Dive Boutique Cozumel

Our family of 4 (including 2 teens 17 & 14) had an absolutely amazing time on the Discover Scuba Diving adventure with Cozumel Diving Academy. We never scuba dived before today. We came to Cozumel on a cruise ship and the shop is a short …

My daughter (13) and husband loved it and it was her first time. She is hooked. Pachi was awesome with them. He brought his camera and took lots of pictures of them diving. Definitely will be using them and referring Pachi.

I recently completed AOW and Nitrox training with Cozumel Dive Academy. Below is a summary of my three days with Cozumel Dive Academy. ADVANCED OPEN WATER DAY 1 I arrived just before 9:00am, the agreed upon start time, instructor was confused about what we were doing on Day 1 of the Advanced Open Water.Instructor checked again with the shop manager and she told him was booked with other clients for a dive at 1:00pm. He told me don’t worry we have plenty of time, We walked across the street for a shore dive for the navigation portion of the AOW course. Our tanks had not arrived, so he suggested we practice on the sidewalk, where people were smoking and walking by. Then when tanks were delivered he grabbed tanks belonging to another dive operator.When the Cozumel Dive Academy tanks finally arrived at Tikilia on Day 1, it was nearly 11:00am by time we got in the water, Instructor asked if we could do the second part, Peak Performance Buoyancy, at 2:30pm since he had clients at noon. Despite me hearing manager in the dive shop, say they were coming at 1:00pm. I suggested we continue at 3:00pm since I didn’t think he’d be ready by 2:30pm. Anyway, I returned at 3:00pm and instructor wasn’t ready until 3:30pm. We went back over to Tkilia, and practiced buoyancy for about an hour. There was no pre-dive plan or briefing.Worse was AFTER the dive, when we were taking our gear off on shore, Instructor started chatting up a young woman, when I expected him to debrief the lesson we just completed. I took off my gear and waited for him to finish the conversation/flirting and then just said bye, see you tomorrow morning at 7:45am at the shop and he simply said bye. I was disappointed in how this post dive was handled, truly couldn’t believe how unprofessional this was. DAY 2 I arrived at 7:40am and saw instructor, I asked where we’d be diving and what plan would be he said I’d find out on the boat. Fair enough. There was another diver, possibly an employee in training, smoking by the front door of shop and a DiveMaster (in training) vaping, again at the entrance to the shop. A real turn off first thing in morning. I mentioned it to instructor and he simply said yeah people like to smoke down here. When we got to the marina, same person who seemed to be in some sort of training was smoking again. Once on the boat, there was no plan discussed, no safety briefing about radio channel, boat name, etc.. Not on either of my two days going out with Cozumel Dive Academy. I thought it was very strange and I asked Instructor about our dive plan and was simply told it’s a drift dive and stay in visual contact. Instructor didn’t even know the parts of the Palancar area where we were diving, which I learned in less than a week, Once again, post dive no debrief to go over skills that covered. The DiveMaster was involved in some obvious relationship drama with a female diver/client/trainee who appeared to work for the shop, but role was never clear to me. NITROX COURSE I had the impression my instructor had never taught the Nitrox course, while I understand everyone has their first class, he seemed uniquely unprepared. He did not know how to use the Nitrox Analyzer which another instructor was demonstrating for him while we on boat on way to our dive. SUMMARY I would not recommend Cozumel Dive Academy for AOW or Nitrox certification based on my experiences. I reached out directly to Phillip, owner of Cozumel Dive Academy, by email, but never heard back from him. After three days with Cozumel Dive Academy I choose to dive with another shop, Scuba Tony. They were to a person, professional in their communication, behavior & attire. This included clear onshore orientation, where they identified all staff and their roles, on boat safety orientation and clear dive plans. TL/DR Scuba Tony was way better than Cozumel Dive Academy. When I return to Cozumel, will be diving with Scuba Tony!