Dive Review of Dressel Divers/Iberostar in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

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Dressel Divers/Iberostar: "Iberostar and Dressel Divers November 2019", Nov, 2019, by Jon Hoffmann, GA, US ( Contributor 13 reports with 17 Helpful votes). Report 11367 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	The Iberostar Lush, jungle like property with peacocks and iguanas roaming free along with flamingos, parrots, coatis and other wildlife. Rooms are generally in 2 story buildings containing 8 rooms. Rooms are clean and comfortable but a little on the small side. If diving, ask for a room in a building close to the dive center located on the beach at the north west corner of the property. Plan on doing a lot of walking as the property is spread out with few direct paths to the lobby area where the main restaurants are located. Bring bug spray. The mosquitos are fierce late afternoon and at sunset. Dressel Divers If booking dives in advance, you will need to do so with their main office in Spain via email. Prepaid discount packages are available, but beware that the prepaid dives are not transferrable to others (unless you purchase a family package), so use it or lose it. And night dives are not included in the packages. Extra dives are about $55/tank. The dives shop staff are generally Europeans and the operation is definitely cattle boat. I don’t blame them for maximizing their profits via seat efficiency, but after a while, 6 to 8 divers per guide takes some of the fun out of it. It’s definitely not boutique as you will be required to stay with the group and guide. You will need to lug all your own gear, set it up, and wash it. The dive guides are generally pretty good though and make up for some of the crowd hassle, but to keep things on schedule, expect shallow dives, generally with a stated max of 60 minutes to keep things on schedule. You can do 4 dives daily and a 5th dive when nite dives offered, but there is little to no deviation from the pre-determined dive sites. So expect to visit the same sites a few times if power diving for a week. Tank fills were consistently 2800-3000 PSI, but never over 3000. Bring a lock to store your gear in a bin overnight. Each boat had a couple ~10 gallon fresh water tubs for small and medium size camera gear, but forget dropping a big rig in them since the boats were usually around the 24 max capacity. There was also the problem of people dropping their masks into the camera tanks. The rinse tanks back at the dive shop were crowded and the water dirtied up quickly. The biggest advantage of staying at the Iberostar however was that most dive intervals involved a 5 minute stop back at the hotel pier. A definite plus for grabbing a quick drink, snack or something you forgot when boarding the boat. Lucas quickly became our requested guide because of his attentive but laid back style. Flo was a 2nd favorite and equally laidback under water. The diving The southern end of the Marine Park was closed recently in an attempt to let some of the coral impacted by disease recover. The farthest southern dive site currently allowed is Delila. Rumor is that the government will soon relent to the local dive industry and lift the embargo on the southern dive sites. Although the number of dive sites has been diminished, the cruise ships coming into port has not. Nor has the number of destination visitors. So as you would expect, the dive sites are all more crowded than in the past. Over the years I’ve noticed a greater percentage of Canadian, South/Central Americans, and Europeans coming to Cozumel. Cozumel seems to have landed on the map for Russian divers too. It definitely isn’t the same laid back and sleepy dive island it used to be before the cruise ship ports opened up.
Websites	Dressel Divers
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Caribbean, Costa Rica, Thailand, Micronesia, Maldives, Indonesia, PNG, Palau, Malaysia, Philippines
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	82-82°F / 28-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	80-120 Ft/ 24-37 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Depth & Time
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

Subscriber's Comments

By Greg Bruce in WA, US at Dec 03, 2019 11:45 EST

Just a couple of notes: The most southern dive site available to dive is La Francesa, which is a bit further south of Dalila and La Francesa has some nice swim throughs. The closed dive sites in the Palancar Reef system and further south reopen December 15th. Thanks for your report!

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Dive Review of Dressel Divers/Iberostar in Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

Dressel Divers/Iberostar: "Iberostar and Dressel Divers November 2019", Nov, 2019,

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Dressel Divers/Iberostar in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan