Question December Port Closures & Dive Op

[ggunn]

thanks. i did get the impression that it was "infested". From most of the feedback, the picture that had been created in my mind is not a real concern to worry about. While I know diving drunk isn't allowed, I got a little bit of a spring break feel from some of the stuff I was reading, coupled with a fair number of reports where people clearly communicated their preferences to a dive op, and then those were seemingly ignored a la @brsnow. To me, that is unprofessional when someone is spending a fair amount of their money and their precious time on a hobby they are passionate about. If I lived somewhere where I could be in the water every day, I probably wouldn't care as much. But the incredibly small percentage of time I get to spend underwater and the cost of that, makes me want to do my best to mitigate as much of a chance of disappointment as possible.

I also try to be tolerant in general but especially with diving as I'm still learning myself and certainly far from perfect. And oddly the majority of people who have negatively impacted my dives were more seasoned divers. But even still it was only a small portion of the dive that was impacted. Even my worst dives were still great so far. No major issues.

Ultimately I think you hit the nail on the head with my preconceived notion of Cozumel diving. Thanks for correcting that.

At the moment IMO you are overthinking this with no direct experience, which is a combination virtually guaranteed to lead you to inaccurate expectations. My advice is to abandon your preconceived notions and go to Cozumel prepared to adapt to what you find when you get there. From what I have seen here I think you would be happier on a fast boat with a small group of divers, which is quite easy to arrange. Pick a reputable outfit with small boats and go diving, and plan on a return trip where you will tweak your plan in light of what you experience this time. Rinse and repeat.

As for brsnow's experience with the Blue Angel dive op, as I replied to him, my (many) dealings with them have always been very different from what he reported. I found them to be responsive, reasonable, and professional, and my requests were never simply ignored. They were not always resolved as I wished (though mostly they were), but when they were not they were always explained to my satisfaction.

 

[brsnow]

At the moment IMO you are overthinking this with no direct experience, which is a combination virtually guaranteed to lead you to inaccurate expectations. My advice is to abandon your preconceived notions and go to Cozumel prepared to adapt to what you find when you get there. From what I have seen here I think you would be happier on a fast boat with a small group of divers, which is quite easy to arrange. Pick a reputable outfit with small boats and go diving, and plan on a return trip where you will tweak your plan in light of what you experience this time. Rinse and repeat.

As for brsnow's experience with the Blue Angel dive op, as I replied to him, my (many) dealings with them have always been very different from what he reported. I found them to be responsive, reasonable, and professional, and my requests were never simply ignored. They were not always resolved as I wished (though mostly they were), but when they were not they were always explained to my satisfaction.

Your experience was very different than mine and I will certainly let people know it is a great place to stay but I cannot recommend diving with them. They also required the medical form which was odd. I filled out all the requested, forms, provided our dive experience , and requested small fast boat. Was told twice they will do their best to accommodate but no guarantees.
Not the typical Cozumel dive experience. As I said first dove Santa Rosa second villiblanca is odd.

 

[bdyslm]

At the moment IMO you are overthinking this with no direct experience, which is a combination virtually guaranteed to lead you to inaccurate expectations. My advice is to abandon your preconceived notions and go to Cozumel prepared to adapt to what you find when you get there. From what I have seen here I think you would be happier on a fast boat with a small group of divers, which is quite easy to arrange. Pick a reputable outfit with small boats and go diving, and plan on a return trip where you will tweak your plan in light of what you experience this time. Rinse and repeat.

As for brsnow's experience with the Blue Angel dive op, as I replied to him, my (many) dealings with them have always been very different from what he reported. I found them to be responsive, reasonable, and professional, and my requests were never simply ignored. They were not always resolved as I wished (though mostly they were), but when they were not they were always explained to my satisfaction.

Agreed I am an overthinker. But mostly so I do that ahead of time so once I'm on vaca I just roll with whatever comes my way. But I would disagree insofar as, this thread in a very long roundabout way, combined with my overthinking, has gotten me to accurate expectations. Which was in fact the goal. Because you are correct, inaccurate expectations are a MF.

One thing that has been a little overwhelming is the sheer number of dive shops in Cozumel. That has not been the case with my other locations. Or I had very easy criteria. Bonaire, I specifically wanted an SDI shop to do my open water checkout dives within the same agency. There were 3. I chose TDS because well, they were amazingly easy to deal with and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I'm in no way slighting the other SDI dive shops in Bonaire, but if I ever go back (I don't like to go to the same place twice, too much of the world to see) I will never dive with anyone else besides Lucia at TDS in Bonaire outside of house boats. I also dove with the house op at Divi which was decent but led to a lot of the negative experiences I've mentioned here. Bayahibe, there were 3 shops and Scuba Fun was by far the most recommended here. Again, I was not let down. But, I had originally planned to do all of my diving in Punta Cana and due to this forum, quickly found out that it would not meet my expectations. Same with originally booking this trip to Roatan and then finding out December is rainy season. So my original questions in this thread were an attempt to properly set my expectations and find a reputable dive shop and narrow down the immense options.

A fast boat with a small group was definitely one of my key requirements and using the spreadsheet of coz dive ops that has been put together by forum members I was able to rule out a bunch of ops as not a good fit for my expectations. But tbh, I don't even care about the fast boat unless it directly results in more bottom time. but a small dive group...hell yeah.

At this point, I'm down to 3. Aldora, Tres Pelicanos, and Deep Blue. While deep blue doesn't have much in the way of commentary on scubaboard the communication has been great so far. Also, I am not a morning person by nature. Diving tends to change that, but my first full day on the island is my birthday and I don't want to get up at the butt crack of dawn if I don't have to and I'll probably be up late that night, so my first two days will probably be with deep blue since they have the latest departure time (9 AM with an 8:30 roll call) of the 3 and then switch over to Aldora for the remainder of the trip before I move to Secrets and use my package dives with Dive House as the op, which I expect to be more like the Divi house boat.

I was having a really hard time getting to those 3. Salty Endeavors, Scuba with Allison, Jungle Divers, Living Underwater, Dive with Martin, etc etc all seemed to be comparable and worthy. So I figured my criteria would be the type of experience I am looking for. And here we are.

Thanks to everyone for their input and guidance.

 

[Rob9876]

At the moment IMO you are overthinking this with no direct experience, which is a combination virtually guaranteed to lead you to inaccurate expectations.

.

Pick a reputable outfit with small boats and go diving, and plan on a return trip where you will tweak your plan in light of what you experience this time. Rinse and repeat.

Yes, I've been there many times and never noted a Spring Break atmosphere (I did notice that in Cancun and somewhat in Playa del Carmen). Also haven't noted any crazy or intoxicated divers on any Cozumel boats that I've been on. I do stay away from the chain places (Margaritaville, Senor Frogs, Bubba Gump, etc.) where lots of cruisers go to drink and wear balloon hats. Never really had any negative experiences related to cruisers -- but I do include a little extra time for traffic between around 7:30-9:30 a.m. or so (largely going south from the cruise piers to beaches, etc.) and between 3:30-5:30 p.m. (largely coming back north to the cruise piers).

I've heard good things about all of the dive ops that OP mentioned in the post above. I'll add a little more info about the 2 that I have dove with, as Tres Pelicanos and Jungle Divers are both great but different:

Tres Pelicanos (3P): is who I normally dive with and am very happy with, and they tend to attract experienced divers, but are good for all levels. Yes, for morning dives you generally need to be at their shop around 7:45 a.m. to catch a ride to the marina, or you can meet at the marina (or if staying south of town they can pick you up, either by land if north of the marina, or by boat if south of the marina). Tres Pelicanos will also often do afternoon (~1 p.m.) 2-tank dives, and sometimes later 2-tank twilight dives (1 while sun is up, 1 after sunset) and 1 tank night dives -- all but morning dives require a minimum number of divers to go out (between 2 and 4 I believe, depending on if booked in advance, but normally that is not a big problem). 3P is usually very responsive to email questions. They don't do shore dives.

Jungle Divers: we have done cenote dives on the mainland with them, and also a guided shore dive at night. They are a little newer shop (been around at least 3 years) and often have smaller groups. The ability to do shore dives with them can add some flexibility to scheduling (our night shore dive with them at Tikila was 98 minutes and was a great dive). I have not done boat dives with them, but I understand they tend to leave around 9 or 9:30 a.m. They are on slower boats, so they include lunch, and get back a bit later in the afternoon. They are usually also very responsive to emails or messages through their website or Facebook page.

Oh, and while I have not gone with Dive with Martin before, I believe they leave even earlier than most of the other dive ops you mentioned (I'm not an early bird either), which also means that they leave too early for most cruise passengers to disembark and catch their boat. Their prices are nice, and they are one of the few where rental gear is included at no charge if you need that, but the early departures and bigger boats have stopped us from using them.

Hope this helps!

 

[ggunn]

Your experience was very different than mine and I will certainly let people know it is a great place to stay but I cannot recommend diving with them. They also required the medical form which was odd. I filled out all the requested, forms, provided our dive experience , and requested small fast boat. Was told twice they will do their best to accommodate but no guarantees.
Not the typical Cozumel dive experience. As I said first dove Santa Rosa second villiblanca is odd.

I do recommend diving with them; does that mean we cancel each other out?

Villablanca as a second dive is fine as long as you don't go too far down the wall.

 

[brsnow]

I do recommend diving with them; does that mean we cancel each other out?

Villablanca as a second dive is fine as long as you don't go too far down the wall.

Not going to get too far down the wall with 60 foot max;-) not looking to cancel anyone out, just save them from what I experienced. The reviews on here is what led me to stray from my normal ops, so lesson learned.

 

[ggunn]

Not going to get too far down the wall with 60 foot max;-) not looking to cancel anyone out, just save them from what I experienced. The reviews on here is what led me to stray from my normal ops, so lesson learned.

I don't think anyone needs to be saved from it; it is not typical of the op. I know them well; I have been diving with them for many years and nothing like you say has ever happened to me unless they had no choice but to put me on the larger boat for reasons that they explained to me. As best I can remember it was three times in 10 years of diving with them. Once it was because my wife wanted to dive in the afternoon and the No Problem was the only boat they had going out, and a couple of times I didn't get my reservation down in time and the small boats were full.

They put the divers' names up on the white board behind the counter with the boat and DM the day before; you can always go to the shop before they close in the afternoon and talk to them about it.

Caveat: I am always there in April or May when things are typically a bit slow on the island; if they are swamped with divers they might have to put some divers on the No Problem who would rather be on a small boat; if you want to be guaranteed a spot on a small boat you might have a better chance with an op that only has small boats.

 

[brsnow]

I don't think anyone needs to be saved from it; it is not typical of the op. I know them well; I have been diving with them for many years and nothing like you say has ever happened to me unless they had no choice but to put me on the larger boat for reasons that they explained to me. As best I can remember it was three times in 10 years of diving with them. Once it was because my wife wanted to dive in the afternoon and the No Problem was the only boat they had going out, and a couple of times I didn't get my reservation down in time and the small boats were full.

They put the divers' names up on the white board behind the counter with the boat and DM the day before; you can always go to the shop before they close in the afternoon and talk to them about it.

Caveat: I am always there in April or May when things are typically a bit slow on the island; if they are swamped with divers they might have to put some divers on the No Problem who would rather be on a small boat; if you want to be guaranteed a spot on a small boat you might have a better chance with an op that only has small boats.

Trust me I will not dive with them again, checked the whiteboard and then made other arrangements after the first day. I could have lived with the big boat if it did normal dives. 60 foot max is ridiculous,

At any rate, I am moving on and glad you have had a better experience.

 

[mediumone]

I do recommend diving with them; does that mean we cancel each other out?

Villablanca as a second dive is fine as long as you don't go too far down the wall.

Love that dive. I realize that not all do, but it just fascinates me. I really need to watch my computer as I tend to wander deeper and deeper, finding myself captured by something just a bit different.

 

[brsnow]

Love that dive. I realize that not all do, but it just fascinates me. I really need to watch my computer as I tend to wander deeper and deeper, finding myself captured by something just a bit different.

Would be great to have the opportunity to dive the wall.