Trip Review: Baldwin's / Papa Hogs

[legallybeth]

We're back from a great trip to Cozumel. This was my first dive trip since certification. We had a great time diving, relaxing, and just getting away. I found all of the other reviews so helpful, that I wanted to include my own summary of our trip, costs, and personal experiences.

Flight – American, direct from Dallas. About $325 round trip per person

Accommodations: Baldwin’s Guest House (located in town) $70/night including breakfast (off-season rate). Nice place – and we were the only guests so we had the place to ourselves. It was super clean and the hosts were nice. The grounds are unbelievable –the pool is beautiful and they have a lot of neat wildlife.

Diving: Papa Hogs, $60 per 2-tank dive
Pros: They only took out 6 people at a time.
Cons: Pushy/rude staff. The captain and dive master were always in a rush –practically pushing us off the boat. On one particular dive, I received a lot of push back from the dive master when I said that I didn't feel comfortable doing a swim through (at the wreck) since I was a new diver and I didn't have a light.
Overall we had a great time diving. The attitude of the employees didn’t stop us from having a great dive. We will probably use another operation next time just for variety, but I wouldn’t completely rule out Papa Hogs for future trips.

The dives were great. We saw nurse sharks, sea turtles, barracuda, and eels. On our night dive we also saw octopus and squid. The water was 81* and the unlimited viz in Coz was quite the change from all of the lake dives I have done. What a treat!

Transportation
We took a cab each day from Baldwin’s to Papa Hogs. It was about $5 each way.

Dining:
Since we stayed in town, we hit a lot of local places with names that I do not remember.

Casa Mission – great food! Beautiful outdoor setting. Lots of mosquitoes.
Prima’s –Italian food near the resorts. Nice atmosphere.
The restaurant at Papa Hog’s –it was super convenient for lunch after diving, but we only ate their once because the food just wasn’t very good.

Activities:
Diving of course! J We dove 9 times on this trip, so we really didn’t do much besides lounge around the pool. But on our last day we rented a scooter from Isis ($25 for a 2 passenger scooter for 24 hours) and rode around the island. It was so much fun. We will definitely do this on future trips.


Looking forward to future dive trips!

[Tekdivr]

Great post. Sounds like you had an awesome time. I'll be there is 16 days and can't wait!