costa mays dive ops- help decide who

[girlpower]

We are going to be in Costa Maya on Nov 3,2009. I know we are going to dive and I believe I have narrowed it down to two operators by reading everything on this board:)

 

Here is my question...I am between Maya Palms and Maya Blue.

 

Maya Palms has great reviews and sounds like fun but the taxi ride and cost are negatives.

 

Maya Blue is cheaper but still gets glowing reviews but not as much info can be found about them.

 

Who have you used and would you do it again?

 

Thank you for any help

[rednose83]

We did Discovery Scuba while on NCL. They used Dreamtime Resort. They were fantastic with us but of course we didn't do the certified dive so I don't know how that was.

[diverearl]

We are going to be in Costa Maya on Nov 3,2009. I know we are going to dive and I believe I have narrowed it down to two operators by reading everything on this board:)

 

Here is my question...I am between Maya Palms and Maya Blue.

 

Maya Palms has great reviews and sounds like fun but the taxi ride and cost are negatives.

 

Maya Blue is cheaper but still gets glowing reviews but not as much info can be found about them.

 

Who have you used and would you do it again?

 

Thank you for any help

 

We went with Maya Palms a few years ago (they were just getting started) and had a great time. The ride down was interesting to say the least, there were hugh pot holes all the way and the cab driver just wanted to get there and get back to the cruise ship area for another fare so he hauled .... all the way. I like a little excitement but my DW didn't like the ride as much as I did. The area was undeveloped enough to hold our interest even if it was a blurrr at the high rate of speed we were traveling.

 

The hotel / dive shop was very nice but the diving was just OK. There can be, and was, plenty of current on our dives and the short ride out to the reef can be a little ruff from waves. Once in the water the waves of course were no longer a factor, the lack of animals was a little disappointing but has probably improved since we were there.

 

There was very little to see except tore up reef from hurricanes and poor fishing habits by almost all of the locals. The people in this area live off the reef fish so they eat everything they see or catch (not gripping or judging as I would also do what ever it took to feed my family). Now that divers and other tourist are coming to the area though they will (hopefully have) start using better management to attract divers and have alternate ways to make money for food. All that said it was a great day and we all agreed we would do it again in a second.

 

I have never used Maya Blue so they might be the pick of the two, I can't say.

 

I would go again as we want to dive almost every chance we get but if you are picking just a couple of ports to dive I would skip this one and do something else in Costa Maya or the surrounding area but dive Cozumel for sure.

[girlpower]

Thank you for your post.

 

We are diving Cozumel with Alison. The only reason that we are diving is that my bf was just certified and I want to get a couple of dives for him before the Cozumel drift dive.

[diverearl]

Thank you for your post.

 

We are diving Cozumel with Alison. The only reason that we are diving is that my bf was just certified and I want to get a couple of dives for him before the Cozumel drift dive.

 

Please, don't get me wrong we really enjoyed diving with Maya Palms and would again anytime, I just wanted to be as honest as possible about what to expect. This will be a great warm up for Cozumel because at Costa Maya he will be like, this was great and when he comes up from the first dive at Cozumel he will probably just be able to get out WOW. Enjoy both and if you will please give us a brief review of each place when you get back, thanks.