change of plans

[georoc01]

If town is not a priorty and you are comfortable with the AI food, Occidental, or the Allegro next door would be great. You are closer to the reefs which IMHO is a huge plus and leads to much shorter boat rides.

The other plus of the single tank boat rides is that you do your SI on shore. Works out well when your SO is not a morning person and wants to skip the first dive of the day.

[mtnplayva]

I just got back yesterday from Coz and stayed at the Occ Grand. It is a beautiful resort and far away from town so you don't have to deal with the cruise ships. I was disappointed in the food at the buffet and we weren't ever able to get a reservation for the restaraunt. You have to make the reservation at least 24 hours in advance and you can only do it between 9 - 5. There is a dress code for the restaraunts. No sleeveless tops and men have to wear slacks and closed toe shoes. The service in the buffet is awesome. The timeshare people got annoying the first day but then he left me alone once he realized I wasn't interested. Be very careful - the tile floors in the room are extremely slippery. Two of the women fell and almost everyone slipped at some point during the 5 days we were there. I finally put towels all over the floor because I didn't want to ruin my trip by falling.

We did most of our dives with scubawithalison but our last dive was with Dive Palancar. I had trouble with my ears so it took me about 5 minutes to descend. The DM didn't come up to find out what was wrong - just kept floating along. It was a little unnerving to watch them all move along with the current while I was going in a different direction. Our dive was over at 40 minutes even though most of us had close to 1900psi left. The boat dropped another group off at a different part of the reef so we had to wait at the surface for it to get them and then come pick us up. They do have gear lockers but it is a small crate looking thing and you hang your wetsuit on a shared hook.

We decided that Occ Grand is a perfect place for a honeymoon - beautiful grounds, pools and secluded. I won't return there for a dive trip though. There were a bunch of little things that turned me off to the resort.

We went into town one night for dinner - Kinta. It was awesome and very reasonably priced. The taxi was 32.00 for 8 of us.

One of the women from our group has stayed at SCC before - she had all good things to say about it but it is in town and is a dive focused place. Occ Grand is a resort that has a dive shop on site.

Have a great trip - I wish I was back there. The diving is amazing.
Julie

[foo]

Originally Posted by mtnplayva

We went into town one night for dinner - Kinta. It was awesome and very reasonably priced. The taxi was 32.00 for 8 of us.

Wow! I haven't been to Coz in a couple of years (returning in 3 wks) but even from Fiesta Americana it was only $10 for the cab, no matter how many people were in it. Glad we're staying closer to town this time, geez!

Great report, btw. Thanks for the info.

[scubagirlj]

another curveball-LDS suggested dive adventuras and catalonia on the penninsula(1.5 hrs south of cancun, below pdc)-anyone ever been there? is AI, which works and is on marina(options for outside dining) the attraction is the proximity to cenote diving but wonder what kind of regular boat diving is on that side-suppsed to be close to major turtle area also-price wise about the same but is a nonstop flight(less chance of losing luggage) although the drive is a drag(stayed in Xcaret before started diving so kind of know the area)-LDS swears by the combo but maybe they are swayed by incentives for referrals(was asked who LDS was by information person)-torn and must make up mind soon(trying to use FF miles for one of the plane tickets)

[scubarobin]

Originally Posted by scubagirlj

another curveball-LDS suggested dive adventuras and catalonia on the penninsula(1.5 hrs south of cancun, below pdc)-anyone ever been there? is AI, which works and is on marina(options for outside dining) the attraction is the proximity to cenote diving but wonder what kind of regular boat diving is on that side-suppsed to be close to major turtle area also-price wise about the same but is a nonstop flight(less chance of losing luggage) although the drive is a drag(stayed in Xcaret before started diving so kind of know the area)-LDS swears by the combo but maybe they are swayed by incentives for referrals(was asked who LDS was by information person)-torn and must make up mind soon(trying to use FF miles for one of the plane tickets)

1. very different destinations, although you can go over to Cozumel on the ferry and dive if you want to one day.
2. yes, there are areas with lots of turtles there at PDC. Big ones, too.
3. if you stay in PDC area you can do more topside cool stuff, like visit the Mayan ruins, snorkel or dive the cenotes.
check out my trip reports from this past March for info on cenotes and Chichen Itza trip.
reports

[scubagirlj]

thanx scubarobin-unfortunatly have been in touch with DO there and they are overpriced compared to coz-read somewhere in this forum that there is a cenote on coz, any truth to that?

[scubarobin]

Originally Posted by scubagirlj

thanx scubarobin-unfortunatly have been in touch with DO there and they are overpriced compared to coz-read somewhere in this forum that there is a cenote on coz, any truth to that?

there are a few but not diveable for the public. You wouldn't want to do it anyhow as having to carry gear through the jungle to get to them wouldn't be any fun. I doubt the cenote system on coz would be anything comparable to the mainland either. Those cenotes are the best underground, fresh water diving in the world as there are hundreds of miles of caves! I really do recommend doing at least a day of the cenotes on the mainland if you can. It is very different than any ocean diving!

"overpriced" compared to Cozumel? Yes, the prices are a bit higher, but not what I would call overpriced. Cozumel is the cheapest place to dive worldwide, hands down. So you need to keep it in perspective.
Diving in Hawaii is $135-150pp for a 2-tk dive! That is overpriced!!!

[scubagirlj]

well, it seems the airlines have made up my mind for me as to where we are going-free ticket to cancun(thanx FF miles) so off to puerto aventuras it is-DO there is located at Omni: not AI but do have cont. breakfast and is small boutique hotel- do i take savings on airfare and splurge on nicer hotel or go with the catalonia a/i and pocket the savings? DO has offered us a nice deal since we are doing 15+ dives each while there,including cenotes, night dives and nitrox-figure that if weather restricts ocean dives, at least we still have cenote option and can always hop the ferry to coz if needing a change of u/w scenery-oh yeah, DO also is throwing in r/t transfers from airport(saves $100-200 right there)

[scubagirlj]

PS-neither my husband or myself are real drinkers-maybe one with dinner but not during the day