Dressel Divers Bayahibe

We went on two snorkeling expedition: Catalina island and Saona island. The snorkeling guide, Enrique, is a pro free diver and can show you all the best spots where to find fish and corals. He's the best =)
The catalina expedition is with the scuba Divers but this by no means detract from the experience.
If you only can do one, I would advise Saona island. Truly amazing.
There are cheaper option for such expeditions, but you won't be disappointed with the quality of the service here: top notch.
The boat used is quite bit so will get less dizzy.

Safe, clean, well run, well equipped fun dive shop.
We have stayed in beautiful Royal Catalonia La Romana resort located right next to dive shop, 3 minutes walk down the beach.
Pros:
-All dive sites are 5-15min boat ride from dive shop
-They have their own tri-hull boat for diving. Very stable platform to dive from
- Reefs, I’ve seen 6 of them there are more , are beautiful clean and very healthy. They are all located in front of dive shop. Much, much better reefs than dive sites in Punta Cana that I have explored back in May
-St George shipwreck is nice and deep 30+ meters.
- They offer snorkelling tours as well. We went to Saona and Catalina island all day excursions with Dessel. It was fun, educational and safe. Food was good. For snorkelling excursions Dressel Dive shop is using different boat that they are using for diving. They have double hull large catamaran with max capacity up to 65 people. Our tour group was 30-35 people. For us boat was very roomy and we were not packed like sardines. They pick you up right from the beach take you there, they provide food for you and bring you back 6-8 hours later. It costs $5-$10 more per person than same tour offered at the front desk of the resort but it is worth it, at least for us. No annoying bus rides with hurry up and wait.
Cons:
-Large catamaran boat is nice! It has washroom as well that is in the rough shape and has NO TOALET SEAT….(common guys fix it!)
Special thanks to Rocky, Augustino, Mathi, Tom, Andreas and shop boat crew. You made my diving experience memorable safe and see you next year!
PS: “don’t forget to fix toilet on big catamaran! I’m planning to see Catalina island again!”

During a week stay in Bayahibe we did multiple dives and two excursions with Dressel Divers. I found the whole outfit very well run and all the staff were superb. In particular Lara, on the front desk, was excellent, always having time for customers even when super busy. All the dive guides we dived with; Alfonso, Matilde, Tom, Andres and Agustin were all great too. Giving good dive briefings and displaying confidence and experience. I can also highly recommend an excursion to Saona, it was a beautiful day out.

Amazing group of people! Different dives available everyday with options of excursions to Saona, Catalina, and Divers Day. Would definitely recommend going on the excursions as a diver or a snorkeler. Catalina excursion included a wall dive, which was a nice and welcome difference from the local sites. Divers Day with Peter and Dominika was fantastic, and featured unadulterated dive sites for divers only (no snorkelers). St. George is a very cool, deeper (120ft) wreck, also quite different than the local sites. Favorite local sites include St. George and El Deseo.
Most dive sites were less than 50ft and limited dive time to 45minutes. Tanks were AL80s, but they have larger volume tanks by request if you know your air consumption is higher. Nitrox was unfortunately unavailable because the compressor was broken.
Personal dive equipment and wetsuits can be stored at the dive center, which was really nice not having to bring it back to our rooms everyday. The boat docks right at Iberostar resort, a very short walk from the dive center.
The DMs are a great team, appreciated Eileen and Nathalie pointing out things during the dive. Eileen particularly was great at communicating during dives. Augustin, Pino and Lorena were great as well.

We went to Isla Catalina with Dressel divers and we enjoyed it so much we decided to also book the trip to Isla Saona (my favorite). All the guys have been nice and prepared from the start: from "front desk" to the guys who were with us snorkeling and diving. I could tell that everyone in the boat was having a good time. The excursions are well planned, you also have open bar and the food for lunches was very good. Special thanks to Enrique, who snorkeled with us and showed us amazing spots.

Thank you to this special staff !
Such a great team ! Very careful, helpful and amazing teachers !
I really enjoyed diving with such nice people especially Milan !
Diving over there was interesting!
I’d do it again and again

What an amazing experience I had diving with the group at Dressel Divers! Every guide was knowledgeable, professional, and kind. (I dove with Carlo, Milan, Chloe, and Nico.) The dive sites they took us to were all very beautiful, and I would love to go back and dive these sites again. By the end of the week I was sad to leave, but excited and charged up from the time I had.

Absolut kind and nice people. We saw so many cool fishes during our snorkling tour. The saona Island is an absolut Must have ! Its one of the Most beautiful beaches i‘ve ever seen.
Next Time I would like To do one of the Diving Tours ! Thank you Guys for these amazing experience.

Best scuba diving expedition we have ever been on.
Would recommend to everybody. They listened to our demands and took the time to give us the experience we wanted.

Flavio and Juan were great instructors. They were attentive, put no pressure, and guided us well. The team was friendly. I really enjoyed the scuba diving tour. Highly recommend it, even for beginners!

Great time diving with the staff in Bayahibe.

Tom, Augustino, Andres, Pancho, Lara and Rocky and the rest of the crew are all excellent people to deal and dive with!

Thank you for a great experience!

My wife and I spent 10 days of diving at Dressel Divers.
It was amazing !! The reef is very healthy and we saw great marine life. Among other, we will keep a good memory of the eagle rays and see horses. The St George and the Atlantic Princess are great wrecks. I recommend diving at Catalina and Saona. If you look for a nice beach, Saona is a true heaven on earth.
Thanks to Petr, for his energy and all the good time.
Thanks to Hans, for all his advises. You're really a good instructor who love sharing his knowledge.

I had a great day out to Catalina Island with Milan, Andre, Barbara (who was super helpful with the snorkeling), and their captain. I felt safe at all times and they were very hospitable, offering drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and responding to all questions. The little detour up the Chavon River is a nice feature of the trip. I'm glad my partner and I chose Dressel for our trip.

Had a great day of diving with Chloe. Took her time, swam at a good pace, pointed out several things I missed. Enjoyable experience. Equipment was good.

Amazing team of people. Very friendly and willing to help with anything (from finding a taxi to finding octopus!)

100% recommend, do as many of the sites as you can, they are all different

My wife and I did both the trip to Saona Island and a dive trip (first time) with "Dressel Divers Bayahibe" and are thrilled. A huge thank you to our dive instructor MILAN, who was very patient with us and took a lot of time for us. Organization and hygiene measures on the highest level, not too many people on the boat.

Greetings from Novi Sad ;)
Best recommendations
Nina & Mario

Great day snorkelling to Catalina. Enrique is a great free diver. Follow him and you'll see lots.

I was staying at the Iberostar (excellent hotel) but using a cheaper local dive shop in town called Coral Diving. It was chronic. The tiny boat with no space or storage, a captain who couldn't find the dive sites and fell asleep, damaged equipment, etc. I cancelled my time with them and switched to Dressel. More expensive, yes, but you get what you pay for. If what you pay for is life support equipment you don't skimp! Dressel had tons of new gear, great staff, well equipped and spacious catamarans, skilled marinaros, the works. I haven't used anyone else since. Recommended.

Great crew, staff, and dm's

My wife, Chris and I along with our son, Mike and his wife, Tina, spent a very, very nice week (12 - 19 April 2015) at the Iberostar Hacienda Dominicus. 3 of the 4 of us dive so the Dressel dive shop on the property was convenient and well equiped. We had planned on a few of dives right from the get-go. The girls (Selena and Marie) at the desk were knowledgeable, professional and friendly. The dive masters (Joana and Nick) were also very professional and were most definitely focused on 'safety first'. This was particularly helpful for yours truly as shortly into my first dive, my BC dump valve failed open and I was temporarily 'glued' to the sea floor. Joana was able to quickly evaluate the situation: I had lots of air and was in control of my situation - other than the ability to surface by myself without dropping my weights. After a few minutes of hand gesturing between us, we agreed to 'buddy up' for buoyancy control for the remainder of the 50 minute dive in the 35' of water. It was quite an experience for me. We completed that dive including the 3 minute safety stop at 15' thanks to Joana's dive management skills. Aside from the BC failure, the seahorse appearance just before the dump valve failure was the highlight for me. (The other dive master was able to keep the other 4 divers in check for the remainder of the dive so it was a good effort by the Dressel team.)

The next day, Nick took us to the St. George wreck. This was a deep dive - for me, 95' was the maximum depth. The ship was the largest wreck I had dived. Needless to say, I was using one of the dive shop's BCs. As with the previous dive, this one started with a very thorough pre-dive briefing. Although there were no large fish at the site while we were there, there were plenty of bat fish in the area and the ship itself was in excellent condition to view....for a wreck. Our focus was primarily around the bridge area. The dive was well planned and we followed the plan pretty much as discussed.

Our last dive - again with Joana- was above the Coral Garden: a 35-40' deep reef. The sun was high so the colour was quite good at that depth. Highlights included cow fish, porcupine fish and a usually shy mature spotted drum along with some pretty nice coral.

I had used Dressel for a previous vacation in Mexico so I was expecting high quality people as well as high quality equipment as needed while in the DR. I was very pleased again this time. I will be back.

Jim Hilbig
Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada