Southern Caribbean Dive Recommendations

We're on the Summit Thanksgiving week and want to arrange dives. The ship excursions only have dives in two of the five ports. We'd like recommendations for all five.

They are:

Tortola

Martinque

Dominica

St Kitts

St Thomas

Appreciate any advice or feedback.

Thanks in advance.

I strongly recommend Dive St. Kitts (http://www.divestkitts). Great service on our recent stop there.

In Dominica, ALDive. Samantha and Billy there will show you great diving. (http://www.aldive.com)

Both Dive St. Kitts and ALDive get a perfect score in my book for super operators.

On St. Thomas, were were quite happy with Blue Island Divers (http://www.blueislanddivers.com).

Harris

Denver, CO

Thanks for the feedback. Have added both to the list.

I second all that omeinv said. We also will be cruising that ship the two weeks after you, but can't find anyone in Martinique. Tortola we plan on using BVI Scuba Co, who come highly recommended from some friends of ours. Another great option in St. Kitts is ProDivers -- Auston is awesome! He ended up feeding two reef sharks lionfish they'd speared. Very cool. Love Billy @ Aldive and Blue Island is excellent as well.

I'm going to recommend a different set of folks - we've been diving with them for many years. We always have a blast, and we consider them our island families. If you tell them Wendy from Florida sent you, they'll let you come dive with them anyway. ;)

St. Kitts - We go out with Kenneth, Gail, Vajai and the crew at Kenneth's Dive Center. They're docked on the same pier as the cruise ship. Dive time is 8:30am. Walk off the ship, turn left at 'Smokes and Booze', go to the water, and their boats are to the left. http://www.kennethdivecenter.com

Dominica - We go out with Karen's crew at Nature Island Dive (11 years!). Karen or one of the gang will pick you up across the street from the dock at 8:30am. http://www.natureislanddive.com

...and we'll be going out with both Kenneth and Karen for our 11th year next month! :D

St Thomas - We prefer going out with Peter at Coki beach, right next to Coral World (6 years). The beach dive is quite nice, and the boat dives are AWESOME! Just catch a cab over. http://www.cokidive.com

We've done Blue Island a couple of times, and they're good too. They tend to do offshore and wreck diving, and I'm not a fan of rough water (I'm old and fat with torn-up knees). It's quite a long walk if you're docked at Crown Bay.

Have a great time, wherever you decide to dive!

Wendy

In St Thomas I have used both Coki Beach and Admirality Dive Center. While I was happy with both, I preferred Admirality. I am sure you will be happy with either but my first choice with be Admirality.

http://www.cokidive.com/

http://www.admiraltydive.com/

Unfortunately, while I cannot suggest who to dive with in Dominica, I could tell you who I would not dive with. My experience with Nature Island Dive Center was not good. While the dives themselves were fabulous, they nearly caused us to miss our ship departure.

Through correspondence we were assured plenty of time, but, another group diving (not through a ship) were VERY good with air and their dives lasted forever. Combine that with an excessive break between dives followed by the woman (Karen?) who was taking us back to the ship chatting with people and dragging her feet, we got back to the ship with barely 30 minutes to spare. Way to close for me.

Another couple on from our ship was also diving. As the time got closer and we kept asking her to get us back, the other couple, in a panic, got pretty nasty with her and she cut her socializing and took us back. We boarded 30 minutes before departure. We were 1 flat tire or accident away from missing the ship and I will never dive with them again.

Thanks for the great recommendations from everybody.

We definitely don't want to risk missing the ship

Loves Dogs, did you do the morning dive with them? I will there next month for a day and am thinking if a I have a morning two tank dive I will have plenty of time to make it back to the ship. What time did your ship depart?

Loves Dogs, did you do the morning dive with them? I will there next month for a day and am thinking if a I have a morning two tank dive I will have plenty of time to make it back to the ship. What time did your ship depart?

Yes it was a morning dive. I am sorry but I cannot remember what time our ship departed as this happened 5 or so years ago. One thing I can assure you, as paranoid as I am about missing the ship you can bet that I thought there would be plenty of time for these dives.

We could not believe how long this other couple stayed under. And the break in between, we actually went back to the dock and stayed for an extended period. We were watching the clock and reminding them that 4 of us had to get back to the ship in time. After the 2nd dive, the lady taking us back was talking and laughing with others and ignoring our concerns.

I've read great reviews about Nature Island so could be my experience was simply an isolated incident. Maybe everything just 'didn't' fall into place that day. I don't know. What I do know is they got us back to the ship way too close for my comfort. And her nonchalant attitude as we were in a panic was not appreciated. Because of this single incident, I now carry my passport into each port.

We used St. Thomas Diving Club, they were great with my teen divers. Non-divers enjoyed the beach at the resort where they are located. Nice morning for everyone.

I ended up diving in Dominica with Nature Island and it was the best dive of my trip. I was picked up at the pier right on time, 8:30. I was the only one from the ship diving with them. I met up with a very nice Canadian couple that was staying on the island so there was three divers, a dive master and the captain on the boat. By far this was the best dive of the trip; Grand Cayman, Aruba, Bonaire and Grenada. After the dive we walked across the street to a local bar for a couple drinks, the owner proudly displayed a Dallas Cowboys banner in his bar. I was then driven back to the pier with 3 hours to spare. The diving was awesome and I was treated well too. I will return in a heartbeat.

Thanks for all the replies. Any other recommendations are appreciated.

I can't say enough good about Auston and Pro Divers on St. Kitts. 2 years ago, I stayed on St. Kitts and Nevis and dove with Auston for 2 days. Everyone we interacted with was awesome, from the driver that picked us up "Elvis" to his wife Margot taking care of us in the shop. He has been diving on St. Kitts for a lot of years and aims to please the guests, diving shipwrecks or whatever you want to see. On the same trip, I lost 2 days of diving because of another dive shop making promises and then cancelling and saying I misunderstood. As a fellow diver, you probably double and triple check everything when traveling that far and I'm confident in saying I didn't misunderstand that this other dive shop "might" go out, but learned later from a local hotel that if he doesn't have enough he'll keep putting them off to get more people to go when he knows you are staying local. Anyway, I'm confident you won't go wrong with Pro Divers at St. Kitts I wanted this next cruise to go to St. Kitts just to dive with them again, but the calendar and itinerary just didn't work out. Good Luck!!! I'm hoping to dive Grand Turk or Curacao next.

RBLK thanks for the post we are on the Summit this itinerary in February we are going to dive Dominica and St. Kitts. Let me echo thanks to all that posted replies. Please come back and report after your cruise.

Al

I'll second the recommendation for Admiralty Dive on St Thomas. Very friendly folks, good gear and nice dives. They're on the other side of the harbor from the cruise ship docks, but will pick you up at your ship and get you back on time.