Dive Review of Aqua Safari/Cozumel Palace in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

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Aqua Safari/Cozumel Palace: "Great February Cozumel Trip", Feb, 2015, by Heather Rooney, CO, US ( Reviewer 5 reports with 3 Helpful votes). Report 8130.
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	This was a week long trip that my husband and I took with five other friends (2 non-divers). Cozumel Palace was chosen since one in our group has a membership with Palace resorts, and there was a $1500 per room resort credit that covered the cost of our diving. The resort is beautiful and luxurious, food was delicious, service was fabulous. You are very spoiled here. Aqua Safari is the house shop at the resort and mainly uses large boats with around 16 divers per trip. The four of us experienced divers are used to smaller groups and found that as long as we stayed towards the back of the crowd when we were on the reef we enjoyed ourselves plenty. DMs Gabriel and Jordan were helpful, especially Jordan who helped us find octopus hiding spots. The reef showed a lot of health. I only saw one lionfish the entire week which made me happy. Some other highlights: a gaggle of 10 lobsters crowded together on a ledge on Santa Rosa wall, a 6 ft nurse shark and 5 large turtles on Cedral Wall. At Punta Tunich, a huge eagle ray landed and dug in the sand and let us sit and watch him for awhile. Lots of sightings of spotted and green eels, school of squid, splendid toadfish, grouper, angelfish, lobsters, crabs, wrasse, parrotfish, barracuda, filefish and so on. As expected in Coz, all diving is drift based and the boat was close by when we surfaced. Nice back platform and ladder, I was able to hand up my fins and weights and receive assistance onto the boat if needed. One of our friends was just getting certified and completed his checkout dives with Aqua Safari and reported that he was very satisfied with the instruction. Snorkeling off the hotel was surprisingly enjoyable. While there aren't very many soft corals, there were nice hiding places for critters and we saw a chain eel, stingrays, angelfish, trunkfish and a rather juvenile lobster. I did inquire if it was possible to go to the further sites like Punta Sur or Maracaibo and the response was yes, but we had to have at least 5 in our group. We only had 4 plus our new diver so we didn't inquire further. On our last day to dive, a norte showed up and the harbor was closed, which was a bummer but you can't control the weather. We love Cozumel and will always go back. However, we generally prefer to stay further south so that boat rides aren't so long and also prefer a smaller boat/operation. Despite that, I would feel completely comfortable recommending Aqua Safari as a reputable and very friendly dive operation. Cozumel Palace is also a fabulous resort and especially nice for the non-divers in the group. Finally, if the photographers come along on your boat, I recommend checking out the pictures and considering buying some or all of them. Even though we had cameras the professionals are a lot better at it than we are!
Websites	Aqua Safari
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	51-100 dives
Where else diving	Roatan, Bahamas, Florida, Hawaii
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	currents
Water Temp	78-80°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	-100 Ft/ -30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Drift diving, boat follows bubbles, signal to dive master once reach 700psi, max depth was stated at dive briefing. 2 divemasters for the group, one to lead and one to anchor.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
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	N/A	Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Separate fresh rinse tank on boat for cameras

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Dive Review of Aqua Safari/Cozumel Palace in Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

Aqua Safari/Cozumel Palace: "Great February Cozumel Trip", Feb, 2015,

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):

Dive Review of Aqua Safari/Cozumel Palace in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan