Advise for newly certified divers in Cozumel and Costa Maya

We were recently certified, and this will be our first dive experience. We are wanting to dive in Costa Maya and Cozumel. Any recommendations as to diver operators to use? Would drift diving be to advanced for us in Cozumel or should we stick with shore dives? Any advise is welcome!:)

I wouldn't limit myself to shore dives if I were in your situation. There is nothing difficult about drift diving. In fact it's easier in some ways in that you simply drift along with the current and don't really expend a lot energy and therefore O2 unless you want to stop and look at something.

Good dive operators will always be very safety concious no matter what type of dives you're doing. I would make sure that the dive leader knew your background that way he or she will know to stay a little closer to you and your dive buddy.

The one piece of equipment that I wouldn't leave home without is a safety sausage. On all the drift dives we have been on the dive master (the guy in the boat) has always spotted us. The furtherest we have surfaced from the dive boat is a little more than a quarter mile away. I did unlimber and inflate my safety sausage because they didn't head for us immediately. They were picking up another pair of divers before coming to get us. I wanted to make sure that they saw us (they had) and that any other boats in the area (there were none) could see us.

I am a strong believer in ALWAYS bringing your own equipment (except tanks and weights). I know where everything is on or in my BCD. The same thing holds true for the War Department's (a.k.a. Mrs. B.) BCD should an emergency arise. If you are interested in the pros and cons of bringing your own gear look for all of my posts. I have written about this several times as have many others.

I hope this is helful info. Now go out and enjoy that next dive excursion.:)

The first dive my son and I did post-certification was with Alison (ScubaWithAlison) in Cozumel. Our guide (Chucho) knew it was our first dive and kept a close eye on us and made it a lot of fun. We've been back and dove with Alison our 2nd time - Drift diving both times. Would especially recommend them for new divers.

I emailed Alison, and she's booked the day we'll be in port. Any other recommendations for dive operators? Also looking for someone in Costa Maya.

Pilot70D, thanks for the advise. I now feel more confident in doing a drift dive. We have all our equpment, except for weights and tanks.

With this being your first drift dive, please be aware that you descend VERY quickly. Practice, practice, practice clearing your ears!

I emailed Alison, and she's booked the day we'll be in port. Any other recommendations for dive operators?

http://www.scubatony.com

http://www.bluextseadiving.com <---- Personal Favorite

http://www.blueangel-scuba.com

http://www.bottomtimedivers.net

With this being your first drift dive, please be aware that you descend VERY quickly. Practice, practice, practice clearing your ears!

Also, you do not really want to do a shore dive in Cozumel. (1)The diving isn't nearly as good as boat dives. (2)You have to NAVIGATE if you shore dive. You don't have to navigate if you boat dive because the boat follows you and is there when you surface.

I'm in the same position as the OP. We are also using scuba with Alison.

I've also heard good things about Dive Paradise and Papa Hogs. If you are really nervous you can always hire your own DM.

OP, where is your cruise leaving from?

We're leaving Dec. 6th from New Orleans on the NCL Spirit.

You will be fine with the ship's excursion in Costa Maya. We did discover diving with them last year. For us, they did 1 on 1, diver to DM.

For the certified divers (they went on a different boat) the ratio was 4 divers to 1 DM.

NCL went through Dreamtime in Jan 2009 so I'm assuming they still use them.

The first dive my son and I did post-certification was with Alison (ScubaWithAlison) in Cozumel. Our guide (Chucho) knew it was our first dive and kept a close eye on us and made it a lot of fun. We've been back and dove with Alison our 2nd time - Drift diving both times. Would especially recommend them for new divers.

I agree...they are a great operation and we loved Chucho. He was a lot of fun and very helpful, my favorite divemaster to date.

After much researching the web we decided to go with Maya Palms in Costa Maya. The resort is isolated and after talking to Doug (co-owner with Katherine) in Missouri, I feel very confident that the day will be great. Just Google Maya Palms Costa Maya.

dirvin0500, when will you be in Costa Maya?

I talked to Doug, and am considering using them.

Still have to get info back from Blue Ocean Safari. I emailed Maya Chan, and they said they could hook us up with someone with Blue Ocean; I'd just as soon book directly with them, instead of going thru Maya Chan.

If you were going to try Alison try Chucho. He is on his own now. I booked him last august and had a blast 4 of us all new divers did 13 dives in five days and he will pick you up at the pier. very reliable.. Going back to him in April. try http://www.chuchodivers.com/

If you were going to try Alison try Chucho. He is on his own now. I booked him last august and had a blast 4 of us all new divers did 13 dives in five days and he will pick you up at the pier. very reliable.. Going back to him in April. try http://www.chuchodivers.com/

We booked with Alison last year and went with Chucho on her smaller boat. Great safe DM and would not hesitate to book with him again without Alison!

I used Chucho in November. It was my first time diving following certification. I would highly recommend him. Very patient and attentive.

chucho nuñez [chuchochimay@hotmail.com]

We were recently certified, and this will be our first dive experience. We are wanting to dive in Costa Maya and Cozumel. Any recommendations as to diver operators to use? Would drift diving be to advanced for us in Cozumel or should we stick with shore dives? Any advise is welcome!:)

I wouldn't hesitate to try the drift diving in Cozumel, just let the dive op know (as you should anyway!) that you are new and they will select appropriate sites! Our first Cozumel experience was on our cruise last month, and we really enjoyed the variety of reef structure and the current was fun without being scary.

Be very careful about choosing your dive op. We did a bunch of research, and ended up with Deep Blue because our first 2 choices were booked and we trusted their PADI rating and pretty website, which was a mistake. I have heard great things about Alison, and many of the other shops.

We should have turned around when they overcharged us at the shop ("Coco" at the desk insisted that we pre-paid a smaller amount than what we had actually sent via PayPal - that was the only piece of paper that didn't make it from the ship to the shop, and she claimed that they didn't have access to email and couldn't see my confirming payment information. She also charged us $20 more for the snorkeler who was riding along with us that whe I'd been quoted and what it says on the website). Not wanting to argue and wreck a great vacation day over less than $100, we decided to go ahead anyway.

Moving forward from that point, we should have known better than to let them load all of the rental gear on the boat and hustle us on without being able to look at any of the equipment ourselves... we were already away from the dock when we started checking our tanks and discovered that the supposedly "excellent rental gear" BCD's were in very bad repair.

The DM - whose photo is not on their website, kept talking on his cell phone to someone, it turned out that he was coordinating a place to stop 10 minutes away to pick up the emergency oxygen/first aid gear. I tried to casually ask "doesn't this boat have a radio"? since he was on his cell, and he said it did but that they channels get crowded so it is easier to use the cell phone. That could be true, but I saw no evidence of a radio when I started looking around.

The next discovery was that he had only brought computers for 2 of the 4 of us in our group. They advertise that they provide computers on all regs as a part of their service, and we had pre-booked and paid the previously mentioned deposit so I know that they were expecting us. He said "it's been busy today, and they told me to go ahead and take you out anyway". SO, I said, no problem, I guess we'll just dive tables. That's when he mentioned that there are not depth gauges on their gear! So this required another delay and cell-phone coordinated drop off of 2 more computers. At this point I wanted to bail, but my husband convinced me that all would be well and we'd been looking forward to diving Cozumel so we stayed. I'm still not sure whether the other diver on the boat had a working computer or not - he was on his first open water dive as a part of his PADI course...

To shorten the rest, we ended up with minor leaks on 2 BCD's, which shortened the dives. 1 of the 4 computers was useless, gave constant error messages and beeped the entire dive, the DM said he'd fix it during our surface interval, but when we went down on the 2nd dive it did the same thing - which somehow he seemed not to notice or bother to address the issue. The dives were beautiful, but the service was indifferent at best and unsafe in reality.

We should have gotten right back off that boat and demanded our money back from the beginning. Luckily for us, nothing bad happened... we will definately dive Cozumel again - but NOT with Deep Blue. On their website they say "Our commitment at DEEP BLUE is to make your dive vacation a fun, safe, and truly memorable experience." Well, the chaos & anxiety wasn't fun, the equipment and situation weren't safe, and I don't think this was the kind of memorable that most people would assume that they intended.

Bottom line - Dive! Dive Cozumel! Research your dive operator, get referrals, and if it doesn't feel right get back out of that boat and have a fun day at the beach. More than you were asking for, hope it is helpful!

"Dive with Cristina" would be the only choice for a newbie diver in Cozumel. She runs a top notch operation, safety first, very patient, and is always a teacher. Her boat "Nena" is spacious and never crowded. She serves lunch during your surface interval. I have been diving with her for several years and can recommend her highly.

Alison is our usual go-to-girl in Coz but she's booked when we are there next month. We are diving with Chucho now and I agree with the other posters, he is a great choice as well! We had many good dives with Chucho as DM in the past so it will be good to see him again too! We're gonna stop at Alison's boat on the way back and see if she has any of her big ol' cookies left LOL! :D

Blue Angel in Cozumel!! Last April the 2-tank dive was $85 and that included a very yummy lunch with an ice cold cervesa. Hope that hasn't changed. By the way, the shore diving is also drift diving, you just drift along the shore.