Worst of Cozumel.

[mathauck0814]

I have some serious complaints about COzumel.
1. The food is too good and I eat too much of it all the time because it is cheap, I get soo full I have to sleep it off.
2. the dive masters do everything for me, I never have to carry a tank, or even wash my gear for a week, this is just too lazy for me I am getting fat.
3. I have to negotiate with the vendors to get 75% off of jewlery, my wife gets so much she no longer needs any lead.
4. why are they always so nice and happy, please have a few authorized grumpy people installed at every corner so I feel at home.
5. the current diving, is too easy, all I do is float along, there is no work involved.
6. the variety of sea life is too much, I run out of space on my SD card and have to download it to my PC every night.
7. the weather is awfull, who wants warm days and cool nights, every single day. i mean it never snows. at least they have an occaisional wind day that gives me a break from diving all the freaking time.
8. it is too economical, my wife keeps wanting to go back, and with all of these complaints I cant even say it is too expensive.

Cozumel is terrible, you should never go there.

Or from another perspective your list reads to my ears like: food that emphasizes quantity over quality, a requirement to dive with dive masters who insist on touching my gear and planning my dive, pushy vendors and street urchins, limited biodiversity of the caribbean and spending vacation with the types of people who love all those things.

 

[AggieDiver]

That's not what I said. The people were different AND the circumstances were different. It is not fair to say that the people living in New Orleans should have just sucked it up and fixed everything themselves they way the folks on Cozumel did. The horrors Katrina and Wilma wrought upon the city and people of New Orleans and Cozumel were very different. THAT is what is apples and corduroy, New Orleans was a LOT worse off in a multitude of ways, and I don't just mean the ineffectiveness of FEMA, et al. To be fair, the standard response to hurricane hits in the the US was a bad fit for Katrina and New Orleans. You can't roll the semis full of supplies in when the roads are under water. But still.

I am not taking away anything from the Cozumelenos; the speed with which they brought the island back after Wilma was indeed remarkable and commendable. To expect the people of New Orleans to have done the same thing is not even remotely realistic. The Lower Ninth Ward is not Cozumel. The media had a field day with New Orleans after Katrina, sensationalizing and focusing on the worst of the worst. That's to be expected; that's what media does. However, to generalize that sort of thing as typical of the people who live in the City is, put in the most charitable terms I can manage, grossly inaccurate.

You keep missing the point I am trying to make. Yes, I know the storms did different things to the cities. Yes, I know that both cities were put in very difficult situations. But the ATTITUDE of the people in the cities after the storms is what was completely different as well. I never said I expected N.O residents to fix everything themselves, or to be back up and running in a month. What I would have hoped is that they would want to be part of fixing their homes and their city instead of standing around with their hands out and criticizing the people trying to help them. The attitude of the people in Cozumel was "what do I need to do to get my home/business/city back up and running as fast as I can". The attitude of the people left in New Orleans was "WAAAAAAA...why didn't the government stop this from happening...WAAAAAAA why isn't FEMA getting here faster with relief supplies...WAAAAAAAA how soon can I get into my new government furnished apartment?" And you had folks stirring them up even further with accusations that the government deliberately breached the levees (an unbelievably stupid accusation). That is not generalized from cherrypicked reports on CNN, that is generalized from direct experience at disaster recovery centers, including at the Astrodome in Houston.

The reality is that Cozumel has known for many decades that it is in a particularly hurricane prone region where a devastating storm such as Wilma can strike with only a few days notice. So the people and the government obviously prepared a set of plans for how to react to that situation, and it worked very well. The people in New Orleans have known for decades that their city is a bathtub, with many parts well below the level of the adjacent canals and lakes. Experts have been advising them (some quite stridently) for years that even a moderate storm would likely flood large parts of the city under many feet of water. Yet the city government did little to plan for such a situation, and the people who lived in those flood prone areas clearly did little to prepare themselves for such a situation. And their plan for after the storm was apparently to wait for the government to show up. That wasn't a few dozen people cherry picked by CNN, it was thousands of people who were eventually bussed out to Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Shreveport, etc. I know, because my company saw and dealt first hand with them. In Cozumel, I watched from the balcony of the hotel as the President of Mexico drove by in the back of a military truck to survey the damage. Nobody stood by the side of the road and yelled at him to help them...nobody even looked up. They just kept working and ignored him as he passed. Yeah, the circumstances were different...and so were the people.

With that said, I have alot of friends in Louisiana. I know lots of folks over there and in Mississippi and Alabama that have spent years working their tails off to recover, including in New Orleans. I have never intended to slight the way those folks have worked in the months and years after the storm. My comments have always been directed at the attitude of the people still in New Orleans immediately after the storm. We can debate elsewhere if you want why those people reacted the way they did, but the fact of the matter is that the city, and a not-insignficant part of its population were totally unprepared for a disaster that was predicted decades in advance. Those people chose to place the blame for their situation on others instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of preparation. I also understand that a sizable portion of the population was prepared, and left before the storm, so we will never know how they would have reacted if they had stayed. But my point stands about the attitude of the people still in the city immediately after the storm and in the next few days and weeks. They were in a very predictable situation and they were completely unprepared and mostly unwilling to help themselves.

 

[robint]

2007, stayed at the Occidental Grand, don't remember the dive operator's name, it was a small blue boat, max maybe a 6 pack (we had chartered it for the two of us for the week so not to have to contend with crowds and other divers on sites). Nothing wrong with the operator, or the hotel. The diving was just sort of mediocre - typical Caribbean reefs. I didn't find the restaurants to be of very high quality on the island, but I could have just missed the better spots due to ignorance.

Okay...that explains It. 2005 was hurricane Wilma which devastated the reefs and fishlife. It took maybe 6 years for the reefs to regain color and fishlife to return like before. You got to see Cozumel at its worst.

 

[ggunn]

You keep missing the point I am trying to make.

No, I don't. I have heard it over and over again, and not just from you.

Obviously our perspectives and opinions are different. I don't think I am going to change your mind and I am quite sure you aren't going to change mine.

Let's break this off and agree to disagree. OK with you?

 

[Mike]

As I've said before, the two things I believe are distinguishing about the diving around Cozumel are -

Visibility- its typically outstanding, I still remember my very first dive and being blown away the first time I put my head down in the water while on the surface and couldn't believe how sharp and close looking the bottom appeared!

Reef Structure - I'm not aware of any place else with the massive towering reef structure you see in some of the southern dive sites. There may be other areas of the Caribbean similar but I've not found them yet.


In regard to the marine life, if you don't count the awesomely cool and unique Cozumel Toad Fish in the equation, the sea life is the same species you see all over the Caribbean.

Two things that I notice differently in the same marine life you see elsewhere and in Cozumel is :

-sea horses are more prevalent than I find elsewhere in the Caribbean
- French angles grow huge around Cozumel

Elsewhere in the Caribbean you'll see different things in regard to marine species one easy one is the massive schooling black durgeons you see in Bonaire, I've never seen such a thing elsewhere and there are many things like that that distinquish other location throughout the Caribe. There are other places where you'll see more turtles or more eels of some variety or more sharks or more this or that...

One other thing I can't find anywhere else but in Cozumel is an outfit like Aldora Divers. I wish Dave would franchise them all over the Caribbean.

 

[cvchief]

So the worst thing about Cozumel for mathauck0814 is people like it too much. As it annoys one with far more erudite dive experiences that parochial rubes can't recognize it is just lame-o average, regular old Caribbean diving based on his one trip right after a massive Cat 5. (At least Mike doesn't go that far.)

And the worst thing about Cozumel for Mike is that people treat Cozumel like member of the family. They feel so much like stakeholders in Cozumel (even with one visit) that they feel they have to defend it, right or wrong, like family.

I get it. Ex-pats who live there tend to have dust ups about who is more 'local.' Everyone wants to be MORE local.

I think what those two call the worst is the best. There is just something about the island that creates that stakeholder feeling and that's cool.

Now why someone comes in after 1 visit 6 years ago to express that deal is a little beyond me.

Mike speaks from recent experience in what he says (or argues about....:chairfight Heck I actually agree with him now and again.

 

[Mike]

And the worst thing about Cozumel for Mike is that people treat Cozumel like member of the family. They feel so much like stakeholders in Cozumel (even with one visit) that they feel they have to defend it, right or wrong, like family.

People can gush and defend something all they want, just as I can disagree with them based on my experiences. I don't think its the worst thing about Cozumel that the clique defends it to the point of the extreme, in the process typically tossing out all sense of logic or reality. In fact I love that they do, it's quite entertaining to watch the process predictably unfold time and time again, and with such seriousness. The seriousness of it is at least half of what makes it so entertaining.

Post 143 above is hilarious to me in regard to someone has to analyze someone's comments of their 'average/mediocre' experience by compartmentalizing and analyzing the comments to put it into a tight little box that they are finally satisfied that "must have been because of the hurricane", then they can I guess sleep peacefully and feel all is right again now that they've solved the mystery of how anybody could possibly use 'mediocre' to describe Cozumel. Must have been because of the hurricane, dismisses totally the chance that there are actually other dive experiences out there that people are having and might rival diving in Cozumel. That kind of stuff is kind of entertaining.

Mexico is convenient and cheap, I like diving in Coz because it's pretty good diving when you compare it to the rest of the diving in the Caribbean, it beats some other places I've been to, but I'm a scuba diver, not a cozumel scuba diver, there is a whole planet we live on with 70% of it covered in water. That's a lot of dive sites and experiences waiting.

 

[cvchief]

People can gush and defend something all they want, just as I can disagree with them based on my experiences. I don't think its the worst thing about Cozumel that the clique defends it to the point of the extreme, in the process typically tossing out all sense of logic or reality. In fact I love that they do, it's quite entertaining to watch the process predictably unfold time and time again, and with such seriousness. The seriousness of it is at least half of what makes it so entertaining.

Ah, so the best thing about Cozumel is laughing at the rubes and the kool-aid crew. Well good to know it isn't the worst thing for you.

Post 143 above is hilarious to me in regard to someone has to analyze someone's comments of their 'average/mediocre' experience by compartmentalizing and analyzing the comments to put it into a tight little box that they are finally satisfied that "must have been because of the hurricane", then they can I guess sleep peacefully and feel all is right again now that they've solved the mystery of how anybody could possibly use 'mediocre' to describe Cozumel. Must have been because of the hurricane, dismisses totally the chance that there are actually other dive experiences out there that people are having and might rival diving in Cozumel. That kind of stuff is kind of entertaining.

Good you are entertained. I must have missed the part were someone said Cozumel was the BEST diving in the world. I did hear in Post 143 they might have missed something in that time frame. So it is all or nothing. I heard the other fellow come in and say, 'if you dive the best of the world, you won't like Coz anymore cuz it is nothing special." Why would be so important to pop into the forum just to say, "I have been to the best of the world and your favorite little corner of the world is nothing in comparison." What is the point except maybe agitation?

Mexico is convenient and cheap, I like diving in Coz because it's pretty good diving when you compare it to the rest of the diving in the Caribbean, it beats some other places I've been to, but I'm a scuba diver, not a cozumel scuba diver, there is a whole planet we live on with 70% of it covered in water. That's a lot of dive sites and experiences waiting.

And that's cool, but what put this bee in your bonnet to just keep talking down to people who REALLY like Coz.... for whatever reason. I just don't understand what trips your trigger so much about it? I mean it this last bit, you kinda say the same thing. Coz diving is pretty cool for alot of reason, period, regardless of how great some other place might be.

 

[pjhansman]

As a repeat visitor to Coz my only negative is the generally boring food at the AI hotels, and sometimes the hordes from the cruise ships.....

but I really, really like the "mediocre" Caribbean drift diving,

and the visibility,

and exploring the town for those wonderful little restaurants that can be found if one looks,

and the Xtabentún (thanks El Moro)

and the simplicity of a single flight to my destination,

and the plaza on a Sunday evening,

and the sunsets

etc.

Is it for everyone? Probably not. But we really enjoy Coz so for me it works. Looking forward to another 2 weeks at Christmas

 

[eelpout]

The worst experience I have had is very common... having to leave.