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Dive Review of Dive Paradise/Hotel Cozument and Resort in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

Dive Paradise/Hotel Cozument and Resort, Feb, 2006,

by Marjorie Griffing, MN, USA (Reviewer Reviewer 6 reports). Report 2287.

No photos available at this time

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

Accommodations 4 stars Food 3 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity N/A
Dive Operation 3 stars Shore Diving 1 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ N/A
Beginners 4 stars
Advanced 3 stars
Comments This was our second trip to Cozumel Hotel and Resort and Dive Paradise. The last trip was in December 2004. The resort has recovered nicely from Wilma. The most obvious evidence of the hurricane was the lack of trees: It was difficult to find shade. The rooms continue to be spacious and set up well for divers. We booked AI because it was convenient. The food was better than our last stay 15 months ago. While not gourmet by any means, it was tasty, plentiful and available at convenient times. Concerns about cleanliness were obvious.

We did 13 dives in 5 days with Dive Paradise. The shallow reefs were obviously damaged by Wilma. Tormentos and Paradise were especially damaged – it was like diving over snow drifts. We could see some evidence of the corals trying to re-establish themselves, but mostly everything was covered with sand. Barrel sponges were filled with sand.

Deeper dives didn’t look nearly as damaged and the fish were as plentiful as ever. We saw turtles on most dives. After several days, people asked the DM to stop pointing out lobsters since we had seen so many of them. On our last dive, two spotted eagle rays entertained us on the safety stop. They each had a wing span of at least 6 feet and swam around under us for nearly the entire 3 minutes. They were beautiful!

The dive operation was somewhat hit or miss depending who was on the boat, both in terms of the DMs and the fellow divers. Alfonso (DM) was great! Once he figured out we were competent, he let us do our thing. During the morning dives, the operation usually did a good job of grouping divers of like experience on boats and within groups on the boats. Once everyone was on the boat, a consensus of where to dive was reached. We were mostly able to dive our computers’ limits.

In the afternoon, however, there was no attempt at grouping people appropriately. The sent out as few boats with as many people as possible on them. While we enjoyed looking at the fish in their natural habitat doing their own thing, other divers seemed to enjoy swimming headlong into a school of fish on purpose to scatter them. I suspect they lit bugs on fire with a magnifying glass as kids! One afternoon, we objected to diving Villa Blanca wall again and it seemed we were to be punished – we were dropped over sand with virtually nothing to see – it was at least 4 minutes into the dive before we saw anything living.

On the last morning, 4 of the 12 divers on the boat had made some pre-arrangements with Dive Paradise. There was no attempt to reach any consensus – the entire boat went where they wanted to dive. They were the first group in and last group out. We were required to come up after 30 minutes even though we had 1500+ PSI left so that the boat would be ready to pick up the first group per its pre-arrangement. The eagle rays noted above almost made up for the fact that someone else was controlling our dives.

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 101-250 dives
Where else diving Grand Cayman, Bonaire Bermuda, Florida, Minnesota and Wisconsin
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy, dry Seas choppy, currents
Water Temp 78-81°F / 26-27°C Wetsuit Thickness 3
Water Visibility 70-100 Ft/ 21-30 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile no
Enforced diving restrictions Specified max depth and max time but we were (usually) able to dive our computer limits
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? N/A

What I Saw

Sharks None Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 2 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 2 stars
Large Pelagics 1 stars

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

Subject Matter 3 stars Boat Facilities 2 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 3 stars Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments Some boats had large tanks for cameras. Others only had buckets for masks which were used by cameras. No tables or dry area to change film.
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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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