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Dive Review of Dive House/Secrets Aura in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

Dive House/Secrets Aura: "Secrets Aura and Dive House", Mar, 2018,

by JOHN GALVIN, NJ, US ( 1 report with 2 Helpful votes). Report 10287 has 2 Helpful votes.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 4 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity 4 stars
Dive Operation 3 stars Shore Diving N/A
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 5 stars
Comments So, after many years of Cozumel, we have transitioned to “high end” lol. The last two years, we stayed at Iberostar. Island Dreams dive travel told me about a package for Secrets Aura all-inclusive/ Dive House, and away we went. A combination of seasickness prone divers (shorter boat ride) and non-divers (shorter dive day) makes the more southern hotels attractive to our group.
Secrets:
The first thing that pops into my mind is the very comfortable beds, like as good as home, I always felt rested in the morning. We had an ocean view room, which was huge, with a couch, coffee table and table and two chairs. Also, a big bathroom, with both a walk-in shower and a jacuzzi tub. The balcony had a table and two chairs. The mini fridge was always stocked w beer, soda and water. There is also a coffee maker, a steamer, and a safe.
The food was excellent, most of the five?? restaurants you order off a menu, the one buffet is good for breakfast (opens 7am) if diving, no reservations required at any restaurant, which is awesome for divers as other resorts usually open reservation bookings at 9am while you are 80 feet deep. Best food I’ve ever had in many trips to Cozumel. Service was always good. Two of the restaurants are open air so you look out over the water while eating, very nice. The only issue with food we had was seating. To be considerate, our group of 9 (five rooms) went to dinner at 6 or 6:30, before the 7:30 rush, but we still seemed to get some resistance to making one big table for us. One night, the host just said NO, needless to say, he was wrong lol. Hell hath no fury like a non-diving spouse!
For drinks, whether you were in the beachfront pool or on a beach chair, the servers were very attentive. The back pool is the activities pool, w volley ball and a swim up bar. The resort is adults only, first time for me, was actually nice and peaceful. The SkyBar on the roof is a nice place to meet for a drink before dinner, a perfect view of the water and suset, nice breeze, and you can get sushi from the attached restaurant. There is also room service, 24 hours a day, we never used it but a lot of folks did. The Coco café is open 24/7 also, so you can get a coffee, a donut etc any time. There was activities but we got our exercise diving, we played bingo in the pool one day. There was a beach BBQ one eve which was nice and one afternoon a lunch seafood fest with live band. Also, there was evening entertainment, dancers, karaoke, fire twirlers which looked pretty cool, the typical.
The beach had plenty of loungers, no towel cards, just grab a clean towel out of one of the brown towel boxes, which was nice. My one and only true complaint about the resort is the lack of shade, I think there is one umbrella for every 12 chairs on the beach, one umbrella per four loungers would be reasonable. I heard this complaint many times during the week. They also should put more desk staff on Saturday afternoon, check-in took way too long after a long day of travelling.
Dive House
We dove with Dive House (package). We usually get our own boat but did not have enough firm commitments at booking time. You check in at the little tiki hut dive booth on the beach the first day and pay your marine park fee, cash. You do not have to walk to the actual shop, which is a long walk on the beach (heehee). Nitrox is $12/tank, DH had my nitrox tanks on the boat all five days and I analyzed the tanks, which were marked correctly. Dive House picked us up every morning around 8:30, normally 2-4 other divers, you dove your computer, dive times were one hour, which is fine for my group. They have bigger tanks if you need them. We did one reef twice, at our request, otherwise hit different spots all five days. The DM’s were good at pointing stuff out and after the first day, did not hound you about air, just asked that you let them know when you were at 1000 psi. The DM shot a marker when anyone was ready to ascend and the boat was always right there when you surfaced. We had been advised to bring a large mesh gear bag so after the 2nd dive, you packed up all your gear and left it on the boat. In the morning your gear was on the boat, rinsed and dry. I personally kept my reg and computer. We had one rental BC and one rental wetsuit-no issues. We were on the DiveHouse 2 all week, it appeared to be well maintained.
A safe dive operation, no problems, no drama. I would use them again.




Websites Dive House   Secrets Aura

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience Over 1000 dives
Where else diving New Jersey (primary), the Atlantic from Canada to the Keys, Caribbean, Costa Rica, Cocos Island, Roatan,
Closest Airport CZM Getting There usually connect in Houston

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny Seas calm
Water Temp 81-82°F / 27-28°C Wetsuit Thickness 3
Water Visibility 100-150 Ft/ 30-46 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions First dive, 100ft max, one hour
Second dive, 80ft max, one hour
Depth was recommended, never enforced
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks Lots Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 4 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 3 stars Large Fish 4 stars
Large Pelagics 2 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 3 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments Camera bucket on boat, you charge camera etc in your room.
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Subscriber's Comments

By Sheri Ray in TX, US at Jun 08, 2018 19:14 EST  
Thank you! We're traveling to Secrets in September with a group of divers.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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