Got Back Yesterday. The Hotel was Secrets Capri. It is next to the El Mandarin just north of PDC and it opened 4 months ago. Top notch joint all the way. As a matter of fact it was TOO classy. I like a place that has a buffet and one or two forks on the table. Each place setting at this place had a whole cutlery shop.
The only really bad experience we had there was a leak in the air conditioning system in our room at 5:15 in the morning. They use Ammonia and not Freon. It was not a fun awakening. Also the shuttle into town is only for 7 people once a day.
Oh Yeah...This is a diving forum not a hotel review..... The dive shop was Blue Divers or Blue Diving. I booked a night dive, a cenote dive, a reef dive , and a snorkel trip with them. First off was the snorkel trip. Orientation : "We will swim around horseshoe reef in a line and if anyone gets tired...come to the front of the line and grab hold of this life ring." DING DING DING...What the H3LL did he just say? Did You just say we were going in Single file???
They anchored the boat and dropped us off in an area called horseshoe reef. The current immediately pulls us about 1/4 mile away from the boat. The breakers start crashing over the reef and us. Masks are being ripped of peoples faces and I hear folks choking left and right. After getting my wife and two other folks geared back up and breathing through snorkels I look up to see the guide SITTING in the life ring with his mask on his forehead motioning us to come to him. My left arm is now longer than my right arm because I was kicking my @ss off with my wife and somebodies kid in tow. We all grouped up and kicked as though our lives depended on it..... OH wait...they did. We took a little over 35 minutes to get back to the boat which remained anchored. Good news. The captain caught two fish while we were gone. After we all got back in the boat we were asked if we had fun. I chirped in with" As apposed to what? Having a broom shoved up my....." You get the picture. When the boat got back I ran up the beach to share my feeling with anyone within death star range. No one seemed concerned until I canceled all the remaining dives. At that point I was offered a refund on the snorkeling if I would reconsider. This is only My side of the story and this may have been only one bad day out of an excellent companies long event-less safety record. But "That is the way it was". Take this information as you would like. I have not heard good or bad about these folks before.I'm sure there are a lot of good stories out there too. I am also mad at myself. I should have kept myself and my wife on the boat when I saw the situation the guide was putting us in.
I talked to a couple dive shops in town and got a funny feeling in my stomach when it got top be time to book the dive. SO it turns out that I lugged all my gear a couple thousand miles and only used the mask, snorkel and fins. The deepest I got was a free dive in Yal-ku lagoon to retrieve a lost locker key. I figured I would save my diving (and myself ) for the next time.
