SANDALS: Scuba Included

[olphart]

I went to the Beaches resort in Ocho Rios (family version of Sandals), and the resort service was outstanding, but the diving, not so much. Two 30-40 minute dives per day. Anything more was extra. Their ads make a big deal of the Minesweeper, but if you want to go there it'll cost you $100 each. The dive shop calls itself a 5 star PADI, but if PADI checked it out they might change that. The head of the shop told me that they never had a dive accident, and that Cozumel had the highest incidence of dive accidents in the world. I was ok with the limited diving because my companions were inexperienced and there was nothing to see down there anyway. I was not so ok with the boat backing up to get closer to divers in the water, (MUCH closer!), or the DM cruising along way ahead of the divers and never looking back to check on the hoover in our group (he was aware of the divers high consumption). On the night dive, I signalled the DM that my hoover buddy was getting low but he responded ok then continued the dive to where we parked on the bottom and made flourescence. I thumbed our dive and we left the group when he reached 600 psi.
All that being said, the dive op staff were extremely helpful and went out of their way to keep everyone happy. They just need to tighten up some of their safety procedures. Also from my perspective 30 -40 minutes was all my buddy could get anyway and I was fine with that, but if I had been in Coz with an experienced diver,....grrrrr!

---------- Post added January 1st, 2014 at 10:35 AM ----------

They really need to correct their advertising. Two dives per day at 30-35 min each is NOT "unlimited" diving. It is VERY limited diving. I have more bottom time on a single dive than they give you as "unlimited." On my last trip in the Philippines we were doing 2-2 1/2 hours on a single Al 80 and doing four dives a day. Of course I don't expect that as I want some topside time with my family during the wedding.

You have an RMV of less than 0.2?? WOW!

---------- Post added January 1st, 2014 at 10:39 AM ----------

 

[drbill]

You have an RMV of less than 0.2?? WOW!

VERY warm water (bottom temps of 84-88 F), fairly shallow average depths (25 fsw). Several of us were getting very long dives there. I do 80-90 minute dives on an Al 80 here in cold water.

 

[HazardSports]

Here is my perspective on Sandals! NO, it is not a dive resort ! YES, it is a resort that provides dive services. If you wanted a hardcore dive trip - you would spend less money and have much better and more dives if you went with another trip ! If I spend the extra money to go to Sandals for all of the other on-site accommodations - I want to enjoy those things too - and need plenty of surface time to do that! If you check out my dive video from my last post in this thread - you'd see I got some awesome close-up footage. And that's good enough for me. If all I cared about was diving - I would've booked a dive trip, spent less money, and went on more dives.

Bottom line is Sandals is a great resort that offers diving. It is not a "Dive resort". Great combination to keep both me and the GF (dive buddy) happy.

 

[Belmont]

Here is my perspective on Sandals! NO, it is not a dive resort ! YES, it is a resort that provides dive services. If you wanted a hardcore dive trip - you would spend less money and have much better and more dives if you went with another trip ! If I spend the extra money to go to Sandals for all of the other on-site accommodations - I want to enjoy those things too - and need plenty of surface time to do that! If you check out my dive video from my last post in this thread - you'd see I got some awesome close-up footage. And that's good enough for me. If all I cared about was diving - I would've booked a dive trip, spent less money, and went on more dives.

Bottom line is Sandals is a great resort that offers diving. It is not a "Dive resort". Great combination to keep both me and the GF (dive buddy) happy.

I agree with you, my wife does not dive.

I want to combine both worlds: a very nice "surface interval" that we share together and some relaxed diving for myself.

Otherwise she waits for me in a small hôtel in Tulum when I dive the Cenotes.

I consider myself a very lucky man.

 

[drbill]

Bottom line is Sandals is a great resort that offers diving. It is not a "Dive resort". Great combination to keep both me and the GF (dive buddy) happy.

That's fine, but they shouldn't advertise that they offer "unlimited" diving given the reality. That's my only beef.

 

[Belmont]

That's fine, but they shouldn't advertise that they offer "unlimited" diving given the reality. That's my only beef.

What I read is that they advertise an "unlimited diving experience"

I'ts a play on words but on the same page they say "Experience two dives a day"

Also they say that those dives are included. Concerning water ski, there they say it's unlimited, witch is true.

 

[Mike]

Here is my perspective on Sandals! NO, it is not a dive resort ! YES, it is a resort that provides dive services. If you wanted a hardcore dive trip - you would spend less money and have much better and more dives if you went with another trip ! If I spend the extra money to go to Sandals for all of the other on-site accommodations - I want to enjoy those things too - and need plenty of surface time to do that! If you check out my dive video from my last post in this thread - you'd see I got some awesome close-up footage. And that's good enough for me. If all I cared about was diving - I would've booked a dive trip, spent less money, and went on more dives.

Bottom line is Sandals is a great resort that offers diving. It is not a "Dive resort". Great combination to keep both me and the GF (dive buddy) happy.

I think it's still misleading to interpret you have all great diving which sandals falls into and then you have hardcore diving.

What you have is sandals diving at the low end of the spectrum, typical diving in the middle and hardcore diving at the other end. The way you're making it sound like is that sandals diving falls into the middle, typical diving experience so don't bitch about it cause if you want hardcore diving, they aren't advertising as that, the truth is they act like their diving is middle to better when in reality it's not either.

 

[HazardSports]

......
What you have is sandals diving at the low end of the spectrum, typical diving in the middle and hardcore diving at the other end. The way you're making it sound like is that sandals diving falls into the middle, typical diving experience ...

I'm not disputing the fact that its not a Hardcore Dive Facility. I clearly stated that for a "Vacation" it is the perfect mix for me. If I were planning a "Dive Trip" I would be severely disappointed!

"Play on words" I think is mainstream in marketing ! I thought that's why we have the SCUBA BOARD - buyer beware !

But what makes you say that I am making it sound like its middle if the road diving ? I merely said Ingot great footage and it was good enough for me ! You quoted my post - so what part of it made you think that when I clearly sated its not a dive resort ! So I like to do a little scuba, while on vacation. I'm planning a "Dive Trip" but THAT won't be at Sandals !

 

[divezonescuba]

We did the Beaches sister resort in Ocho Rios like the previous poster.

The 2 dives per day are actually more restrictive than they might seem. The typical operation was one dive in the morning where groups were split up between advanced and higher and open water. Those dives were usually ok. After the first dive they returned to the beach and offloaded all of the tanks. We ate pizza during this surface interval. An hour and a half later, they would load up the boat with more tanks and do the second dive. The second dive was always very shallow less than 40 feet as the primary group of participants was discover scuba and scuba diver certified divers. Half the dive was spent waiting for these divers to make it to the bottom. You also had to reserve dives for the rest of the week as the space was limited and they would not send out more boats unless you were part of a large group and made separate arrangements.

They were a bit uncooperative with respect to the selection of morning dive sites. The response to this was "Mon, if I have to figure that out, it would be too much like working".

 

[Mike]

I'm not disputing the fact that its not a Hardcore Dive Facility. I clearly stated that for a "Vacation" it is the perfect mix for me. If I were planning a "Dive Trip" I would be severely disappointed!

"Play on words" I think is mainstream in marketing ! I thought that's why we have the SCUBA BOARD - buyer beware !

But what makes you say that I am making it sound like its middle if the road diving ? I merely said Ingot great footage and it was good enough for me ! You quoted my post - so what part of it made you think that when I clearly sated its not a dive resort ! So I like to do a little scuba, while on vacation. I'm planning a "Dive Trip" but THAT won't be at Sandals !

I think it's still misleading to interpret you have all great diving which sandals falls into and then you have hardcore diving.

What you have is sandals diving at the low end of the spectrum, typical diving in the middle and hardcore diving at the other end. The way you're making it sound like is that sandals diving falls into the middle, typical diving experience so don't bitch about it cause if you want hardcore diving, they aren't advertising as that, the truth is they act like their diving is middle to better when in reality it's not either.