I'm sort of interpreting this like NJones (except that we ended up liking BA more than SM). It's not all that surprising to me that a popular DM like Jorge might want to run his own show--or not. Why and how that has all played out is more their business than ours, as much as many of us would like to know more. I guess the upshot for those of us who like to stay at the Blue Angel is that our next visit there won't be all that different than our last (except for any pricing and meal changes). And I guess there's a new dive shop in town, which may or may not end up being a very good one.
The whole thing about Jeanie's arrangement with the hotel and dive op just makes me wonder about why many Cozumel dive ops have done business the way they have--though things appear to be changing. Is it sort of a pre- or early-internet legacy? We dealt with Jeanie through a couple of hotel changes and had no complaints (I knew she could also book us into other hotels when BA was full so always thought maybe she had some sort of preferred but not exclusive relationship with the BA hotel). And I remember when we used to use Dive With Martin (and I still would use them if I were staying near their shop), they at some point had a U.S. person with whom you could pre-book and pre-pay for dives. I think a few others did as well. It always surprised me a little, in the early days of email, that sending a query or reservation directly to the dive shop seemed not to be the most obvious way to make contact in advance. I always wondered if that was for the convenience of U.S. clients who didn't want to just show up and hope for space on the boat? Was there some financial or credit-card-transaction advantage for the dive shops (as well as for customers) to pay in U.S. dollars on U.S. soil? Was it largely about language? I'm assuming the rise of online agencies like Orbitz, along with other technology, has made it harder for independent U.S. agents/contractors/whatever to profitably do what they have traditionally done, and less necessary for Mexico-based businesses to use their services. Just wondering about it all, in sort of a "How Things Work" kind of way.
I know this is a wee bit off topic, but it seems the topic is getting beat up a little. We've been treated well by all of the parties we've ever met.