Villas de Rosa / Aquatech
In 1983, Tony and Nancy de Rosa traveled to Akumal, learned to dive and a year later bought the property that was to become Villas de Rosa. It is now managed by their son Tony while Dad does sales out of Utah. The beach bar/restaurant is operated by the daughter Alaina with help (at least while we were there) from her mother.
There is no transfer service, so the best way to get to the resort is probably by cab. Mexico has fixed rates for cabs, but I think we found a cabbie who took advantage of us.
After turning from the highway, the approach is on an unpaved road for about ½ mile and doesn’t look like much at first glimpse, but looking at it from the beach was much more impressive. The “hotel rooms” which rent for about $80/night are quite pleasant and more than adequate. They have a comfortable king sized bed (converted from two twins), a small refrigerator, a flat screen TV, and free WiFi. They also have a small balcony facing the pool which makes a nice spot to dry wetsuits and towels. The staff is very friendly as you might expect in a family run resort. We were told that we could turn in our towels for fresh ones any time we wished, but this seemed to be subject to availability.
For those who want a luxury vacation, perhaps with a few friends, a suite would be the way to go. There is a “great room” with balcony that overlooks the beach and ocean. (Ground floor rooms have direct beach access.) The spacious kitchen also has that view. I believe you can opt for either two or three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. (Bedrooms 2 and 3 access the common area either by going outside and entering the front door, or by going through bedroom 2 and 1.)
Though it is possible to walk out to the highway to get the “Collectivo” for transportation into town, or Tony would be happy to call a cab, we chose to stay on the property for all of our meals. By the pool is a menu in both Spanish and English and a buzzer. Push the button and within minutes there will be someone to take your order. These people don’t always speak English, but for those who do not speak Spanish it is easy enough to point to what you want. I thought the food was wonderful, though my gringo husband thought some of it was a bit spicy – but he did like their quesadillas and their hamburgers. The prices were quite reasonable. One bit of advice that we learned too late, anything that goes on the credit card gets taxed at 19%, so it is best to tip the waiters in cash.
Meals can also be ordered at the beach bar, though we never did.
For an additional $80 each, Alaina will give a private cultural tour. She knows a lot about the ancient Mayans and about some of the vegetation of the area. The trip include some alone time in a Cenote and a tour of a mostly dry cave. The morning is capped by a Mayan meal (delicious) at the beach bar.
Aquatech Dive Center
Though it might have different ownership, for practical purposes it is an integral part of the resort and I must confess to conflicted emotions concerning this operation. Having purchased a “package” that included 4 cenote dives and 4 nights at the hotel, we had ASSUMED that our diving would begin the morning after our arrival, but they didn’t have a guide available to take us. This meant that we had a free morning to walk the beach and generally twiddle our thumbs.
At 1 o’clock JeanLuc, our dive guide (can’t remember his real name) met us in a van that had obviously seen better days. The ride to Dos Ojos was about 20 minutes mostly on the highway but also on hard packed dirt approaching the cenote. JeanLuc carried my tank down as we went for a pre-dive look. On our first dive he was very attentive, which was good since I had too much weight (which he took from me) and I got down to 2000lbs of air early. (This was the turnaround point.) Our second dive was at the same cenote but on a different path. I loved looking at the stalactites and stalagmites and especially at the light streaking through the water when we came upon an opening. There was also a bat cave.
As JeanLuc turned the van around, my husband noted that the right front wheel looked like it was about to fall off. He called the shop and we waited for another van to pick us up – one that had a non-operational side door. Later, we were told that our first van had been in for service on the front wheel and that the mechanics had not tightened the bolts properly… that could be true…
There were no guides available for a dive for the next day so we scheduled our trip to Occidental Vacation Club and Xcaret on Monday and Alaina Tuesday morning with our last two dives scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
We got a late start Tuesday afternoon, and JeanLuc had with him a student doing her final “Open Water” certification dive, but as he had assured us, she was a very good diver. But, our two dives that afternoon became one and the location was changed from Chac Moal which I had requested, to Taj Mahal which turned out to be a very lovely cenote. We were fascinated by the many locations where fresh water transitioned to salt through a “halocline”.
Wednesday morning we had planned to be making the 4 hour drive to Chichen Itza, but we had one more dive to do. It was after 10AM when a cab picked us up with JeanLuc and two other divers to go to Gran Cenote. My husband and I were 4 and 5 in the line-up. It was good that we were never very far from open air in this cenote as we lost sight of the others several times. Shooting video is not very conducive to “follow the leader”.
The final detraction from our stay at Villas deRosa, was when we returned and asked Tony to make arrangements for a rental car for us. He had told us repeatedly that it would take only half an hour, but when he finally called at 1:30, he was told that it would be 5:30 before they could get a car to us.
The final verdict
Villas deRosa has the potential of being a great resort, but they need to do a better job of communication and managing the expectations of their guests.
Aquatech Dive Center has a very good reputation and I believe that cave certification and cave diving are their primary focus. We only had experience with the one guide who, though nice, seemed a little bored with the cavern diving we were doing. They do need to do a better job at advance planning/scheduling and they should probably do a little better job of van maintenance. We did not rent any gear so I can only tell you that it is available for rent.
My husband who loves macro videography, says that he is glad that he has done some cenote diving, but is not anxious to do it again. I loved it and as long as there are new trails to explore, I’d like to do it… but then there are also a lot of other places to go…
