diving on the Paradise ?

We will be on the Carnival Paradise next week (April 30th). Am looking into maybe using scuba tours off ship. Have done EdenRock many times. Does Carnival still use Don Foster? Please share experiences of late. In Cozumel, Carnival has been using SandDollarSports. I agree this shop is good for cruise ships. 1000+ logged dives. Maybe others dives on the ship this week?

I visited Cozumel and Grand Cayman on the Carnival Breeze in July 2015. I booked a dive on the North wall with Cayman Marine lab, and had a great experience. The boat only carried about 8 passengers, was clearly geared towards self-sufficient divers and was about a 10 minute cab ride from the pier. If You have over a 1,000 dives, you're going to enjoy this dive a lot more than the cattle boat to burger king reef. In Cozumel, I used Aldora divers. They dive steel 120 tanks, and break up the groups by experience level. Again, you're going to get a much longer run time (at least an hour and 15 minutes) and a lot less crowded dive by using a non-cruise line charter. Again a quick five minute cab ride from the pier.

With both operators, I showed up by myself and didn't get any grief about not having a buddy (both dives were led by divemasters, so they didn't assign an "insta-buddy"). Make sure to advise them as to your diving experience, and expectations so that you get the dives you are looking for.

On previous trips, I have used the cruise line's shore excursion. These dives are geared towards the lowest common denominator- (namely a diver with fewer than 10 dives who hasn't dove in a year or more). You are virtually guaranteed to dive an over-stressed reef at 40-60 ft, with a pack of flailing divers grabbing the reef and kicking up silt in your face.

Set-up with both of the operators mentioned above was easy. Each has contact information that can be readily obtained from a google search. I think Aldora actually has a US phone number to call. Obviously, contact them ASAP to make sure you're all set up before you leave.

One big key is to understand the difference between ship time and local time. Carnival ships generally stay on the time of the port of departure, and do not change their clocks to adjust for local time. In my case, the port time was an hour behind local time in both locations (this is important when giving information to the operator for set-up). For example, the itinerary listed our arrival as 9:00 a.m, which was 8:00 a.m. local time. Therefore, I was easily able to make a 9:00 am dive, as I had an hour to get from the dock to the marina.

Depending upon how much time you have for your dive in Grand Cayman, I would strongly recommend diving the north wall. There are a number of dive operators of various sizes that provide diving charters to the North Wall. I am a professional underwater photographer and I dive on these sites often and they are truly some of the best dives in the world. From the deep blue of looking away from the wall and down into the trench, to the variety of pelagic species, to the marvelous and beautiful soft corals. The reefs surrounding Grand Cayman can equal any in Australia, the Mediterranean or the islands of the Pacific. I have completed reviews of many of the dive sites on the west side and north side of Grand Cayman on my website. Feel free to look through them here Grand Cayman Dive Site Reviews.

The pool is open......

Did a very thourough review of Don Foster's on my dive trip review last month. ..wish I had it to post for you but it was removed.

It is still intact at the place where you can actually review and advise on trips. But long story short... I would not recommend Don Foster's for a dive excursion from a Carnival cruise.

Dive Mule, Booked off the ship because of tender & time restraints. Was told by excursion person, diving would be with Don Foster. Not true. Made it back with 20 minutes to spare. We dove with Cayman Diving. They picked us up, long ride to boat dock. Boat is only set up for 6 divers. There were 2 other experienced divers, which was nice. Dove Mitch Miller reef & the USS Kittiwake. Manny Tellez DM, gave a through dive briefing, deck by deck on how we were going to dive the wreck. No discount for own equipment. People that may be doing this wreck should read up on history. Very interesting, & well worth money spent. The ship also used SandDollar Sports in Cozumel. We have dove with them for more than 15 years. Big boat this time.

Dive Mule, Booked off the ship because of tender & time restraints. Was told by excursion person, diving would be with Don Foster. Not true. Made it back with 20 minutes to spare. We dove with Cayman Diving. .

So your dive was booked thru Carnival? And they did not use Don Foster's?

That would be a new development. Maybe they took some of the complaints to heart about the short dive times and such.

Glad to hear your dives went so well. May have to try Cayman Diving next time.