I just got back from Cozumel, where my wife and two friends of ours did a weekend of diving. We stayed at the Reef Club Isla de Cozumel, an all-inclusive resort on the south end of the island. We figured that since we were already way south, the hotel's dive operation would go to the good southern dive sites frequently. Boy, were we wrong. After 5 dives with "Sand Dollar Divers," who I now remember as "Bozo Divers," we switched to Aldora for our last 3 dives.

The difference was night & day. Aldora had us bring in our regs, which they converted to DIN fittings, then they drove us back to the hotel's dock in their boat, and waited while we grabbed the rest of our gear from our rooms. Their boats are unbelievably fast, as they use very small hulls (6 people is the absolute max), and equip them with twin 150-hp motors.

We did a night dive with Oracio at Cardona, which was great. Oracio found more cool stuff than any DM I've ever seen. But the real fun started the next day, when Oracio and the boat met us at our dock again, and took us to Palancar Caves, where we did a 1-hour plus dive, followed by a 1:15 dive at La Francesa.

Palancar Caves was, in a word, breathtaking. Swim-throughs, sand chutes, lots of coral, etc. Oracio even found a pipefish for us (my first). The surface interval was spent on the beach at Playa Sol. The La Francesa dive was incredible, as Oracio found not one but THREE pipehorses, something I had also never seen before.

To summarize, here were the pros and cons we saw in our experiences.

• Some dive outfits use larger boats which they don't want to drive very far (and take forever to drive far, anyway). Aldora uses lightning-fast boats, which they expect to drive to the south end every trip. Santa Rosa? Sure. Palancar? No problem. Punta Sur? Any time.
  
• Aldora's HP steel 120 tanks are a joy to dive. Even on our 1:15 dive, I ended up with 1500 psi left.
  
• Aldora hires great DMs, or at least the one we dove with was great. Sure, he was a little short on the briefing, but he was more interested in getting in the water and showing us things.
  
• Aldora is there for your convenience, not the other way around. We called them at 2pm on Saturday to inquire about a night dive for that night. Sand Dollar had already told us "maybe, maybe not." Aldora's answer was "sure, where do you want to dive?" What really triggered the call to Aldora was that Sand Dollar refused to promise a trip to Palancar for Sunday, and one of our group wanted nothing else out of the whole weekend. When we called Aldora, the answer was "Palancar? No problem."
  
• Sure, Aldora costs a little more. Their rates were $65 for a two-tank dive, while Sand Dollar wanted $50 for the same thing. But I think you get what you pay for, and Aldora returns the extra cost to you in the form of longer dives, higher-quality staff, and just a generally better experience.

All in all, I will probably never dive with another dive operator on Cozumel again. Yes, there are cheaper dive shops on Cozumel... but I don't think there are any cheaper which are as good. The extra $15 was well spent.