Cozumel Trip Report March 28 thru April 4 2009

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My wife and I had our first Cozumel dive trip between March 28th and April 4th. My sister had wanted us to take a vacation with her and her husband. The tricky part was that they belong to the Wyndham vacation club/time share. She originally wanted to go to Dominican Republic. Luckily, I was able to convince her to go to Cozumel. We stayed at the Sabor section of Wyndham Cozumel Spa and Dive Resort which is all inclusive. The Sabor Section is adults only but is supposed to have no nudity. We dove with Scuba with Alison.
Travel From US to Resort
We flew out of Detroit non-stop to Cozumel. Going through immigrations and customs was relatively painless. My wife and I were unlucky and got the red light so we had to have our bags searched. It was more like open the bags and they peeked into them. Unfortunately, because we were delayed getting our bags searched, my sister and brother-in-law were latched onto by the time-share people and did not just say no. After a brief delay, I was able to get them back on track and I purchased our tickets for the “taxi” to the resort. It took about 15 minutes to get to the resort. The “taxi” had about 8 people in it. There were a few that complained that the air conditioner was not working well enough. We thought, why care, everyone had just come from the northern United States which was still cold and we came there for the warmth and sun.
Resort
When we arrived at the resort we were met by Antonio a “bell hop” for the resort. He was very polite and took us to the Sabor section check-in which was a bit of a walk. We had to go past the resort sewage treatment facility which is very close to the main lobby. There was a very strong odor right next to the facility and if the wind was blowing in the right or “wrong” direction the smell reached into the lobby. Check in was pretty quick and Antonio took us to our rooms. There are no elevators at the resort so Antonio had to carry our 4 bags up three flights of stairs. He did it with a smile and sweating.
Our room was spacious and clean. There was an in-room safe. We had a balcony which had a plastic table and two chairs. Also on the balcony was a hammock. We were very pleased with the room except for I found it odd that they call it a dive resort but there was nothing on the balcony area to hang scuba equipment to dry.
The Sabor section has one restaurant and the rest of the resort has 4 restaurants and several bars. About half of the restaurants require reservations for dinner which could only be made the day of and between 9 am to 1 pm. This could have caused a problem for us because we were out diving during that time period. We told them we would be diving during that timeframe and asked if we could make the reservations before we went diving. They would not let us. Luckily, my sister does not dive and she was able to make the reservations for us. Again I found it odd that they call it a dive resort but limit the reservation period while most divers are out diving. The food was good but was not noteworthy especially for the price we paid.
The Sabor had two bars. Only the poolside bar was open during the day in the Sabor section with the same bartender every day that we were there. His name was Hilario and he did not live up to his name. He was by turn either indifferent or rude unless you had a generous tip for him. At one point my wife placed an order for a drink with him and another gentleman stepped up with a folded 10 in his hand and Hilario ignored her (he had already pulled a glass to fill her drink order) and asked the gentleman what he would like. He placed his order of several drinks and asked Hilario hadn’t my wife already placed an order? Hilario ignored this, filled his drinks and after taking the 10 dollar bill, proceeded to fill my wife’s drink order. It was pretty clear that unless you come with a tip, you would wait. A guest made a comment to us midweek that when she went to the poolside bar to get a drink, Hilario had commented that all of guests were a bunch of drunks (as she is trying to order a drink) and that it was only midday. It was a rude and out of place comment. My wife and I agree that there were some guests there that were quite intoxicated and a number of them were partially to fully nude as well. While we don’t consider ourselves to be prudes, we did have a problem with those who were nude due to the fact that they were making spectacles of the themselves by being loud and making sure that everyone could see that they were nude by prancing around, posing and otherwise being obnoxious. The resort NEVER said a word to them about the nudity even though we had understood that this was not a nudist resort in the adult area. It is a good overall indicator of the mindset of how the resort is run.
In the Sabor section, there was one main pool. Three of the buildings were on a hill above the pool. These buildings had pools next to them which had slides leading to the main pool. One of these pools had a light hanging out of its socket with exposed wires. The main pool had a ring of scum around it at water level. The lighting at night was not good especially on the stairs from the buildings leading to the pool. One night one of the guests had problems seeing the steps and fell down them and was bruised pretty badly. Another day, a person cut his foot inside of the pool on something. They did not do anything to treat the pool or remove the object.
Diving
After reading reviews about the on-resort dive op, Sand Dollar Sports, my wife and I chose to use an independent dive op. After recommendations from Diver Kat and others, we chose Scuba with Alison. I set everything up with Alison by email. We did a total of 10 dives with her over 5 days and did the Deep Diver Specialty. She charges $60 for a two dive trip if you pay cash. If you don’t pay by cash, she charges $65. She charged us $180 for the Deep Diver Specialty which included 3 dives. You can meet her at the marina or she will pick you up at your resort. She allows you to dive your tank and computer. You do not have to go up as a group. My longest dive was about 80 minutes and my shortest was about 50 minutes.
We are extremely happy with the service that we received from her and her boat captain, Carlos. When they picked us up from the resort, Alison made us feel like an old friend from the first greeting. Safety was foremost and Alison ensured that everyone on the boat knew what to expect, no matter what their dive experience. After we geared up, she double checked to make sure tanks were on and your gear was working properly. She and Carlos are a great team and ensured that everyone had fun and had a chance to see whatever marine life they requested if possible. At no extra charge, she will keep and rinse your BCD, regulators, and fins if you want. This is the first time that this was offered to us and it was nice to be able to leave them with her and not have to haul them back and forth each day.
Working on additional specialties and getting other certifications is a breeze with Alison. She is a great instructor and we both feel we learned a lot from her not only in respect to the specialty but also diving in general.
We had one problem which was not Alison’s fault. Sand Dollar Sports charged us to use the pier. What made the matter worse is that I paid them in Pesos instead of Dollars. Instead of using a conversion rate the same as everyone else on the island they used much higher conversion rate which was not even close to what the resort was using. They did not even tell us what the conversion rate would be. So the first day, I paid them at the hotel conversion rate. The next day they told us what they wanted the conversion rate to be and told us that we under paid the previous day. I had not brought enough to make up the difference so they took what we had. They threatened that if we did not bring the correct amount and pay the back amount they would not let Alison dock at the pier ever again.
We saw several of Sand Dollar Sports boats leaving with a minimum of 12 divers and the most I counted was 18. My brother-in-law spoke with some people at the resort that used Sand Dollar Sports. They stayed at about 40 feet for their max depth. They complained about not seeing anything. We had been on the same reef at the time and saw numerous things.
We plan to return to Cozumel. We would be hard pressed to stay at Wyndham again and would never use Sand Dollar Sports. We plan to dive with Alison and her crew every time and look forward to our next trip to Cozumel.



Here are some of the better pictures and movies. Picasa Web Albums - jimcarriegust - Cozumel March...

[gee]

Thanks for the report crgjpg. At least you enjoyed the diving, right?

[Travelnsj]

Great report....sounds like Alison saved your trip!

[paperdesk]

Appreciate the report. Nice photos too. Thanks for sharing.