Your Favorite Itinerary for Diving? Please help me plan!

My extended family likes to cruise because it offers something for everyone and my husband and I love to dive. I have a fair amount of influence when we choose the sailings, so I've come to you asking for help.

What is your favorite cruise itinerary for diving? We generally cruise Royal Caribbean, Norweigian, and Carnival due to the price, but if we can get a deal on another line, we'd consider it

We are doing Roatan/Belize/Coz/Costa Maya this year so it will have to be something different next year.

Right now I am looking at Royal Caribbean ships out of San Juan with these itineraries:

San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Willemstad, Curacao; Oranjestad, Aruba

OR

San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Castries, St. Lucia; Pointe A Pitre, Guadaloupe; St. John's, Antigua; St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

any thoughts?

and I'd love any alternate suggestions you have!

I would highly recommend diving in Roatan. The visibility is great, the water is warm and the reef life is beautiful. Check out West End Divers (www.westenddivers.info). They will pick you up at the dock, take you on a couple of dives and then take you back to the ship.....its really too easy to miss out on. Enjoy!

are two favorites!

Curacao - The Dive Bus http://www.the-dive-bus.com

St. Kitts - Kenneth's Dive Center http://www.kennethdivecenter.com

So it's pretty obvious which one I would pick. ;)

Have a great time!

Wendy

Being that diving is usually our main reason to take a cruise we would do the Roatan / Belize / Cozumel / Costa Maya itinerary over and over again as our webshots page will attest. However to change things up we did an 11 night out of San Juan a few years ago with both diving and land tours.

We dove in Aruba / Curacao / Antigua / and a couple of other ports of the 9 stops on that cruise. Diving is great to both of us anywhere but none of the ports impressed us enough to return based on the diving compared to diving in the Carribbean. In their defense we did several shore dives to cut down on time spent on the dives so we could also enjoy the above water scenery of the islands. A good shore dive will give me a good ideal of what to expect from the area - water quality / coral / critters - ect ect . . .

Top side was well worth a return visit to any of the places you listed above and will offer plenty for the non diving members of your group. We stayed topside at both St Lucia and St Kitts.

I understand the diving is really good at St Lucia near the Pitons and will dive there next time we get to visit the island.

You can check out our webshots albums to see pictures of what we saw and liked on the islands you are planning to visit here http://community.webshots.com/user/diverearl?start=42

Unfortunately, the rest of the family wouldn't be on board for a repeat of the Western itinerary 2 years in a row. They want something different for sure. Now I'm also looking at the Celebrity Summit that visits these ports...

San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Croix, U.S.V.I.; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Roseau, Dominica; St. George's, Grenada; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Again, any advice would be much appreciated!

Rather than just rehash the list of the San Juan itineraries, here is a list of my favorite (and not as favorite) dive locations in the Caribbean so you can weight your itineraries.

- Cozumel - One of the best locations and tends to make the rest of the Caribbean look boring.

- Jamaica (Ocho Rios & Montego Bay) - Amazing coral and sponges. Very few fish due to over fishing.

- Roatan - One of the best, not as overly dived as Cozumel so it looks more pristine.

- Grand Cayman - An amazing variety of sites. My favorite is the wreck of the Oro Verde. I have been diving it for almost 15 years and watched it go from a ship on the bottom to a pile of debris on the bottom.

- St. Thomas - It really depends on where they take you. If you go to the wrecks it is very good. If the reefs (more likely as it it a little more sheltered) somewhat boring.

- St. Maarten - Beautiful reefs, but a long way between them, you end up swimming a lot.

- Curacao - It was rough the day we were there, so they had to go to sheltered sites which were not as much fun.

- Grenada - Go shopping.

- Dominica - Only dove there once. One site was interesting the other was pretty boring.

- Aruba - So, so. Not much to see. I have heard that the ship tours go to a couple of "safe" sites and you can do better with some of the local dive shops.

- Puerto Rico - Very expensive and didn't see much. It was a nice warm up dive but nothing exciting.

- Cancun - long boat ride. Nice reefs. Go to Cozumel.

- Costa Maya. Only there once and they cancelled the dive trip. Never found out why. :(

Until all the security hoopla, my favorite dive sites were the piers. Lots of junk that people pitched overboard to look at. Chairs, tables, glasses, bottles, cameras (ruined after hitting the water), bicycles, dishes, just amazing stuff. Found an unopened bottle of real nice champagne one time. Piers are the only places I have ever seen sea horses.

That's all I can think of offhand.

The only knocks I have against sailing from San Juan is that:

(a) It is an added expense to get there,

(b) If you have to spend the night, the hotels and resorts are very expensive for what you get,

© The last week or so before they sail, the cruise companies offer the local residents rediculously low prices and then don't bump the people that paid near full price. The last time we left out of San Juan, we had outside cabins we paid about $600pp for. While standing in line for something, chatting with people, we found out that they had offered run of the ship cabins on the local radio stations for $200pp and the guy we were chatting with got a deluxe balcony cabin for that price. :mad:

Granted the above rant has nothing to do with diving, but it is why it will be a long time before I leave out of San Juan again.

ken

having been diving the Car' Islands since 1982 I can only find one truth in the previous posts

It really depends on where they take you.

Unfortunately, the rest of the family wouldn't be on board for a repeat of the Western itinerary 2 years in a row. They want something different for sure. Now I'm also looking at the Celebrity Summit that visits these ports...

 

San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Croix, U.S.V.I.; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Roseau, Dominica; St. George's, Grenada; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

 

Again, any advice would be much appreciated!

If you really want different go to South Pacific and enjoy warm water and great Vis. It was my first real cruise with Scuba just 2 mths after OWCert. Had other dives say they dove for over 10 yrs and approx 5 days a week and Rangiroa, Society Islands was the best. Did this trip in Jan 2011 - Holland out of San Diego (rt)

Now have 35+ dives with several in Carribbean and Coz with be the closest to the dive experience.

John

We are scheduled to go on a cruise in may...Cozumel, belize, grand cayman, Honduras. Our 16yod is newly OW PADI certified. She just did the Epcot dive during spring break. We are also looking for advice on where to dive at 2 of these ports. Capt BJ, my husband and I would love to get some advice from you personally as I have read several of your posts and you are obviously very knowledgeable about diving. Our email is r_dean@hughes.net if you could email us we would greatly appreciate. And any advice from others for a new young diver will be GREAT!

I just got back from diving Belize on Norwegian and it was a big letdown. The only diving had to be booked through the cruise ship, and it was $150. If you plan on skipping a couple of ports, I would skip Belize, after having to book through the ship.

I had a really good dive at Barefoot in Roatan, Honduras last year. They dive with 2 guides/divemasters on each dive. They had one that led the dive and one that followed the group. They led us on a couple of really great dives.

Cozumel is by far my favorite (first stingray and first shark encounter on a dive).

I've dove (dived?) St. Thomas twice with Blue Island Divers - good company and I would use them again, but both times I came by thinking it was just ok.

St. Kitts - ok as well.

I did the Belize dive through the ship because it is a tender port and saved time and was actually cheaper than independents. I was disappointed after all the hype.

My extended family likes to cruise because it offers something for everyone and my husband and I love to dive. I have a fair amount of influence when we choose the sailings, so I've come to you asking for help.

 

What is your favorite cruise itinerary for diving? We generally cruise Royal Caribbean, Norweigian, and Carnival due to the price, but if we can get a deal on another line, we'd consider it

 

We are doing Roatan/Belize/Coz/Costa Maya this year so it will have to be something different next year.

 

 

Right now I am looking at Royal Caribbean ships out of San Juan with these itineraries:

 

San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Willemstad, Curacao; Oranjestad, Aruba

 

OR

 

San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Castries, St. Lucia; Pointe A Pitre, Guadaloupe; St. John's, Antigua; St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

 

any thoughts?

 

and I'd love any alternate suggestions you have!

between the two - the 2nd itinerary, but I really don't like either of them for diving.

St. Lucia, St. Johns, BVI, Bonaire, St. Martin, Cozumel, these are the islands I would look into

We are scheduled to go on a cruise in may...Cozumel, belize, grand cayman, Honduras. Our 16yod is newly OW PADI certified. She just did the Epcot dive during spring break. We are also looking for advice on where to dive at 2 of these ports. Capt BJ, my husband and I would love to get some advice from you personally as I have read several of your posts and you are obviously very knowledgeable about diving. Our email is r_dean@hughes.net if you could email us we would greatly appreciate. And any advice from others for a new young diver will be GREAT!

it's got to be coz and GC