point stuff out underwater. I only had 2 negative points about the operator.

1. Boat equipment: Needed to take a small dingy to the catamarang and the dingy was being used to power the catamarang to the site. Took a while, but we got there.

2. Dive sites offered: They only told me that Los Arcos had good visibility at the time. I found out (through other operators) that other sites like Majahuitas, etc had decent dive conditions.

Overall, they get a B in my book, but are not my first choice in PV.

 

[Blackfish]

Did a day of diving with Chicos a couple weeks back---the dive crew is very hard working and does a nice job, but there were too many divers for the conditions and the gear is questionable.

Twelve folks split between two divemasters was way too many given the number of beginners and the 10-15' visibility at Los Arcos. It was a testament to their skill that we were all together at the end of the dive, but it wasn't a particularly enjoyable dive. You couldn't spend much time at all looking at something or you'd completely loose the group---I found a couple of octos and some interesting crustaceans and would have enjoyed looking for a while, but couldn't. We used Chicos since my wife had gone with them before on a day when they had few divers and had a good dive with one other diver and a DM. I was running past their boat the next day and noticed that there were only 2-3 divers on the boat---I'm guessing they had a very nice time.

The gear they are using is pretty beat---quite a few of the octos had broken plastic on the purge buttons and my reg did not breath easily when the tank got down below 1000lbs. It is probably fine, but it did not inspire confidence. The catamaran we dove off of is also showing its age...most of the railings were down to 1 screw at each attachment location...

Their on-line prices for diving are hard to beat at $68/2 tanks/day.....

The pre-dive briefing was pretty hysterical since the Captain/DM mostly focused on quizzing folks on diving 101. Most of the folks were freshly minted divers and clueless. To quote the Captain "Children, OH MY, children..... "

 

[Sasquatch]

So, ScubaMike, who is your FIRST choice in PV?

 

[Mossman]

So, ScubaMike, who is your FIRST choice in PV?

Excellent question. It looks like we have two days to kill there in late November.

 

[buton]

i have just dive with twin dolphins, they have great service giovanni is the owner(he do not go on the boat with you), lorenzo was the DM(i dont know if he is certifed by padi or not) but what i can tell you is that that guy used to work as a diver welding stuff, piers, rescue etc... he knows the area pretty well, very helpfull guy, he will take good care of your, i called him the underwater RAMBO...

i am going in november( 17 to 21) also mossman, when are you going?

 

[Mossman]

i am going in november( 17 to 21) also mossman, when are you going?

Just a cruise stop. November 29. I was also looking at Vallarta Adventures since they're near the cruise terminal.