Top notch diving operation - for training to expert!
Written: Apr 09 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Divers matched for experience, tanks for breathing, 6-pack boats and best dive sites.
Cons: About 20% more expensive than the bottom feeders - and worth every penny.
The Bottom Line: Aldora Divers offers exciting, safe personalized "valet" style diving on healthy reefs with lots of currenty drift diving around Cozumel. Absolutely the best bang for your "Coz" diving buck!
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| josekw's Full Review: Aldora Divers |
First, 'cause I know you're wondering, my diving experience: almost 50 years, 26 countries, Master Scuba Diver plus wreck, etc.
In the end I always return to my favorite Fiji liveaboard for the ripping and stunning drift diving, soft corals... but it's FAR. So I also go back to Cozumel, which has improved over the years with Marine Park protection, a "new" wreck (minesweeper C-53 "Xicotencatl",) clear water with healthy reefs and top-notch drift diving for all levels of diver - from Paradise Reef near town to Maracaibo and Punta Sur for the tyros. Lots of fauna too, and in three days, I saw sharks, spotted eagle rays, morays, pelagics and colorful smaller critters too, from commensal shrimps to huge sponges and diverse corals.
And when I go to Cozumel, it's Aldora Divers, operated by owner Dave Dillehay and longtime dive instructor and "critter man" Guillermo "Memo" Mendoza, with lots of help from their capable crew. They cost a smidge more - but what I get is a six passenger ("six pack") fast and professionally-captained Mako 28 boat with steel tanks (80, 100 and 120 cu ft depending on breathing, etc.) with divers matched for experience. Yup, Nitrox is available too, bottled ice water and even dive parkas for chilled divers are provided. They adapt your gear to DIN for the high-pressure steel tanks, and if you don't dive computers they lend you one and show you how (and why@) to use it, free. The rental gear they have is all top-notch - DiveRite BCDs, Oceanic Delta II Regulators. Mares masks, US Divers fins and Oceanic wetsuits - in good repair, not shredded Neoprene rags! They even rinse and store your gear overnight - you touch it when you deliver it, when you don it or pick it up rinsed before you go home.
The divemasters are all instructors, knowledgeable of the reefs and critters (most have studied marine biology.) They are helpful, they know the reefs and all carry SMBs for the long safety stops (5 minutes at 15 feet) due to the long dives (most of my recent dives were 1 hr 20 min each or over, so in the end, you pay less for your longer dives than you would with the competition!) A long (1:30) surface interval is spent at Mi Playa beach where you can ingest liquids (not booze, of course!) and safe food before your next dive.
Aldora provides instruction - I recommend you do your pool and book work at home, take a referral to Aldora. And they serve very experienced divers, even those who want exploration dives, with new services to the uncharted side of the island.
I tried their latest addition, the gated waterfront "Villa Aldora," about 20 minutes walk north of town or a quick $3 taxi ride. For $75 a night (!) I got an en-suite twin-bedded air-conditioned room with fridge and microwave, pier, gear rinse and dry area, room-delivered breakfast for $5 each, and restful quiet. Larger rooms and suites are available for decent rates as well, and daytime construction is almost finished on a two-level suite for a family.
Happy to report that Aldora is back to its best, with lots of great service and diving; priced per quarter hour of uncrowded diving at unspoiled reefs and no cattle-boat conditions, I give my highest recommendation for novices through experts to Aldora Divers - www.aldora.com. Yeah, it sounds like a commercial - but I am a demanding and paying customer who believes feedback positive or negative, should be given where due. And as Arnold days, "I'll be bock!"
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
josekw
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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