We stayed at Allegro Cozumel to dive all week & specifically wanted an on-site dive facility. My Partner, and I are experienced divers, my dad is pretty new to diving & my mom was getting her OW while there.
Booking through email was a hassle to get 10% off. Responses took days, then quotes were inaccurate, missing pieces. So we gave up and just went directly to the shop when we arrived at Allegro. The office there was completely unorganized, the woman working the desk seemed laser focused on getting you to spend more money. We got all our dives scheduled, equipment paid for and we were ready to go. Report time is 7:45am for the morning dive, when we arrived NO ONE was there. It was still all closed. When they did arrive, the man running the equipment window was less than helpful. You could tell he hated his job & didn't care that the equipment he was handing us was stuff that would keep us alive under water. We even mentioned that to him & he just shrugged & scowled. The BCDs are full of holes, wear spots and sticky bladders that didn't inflate. After our first dive, my dad had many issues with his weights, turns out the BCD weight pockets had holes in them & was dropping weights out on the dive (which they tried to charge us for). Every one of the 4 regulators we had needed maintenance, the tanks were missing o-rings. We had to swap out multiple regulators on our trip, and soon realized that it was standard that all of them leaked, and stuck.
I completely understand 'mexico time' but waiting around at a disorganized shop is lower on my tolerance level. The boats were also shared with Occidental next door, so every trip out we stopped & waited there for those groups to get their stuff together - one time we waited 35 minutes at their dock. The afternoon report time is 12:45 and waiting then takes even longer. The night dive we waited 30 min on shore, then 35 min at Occidental, and then on the boat waiting for the sun to go down - they could have just had us all report later, based on sunset time.
My partner & I did our first ever night dive with Leo - he did a great pre-dive briefing, and promised we would stay very close, as I was terrified. The minute we dropped down, he was gone way ahead of us & was too busy flirting with his girlfriend on the dive then paying attention to my anxiety signals. I panicked & signaled to him that I was not okay, asking to hold his hand or be close to him, which he did for a moment, but then went back to his girlfriend - she even stole his fins OFF of his feet & swam away while I was in distress. Completely unacceptable. On the surface we spent 15 min floating trying to signal our boat, in the dark, three other boats came by & radio'd ours until it finally came - not the ending I wanted to a stressful anxiety filled dive. Leo paid no attention to me at the surface & didn't even ask if I was okay after being in distress, he only cared about his girlfriend.
We did a 2 tank with Carles, He insisted that we were all overweighted, and changed our weights even though we are experienced divers that know our weights. The first dive was great, he let us do our own thing, mostly because he underweighted another diver who spent the majority of the dive at the surface holding our SMB, which meant no swim throughs for us. Our 2nd dive with Carles, he didn't do a briefing with our dive plan, and when I asked at the surface before descent, he just said "same as last time", I would have insisted & gotten out of the water, but the boat had left.
There was one diver we were buddied with that was incredibly dangerous. I won't get into that long story but - He should not have been allowed to dive with Pro Dive after the behavior he exhibited on his first dive. He was spoken to between dives, and on another dive my parents indicated that they would not dive with him too. Pro Dive should have stepped in & done something about this dangerous diver.
Nearing the end of our diving week, my dad got gout in his foot & decided it was safer not to dive one morning, another in our party was also hungover & decided it was safer to postpone to tomorrow. The woman at the shop INSISTED on doctors notes to reschedule & refused to put them on the schedule for the next day even though there was many slots open. We argued about it & eventually she rescheduled them - not without attitude.
TLDR: Cozumel is amazing, don't dare rent equipment here, don't trust the guides, shop staff has super poor attitude & extremely disorganized. Not worth risking your life.
2 stars because Maggie - one of our guides was a ROCKSTAR. She was great with certifying my mom & awesome during our dives. She's a winner. AND Cozumel Diving is amazing. read more