Well, we've been back from our fall trip for about a month - and I'm finally making time to type this up. We were from 10/19 - 10/26. We stayed at the Occidental Grand, which is unusual for us. It was my daughter, wife, and I for 7 days, 4 days of diving - a great week.
So, we go to Cozumel at least once a year and late October happens to be one of the easier months for us to travel with Kid/School/Work/etc schedules. it's always a crap shoot in terms of weather. Statistically I don't worry too much about running into a Hurricane. I do worry about getting the first Norte of the year, or having a really rainy week. 2012 we hit both - and when the Norte comes, the diving pretty much shuts down for 3 days. Having 3 days of diving shut down isn't so bad, unless it's your only there a week - then it's disappointing. This year had no such troubles. We came in on a Saturday and it didn't even rain until Thursday afternoon. We had a great week diving with Opal's Dream who I can still recommend even though they have had changes in management over the last year or so.
A bit about Opal's Dream. It's a small shop. They have an office in town between the Lagosta Pier and town square. They'll pick you up on any hotel pier from downtown down south. They use a small boat, maybe 24 feet (I'm terrible with sizes) and will take up to 7 divers on it - though typical group size is 6. The boat's name is the flaying fish (pronounced flying - but if you look on the side of the boat, it's spelled flaying). It's got dual outboard 100's. It's not the fastest (though it's not slow) or the largest but Orlando gets it right on target. If you are looking for large roomy boats - these guys are not for you. Generally speaking most places I see taking large boats have groups >6 divers, and with drift diving as swift as Cozumel it just turns into a mess. So I stick to the small shops. The boat has a sun cover. The dive masters are good guys who care about your safety and want you to have a good time. Generally speaking you dive your air - though I have seen a dive ended at 80 minutes because we were all the way down at the Columbia shallows and they needed to get back up to town for the afternoon divers. I've never seen a dive ended in less than an hour unless everyone was out of air. Also, they'll let you head up in buddy pairs (though I think if you were brand new to diving with them they might not be so inclined until they knew you could handle yourself on the surface) when you are OOA - so the ride isn't over for everyone when the first guy nursing a hangover hits 700 psi. I love the shop - the dive masters, the captain. I don't know how else to say it - they are simply good people. We did a night dive with them - which staying at Occidental grand and being 4 divers going out means we had to catch a taxi up to the marina. When we were done we asked if they could call us a taxi so we could go. Though that was what we had discussed the DM and shop manager (who had come to fetch our gear off the boat and take it to the shop for the night) refused - they gave us a ride to the hotel. We tried to give them some money for the ride gas is expensive, and the scuba industry isn't making these guys rich. Nope - wouldn't take it. At any rate, I'll stop gushing.
So the hotel - The Occidental Grand. This isn't our normal digs. We typically stay at Hotel Cozumel in town. The All inclusive is a good deal for lunch, breakfast, and drinks all day. We don't always like the dinner service (though we never go hungry) but being so close to town, and so cheap for All inclusive, we usually eat 3 dinners a week in town at our favorite places. However, we wanted to try some place new and Occidental Grand had a sale. Add in the Orbitz $150 coupon code and we ended up with $800pp for 3 people, in 2 rooms including flight/hotel - basically everything but diving.
The 2 rooms: check the orbitz code, it prices per room. I have a teenager, and sometimes I find that I can put the teenager in their own room for within $20 for the week of putting them in our room. It's a nice luxury if it works out. The rooms were very nice. I thought the bathrooms were quite nice - especially compared to the Alegro which I stayed at 4 years ago - which is the same chain and usually comparable in price. In the room there was a minibar with sodas, and beers. This was kind of nice, and unexpected.
The hotel grounds were beautiful, which is very typical on Cozumel. The beach was sandy and pleasant. The far south end of the island has great beaches. There are two pools one right next to a bar/beach - this pool is usually a little louder with music, folks relaxing, and activities. If you want to be near the crowd, that's the pool for you. If you want a napping area - there's another pool closer to the rooms, further from the beach. Good for sunning, and falling asleep with a book. I found the beach itself to be quiet as well - some how the pool music 50feet away couldn't penetrate the sandy areas quite so well.
So on another thread I was working on a trip report for my October trip to Cozumel - which was great. I found myself getting into a rant about the complaints I seem to hear about all inclusive hotels and food. Because the internet gives every jack ass like me a voice, I figured I would post it in it's own thread rather than my trip report...so having removed it from the other post here it is, my advice to folks considering all inclusive hotels the first time:
Hotel Food -
breakfast buffet - good, especially the omelette/eggs made to order grill.
Lunch buffet - good, particularly the made to order burger grill.
Dinner buffet - I never really enjoyed it very much - though the deserts were great. I didn't go hungry, I just didn't enjoy dinner at the buffet as much as the other two meals.
There were 2 dinner ala carte places: Mediterranean and 'steak house' - I found both of those to be very good. However it is noteworthy: 1 - these are by reservation. 2 - You have to wear pants - no shorts, no flip flops. 3 - on a week long stay you can only make 3 reservations.
So pictures from Diving:
I tore my rotator cuff this last spring, and had surgery for it about 3 months ago. As such I wasn't up to carrying the normal camera setup. Instead I used my camera on it's own to take some SD video which I taped together into a couple of 3 minute videos. So here's some links...let's all dream about warm water while we endure the beginning of winter:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...58233655022511
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...99244751407089