What a blast.

We took everybody and their brother down to the island for a week's  stay.

We thought we were booking our trip with the Occidental Allegro.  We now know its called the First Choice Holiday Village Whte Sands  (The most obnoxious pop comes up that won't let you look at the details...  Typical).  I see also it goes by Occidental Playacar. 

The resort is suffering through an indentiy crisis.

Its changed a lot since we were there two years ago. The primary focus is now on families with small children, and particularly those from the UK. Nothing wrong with that, except that I'm no longer the target audience.

I have three main beefs:

1) The main pool was under construction. Didn't know that in advance and having known this would have impacted our choice.  Normally, The divers will come back from the afternoon dives to find our women in the pool, and we'd drink from the swim up bar until it was time to have dinner.  Very relaxing way to watch the sun set.  We were relegated to the kids pool, which had no swim up bar.  We managed to make it work, but it sure would have been nice for the main pool to be open.

2) They built a new water park for the kids. That doesn't sound bad on the surface, but what was bad about it is that there is a loud whistle that blow about ever 15 minutes that can be heard almost to Playa Del Carmen! No need for that whistle to be that loud. And if your on the structure, its damn loud. Possibly loud enough to damage childrens ears.

3) There are different classes of service.  In year's past we saw that there was a "fractional ownership" version of the villas.  That was fine, because it wasn't all that prominent.  But now there is also a roped off section, that is more exclusive.  More and more of the resort is being chewed up by this, and I thought it was a bit tacky to have the different classes of service.

The other thing that was odd is that we originally planned on going to the Occidental Grand (a sister resort, walking distance south of the Allegro). We strayed away from the Grand because of reports of people getting sick (presumably from the food). Its so hard to understand the root cause of this, because you don't know if they stayed on the resort or went out... Its kind or hear-say. But we thought we'd play it safe and go to the Allegro (Where we'd been many times with no problems).

Well we had problems this time. Not sure what caused it, but one by one, most of the ladies in our group got sick. The guys seemed to be OK. So I suspect it was something they were eating that the guys weren't. Possibly raw vegetable or fruit? I had a slice of watermelon on a snorkel trip, without incident?!?

Various members of our groups had problems with their rooms.  Sherri and I had a problem a hair dryer (more precisely, Sherri did, not me), which we took to the front desk and had replaced.  But Sandra and Katie had problems with plumbing, and Kelsey and Alex had a problem with lights.  Mom and Dad and Mike and Sharon had TV remote problems.

One of the we liked in the past about the resort is that they have a nice mexican dinner.  You have to make reservations.  So I thought it would be nice if we all went.  My conversation with "Miguel" at the front desk did not go well.  First he didn't want to book it, and instead wanted someone from each room to come and book.  When I was able to provide room #'s of everyone, he begrudgingly agreed to book the nite.  But then we couldn't sit together.  They would charge extra for a large party?!?  Even though they don't charge extra if the SAME number of people are sitting at seperate tables.  Miguel must have gotten tired of arguing with me, because he booked three table for us.  It all worked out, except we didn't get to sit together.  The food was good, but the net effect was that as one of the trip organizers (and decision makers on where we go...) I was annoyed with my choice a resorts, rather than glad I chose them.

That said, there were many things that were just as expected.  The beach, the buffet, breakfast and lunch...  The room's bed.  All was the same as in the past.

The biggest reason (for me at least) to return to the Allegro/Holiday Village/whatever is the dive shop.  Dive Palancar has over the last 8 to 10 years I've been going here, been EXCELLENT!  Great boats, short trips to the reef, each dive they negociate with the divers as to which reef to go (instead of going to a set pattern, as some others do).  They offer training (onsite, which my nephew Jack did and became certified!).  They have gear to rent, and offer air as well as nitrox.  Since Ed and I breath at different rates, they offer a 100cf tank, which Ed dives with an 80cf.  That keeps me from finishing the dive early.  They swap your gear from tank to tank between dives, and are generally very helpful.  And I've seen the same dive masters year after year.  They KNOW the reefs in the area and can point out the most interesting stuff.  Dive master's we dealt with were Pingo, Ismail, William, Lobo and ...  I forget.  They were all skilled and ready to help even the most novice or infrequent divers (which happened once or twice with people who had not dove recently...  Ask Mike if he recalls the inflate vs deflate button on his BC!).

The diving was good. I did 12 dives in 5 days. The reef has made a rebound from Hurricane Wilma in 2005, so that's good. I wouldn't say its 100%, but its going in the right direction. We saw lots of turtles (here, here and here), nurse sharks, Angels (Grey,  French, Queen and Rock Beauty) , big parrot fish, big groupers, and so on. The regular fair. We also saw more eels, splendid toadfish, flounder, Sting Rays, Crabs, Arrow Crabs, Spiney Lobsters, and barred black drum (a tiny fish I'd seen on the fish charts but have never seen in any other visit to Cozumel).   Ran into some people we've dove with in years past (Dan from New Orleans and Arthur from Spring...  I need their email's if anyone has them.). That was fun, and met several new dive buddies (Bubba and Natalie).

The timing was good for seeing turtles.  They were laying eggs on the east side of the island.  You can see tracks in the sand where the females crawl out of the water and lay eggs.  In a couple weeks, the beach should be alive with little tortugas making a mad dash for the water!  There was even a nest AT our resort near the dive shop!

Would I go back to Allegro? Maybe, but the Grand is looking more likely.  Why?  Because is looked more geared toward my preferences, and less towards families with small kids.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not against kids...  Its just that I hated the whistle ever 15 minutes, and liked the calm tranquillity of the Grand.

I also did three geocache's while on the south end of the island.  Launched Scuba Steve a tracking bug to visit as many dive sites as possible. Should be fun watching where he goes.

We took a trip to Playa Del Carmen one evening, and had a nice dinner at a resuraunt called La PalapaHemingway. Mom and I had the fresh grilled snapper, which was served head-on.  That bother'ed Sherri quite a bit.  Taste the same to me!  They served a fresh guacamole prepared at the table that was a hit with everyone.  All in all I thought it was a good dinner!  We sat upstair, which was open to see the street below.  So we watched the sun go down and lights come on beneath us. 

And finally we chartered a boat (the ProDive III) from Dive Palancar and took the entire group on a snorkel trip. All 13 of us on a charter boat, hopped into the water at three different spots (Columbia Shallow, Hollywood and Palancar shallow). We saw turtles, starfish, eels, and any number of fish.

That's my thoughts...  What did you guys think?