SCC vs Aldora Villas

[bilboinsa]

Has anyone stayed in both places in order to give a good comparison? Food, rooms, etc.... I know that both dive ops are well regarded, and have used both in the past. My son and I are hitting Coz this summer, and we will probably go with one or the other. We have previously stayed at AIs south of town, and wanted to be in town this trip. Any pros and cons would be appreciated.

 

[Pelagicsal]

@macado has stayed at both, maybe, but is familiar with both. I'm familiar with the Villa.

They're very different choices. SCC is completely all inclusive, while Villa Aldora is more like staying at a friend's nice beach house. Once I found the Villa, I stayed there exclusively, until I moved down, two doors away.

No onsite restaurant or bar at the Villa, but refrigerator, at least microwave and coffee maker, and easy taxi or half hour walk to the middle of town. Larger rooms have full kitchens, dining areas... Dive pickup is at the Villa, usually, or transport to town for larger boat or rough seas.

Shore diving available at both.

Compare the diving. It's very different, too, and Mike (macado) can report fully on that comparison!

 

[shardison]

SCC is very close to town.... I found I could get to most of the stores and restaurants within a 10 minute walk... Some even closer. There are a few restaurants that we took a cab to get too which was about $6.00 US. As far as the operation, it is a finely tuned machine and everything works like clockwork. Rooms are spacious beds are ok (mattress tends to be a little firm for me) but not so bad that it affected my diving or sleep. SCC is semi A.I. which means that everything except alcohol is included...
Breakfast and lunch I would say are quite good and is sooo convenient to eat just before you get on the boat in the morning and lunch is ready when you get off the boat around 12:30 or 1:00 pm.... Dinner we chose to do on our own in town, so we went with the "Lite" option when we booked (breakfast and lunch only) our stay. I recommend trying the restaurants in town as you can be blown away at how good the local food can be... ;-)

I've been twice now and I can say that I will continue to return to SCC whenever I get a chance to get back to Coz. It has everything I can ask for as a diver. Eat, dive, sleep.... and repeat.

 

[Pelagicsal]

Both are about a 25 minute walk to the town plaza.

 

[macado]

They are completely different experiences like night and day however depending on what you're looking for they are both good places. I normally dive with Aldora but I also run group trips through my dive shop with Scuba Club Cozumel.

In a nut shell, I find Scuba Club Cozumel to be more of a "no-frills" type of dive vacation where Villa is bit more upscale. I consider the rooms to be more like mini condos. The beds in the Villa are extremely comfortable, small kitchenette (larger rooms have full kitchens where smaller ones have microwaves/coffee maker) allows you to go shopping and make your own meals. The grounds and rooms in the Villa are kept immaculately clean. Seriously I never see them stop cleaning. While there is no on-site bar or restaurant at the Villa but you'll find most guests are happy to sit under the palapa and share cervezas.

Scuba Club Cozumel is more of a "dive budget" type resort. The rooms are large, clean but very basic. The beds are simply a firm mattress pad on a concrete slab. Works well for me since I like a firm mattress. Small refrigerator, no TV, no phone, not that many electrical outlets in room. The resort will be much more crowded than the Villa. I find the Villa to be more relaxing and a bit more private. Villa has 13 rooms whereas SSC has many more. Both SSC and Aldora Villa have nice balconies if you get one overlooking the water.

The diving in front of Scuba Club Cozumel is a macro paradise for photographers and a great place to do refreshers, night dives, and long shore dives. While it's mostly debris / rubble I've had some great shore dives in front of Scuba Club Cozumel. The on-site dive shop allows you to sign out a tank (make you do this before they close for the day) and go diving anytime you like. The Villa usually also has tanks available for shore diving but I'd give a slight edge to the diving in front of Scuba Club Cozumel.

Scuba Club Cozumel has an "semi" all-inclusive package that includes 3 meals a day. This can be great if you're trying to save money. I found the food to be so-so. Nothing was bad but nothing was particularly excellent to me. I wasn't a fan of their breakfast but lunch and dinner options were usually good. It's not a buffet style, you order the meals in advance. The service was good once you get to know the waiters.

Distance wise, Scuba Club Cozumel is "slightly" closer to downtown. I would say the Villa is about 5-10 minutes further away from town than SSC but both are walk-able if you like walking. Scuba Club Cozumel takes about 15-20 minutes to walk into town while the Villa is closer to 25-30 minute walk. Both should be less than a 40-50 peso (2.20USD-2.80USD) taxi ride into town. The Villa provides free usage of bicycles to go into town. Scuba Club Cozumel is about 10 minute walk to Mega / Chedrau for grocery shopping. Usually the Villa manager will take guests via truck to Mega to go shopping.

The diving at Scuba Club Cozumel is your typical Caribbean cattle boat. Nothing wrong with it at all but they are your fairly typical Cozumel dive operator. Good divemasters but your dives are fairly regimented. Slow boats with 12+ divers and standard AL80s. Most dives are between 45-60 minutes depending your group's air consumption. If you have a good group it will be closer to 60 minutes. It will take a long time to get to some of the sites that are further south. We had to "negotiate" with them to take us to Colombia or even Palancar Caves. Forget about Maracaibo or Punta Sur.. Again, your dive experience with Scuba Club Cozumel will largely depend on the experience and comfort level of everyone on your boat. They do a good job of trying to split up groups by experience level when they can.

In contrast, Aldora has much smaller groups (usually no more than 6-7 people) and faster boats. Steel HP100 and HP120s for longer dives. Average dives are generally 70-80 minutes. More personalized service and longer dives. They stop at beach club for your surface interval to allow you to buy food if you want.

They will go to further or in some cases less frequented dive sites that some other dive operators will avoid due to fuel costs and slow boats. There is no having to "negotiate" with them to go to further sites provided everyone in your group is experienced.

 

[Pelagicsal]

Thanks, Mike! I knew you'd be the detailed report.

 

[diverken374]

They are completely different experiences like night and day however depending on what you're looking for they are both good places. I normally dive with Aldora but I also run group trips through my dive shop with Scuba Club Cozumel.

In a nut shell, I find Scuba Club Cozumel to be more of a "no-frills" type of dive vacation where Villa is bit more upscale. I consider the rooms to be more like mini condos. The beds in the Villa are extremely comfortable, small kitchenette (larger rooms have full kitchens where smaller ones have microwaves/coffee maker) allows you to go shopping and make your own meals. The grounds and rooms in the Villa are kept immaculately clean. Seriously I never see them stop cleaning. While there is no on-site bar or restaurant at the Villa but you'll find most guests are happy to sit under the palapa and share cervezas.

Scuba Club Cozumel is more of a "dive budget" type resort. The rooms are large, clean but very basic. The beds are simply a firm mattress pad on a concrete slab. Works well for me since I like a firm mattress. Small refrigerator, no TV, no phone, not that many electrical outlets in room. The resort will be much more crowded than the Villa. I find the Villa to be more relaxing and a bit more private. Villa has 13 rooms whereas SSC has many more. Both SSC and Aldora Villa have nice balconies if you get one overlooking the water.

The diving in front of Scuba Club Cozumel is a macro paradise for photographers and a great place to do refreshers, night dives, and long shore dives. While it's mostly debris / rubble I've had some great shore dives in front of Scuba Club Cozumel. The on-site dive shop allows you to sign out a tank (make you do this before they close for the day) and go diving anytime you like. The Villa usually also has tanks available for shore diving but I'd give a slight edge to the diving in front of Scuba Club Cozumel.

Scuba Club Cozumel has an "semi" all-inclusive package that includes 3 meals a day. This can be great if you're trying to save money. I found the food to be so-so. Nothing was bad but nothing was particularly excellent to me. I wasn't a fan of their breakfast but lunch and dinner options were usually good. It's not a buffet style, you order the meals in advance. The service was good once you get to know the waiters.

Distance wise, Scuba Club Cozumel is "slightly" closer to downtown. I would say the Villa is about 5-10 minutes further away from town than SSC but both are walk-able if you like walking. Scuba Club Cozumel takes about 15-20 minutes to walk into town while the Villa is closer to 25-30 minute walk. Both should be less than a 40-50 peso (2.20USD-2.80USD) taxi ride into town. The Villa provides free usage of bicycles to go into town. Scuba Club Cozumel is about 10 minute walk to Mega / Chedrau for grocery shopping. Usually the Villa manager will take guests via truck to Mega to go shopping.

The diving at Scuba Club Cozumel is your typical Caribbean cattle boat. Nothing wrong with it at all but they are your fairly typical Cozumel dive operator. Good divemasters but your dives are fairly regimented. Slow boats with 12+ divers and standard AL80s. Most dives are between 45-60 minutes depending your group's air consumption. If you have a good group it will be closer to 60 minutes. It will take a long time to get to some of the sites that are further south. We had to "negotiate" with them to take us to Colombia or even Palancar Caves. Forget about Maracaibo or Punta Sur.. Again, your dive experience with Scuba Club Cozumel will largely depend on the experience and comfort level of everyone on your boat. They do a good job of trying to split up groups by experience level when they can.

In contrast, Aldora has much smaller groups (usually no more than 6-7 people) and faster boats. Steel HP100 and HP120s for longer dives. Average dives are generally 70-80 minutes. More personalized service and longer dives. They stop at beach club for your surface interval to allow you to buy food if you want.

They will go to further or in some cases less frequented dive sites that some other dive operators will avoid due to fuel costs and slow boats. There is no having to "negotiate" with them to go to further sites provided everyone in your group is experienced.

Excellent review Mike!!

 

[Dave Dillehay]

For those interested here is the view from most rooms at the Villa Aldora. You can see the ferry pier not too far to the south.

 

[mmmbelows]

For those interested here is the view from most rooms at the Villa Aldora. You can see the ferry pier not too far to the south.

Nice, I'll be enjoying that view in April, have been to Cozumel many times but never stayed at the Villa, looking forward to it.

 

[ReefHound]

Just returned from Villa Aldora and will add a few things.

As Mike mentioned, you have free use of bikes and you have your own key to the bike storage so you don't have any check in/out logistics and you're not limited to certain hours. We used them several times, they are in great condition (some are new) with locks, and we never saw less than 6 or so available. Just mentioning this because sometimes places offer "amenities" that are difficult to take advantage of, not the case here.

I don't think I've ever been "checked in" to a hotel in a more friendly and welcoming way. We arrived after 10pm. Steve, the onsite manager, walked us around the villa and our room, showed us where everything was and how it worked, talked with us over an hour, then drove us back to town to get dinner.

While "being secure" and "feeling secure" can be two different things, I've never felt more secure about leaving stuff (money, cameras, etc.) out in the room or leaving our dive gear down in the rinse and hang area.

The only complaint I have is the internet service. We couldn't even connect to a router in our room (courtyard north). We could connect to one of the 16 or so routers outside just fine but never found one we could reliably get a page to load. Once in a while it seemed to work but most of the time (even at 2am so it wasn't number of users connected) it could take 5 minutes to load a webpage or facebook, if at all. Steve said it was an infrastructure problem with the north end of the island, but still it was frustrating. 10-15 years ago, no big deal, but these days wifi is almost on par with a hot shower as far as expected room amenities.