Question for divers

So excited!

We are booked for the 7 day Society Islands cruise on October 10. We love the water, hubby is a certified diver and we both enjoy snorkeling, so our plan is to stay in the water as much as possible. I have been devouring the information on these boards and am in awe of the wonderful reviews so far!

Even though booking shore excursions through the ship is not available yet, it looks like there are four certified dives available:

Scuba Toopua (Bora Bora)

Scuba Tapu (BB)

Scuba Shark Gallery (Moorea)

Scuba The Canyons (M)

Does anyone have any feedback on these dives?

Specifically:

Are they offered multiple times during the day or only once a day?

Is it possible to do both in one day?

Regarding snorkeling:

How is the lagoon cruise and snorkel in Huahine?

Is it worth doing the Coral Garden Drift Snorkel in Tahaa, or is the snorkeling adequate off the private motu?

What is the best snorkeling tour in BB? Moorea? Is there any good snorkeling off the BB motu?

Finally, any decent snorkeling/day cruises in Tahiti/Papeete?

Whew! Maybe I should have broken this down into multiple posts, but you folks here seem super nice and uber-organized, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Thanks for any input

Alex

...Regarding snorkeling:

How is the lagoon cruise and snorkel in Huahine?

Is it worth doing the Coral Garden Drift Snorkel in Tahaa, or is the snorkeling adequate off the private motu?

What is the best snorkeling tour in BB? Moorea? Is there any good snorkeling off the BB motu?

Finally, any decent snorkeling/day cruises in Tahiti/Papeete?

Can't comment on the diving, as I didn't do any. I did use the marina, and also saw the dive boats going out, and it seemed to be all well-organized.

Snorkeling I did do, every day.

Huahine, we did Marc's Motu Picnic (all-day) and enjoyed it. Ask them to add the snorkeling with the sharks.

Taha'a....yes, absolutely the drift snorkeling is far better than snorkeling off the motu. The drift snorkel is over a fabulous coral garden (warning: very swift current to position yourself prior to the drift). The area off the motu doesn't have much coral. There are some pretty neat colonies of sea urchins. There may be more coral out near the reef....I didn't go all the way out there. There was a swimsuit photoshoot going on.

Bora Bora: We did two private excursions here - best was Pure Snorkeling's Reef Adventure. Great trip. Did Rannui the next day, and that was nowhere near as good. They were not ecologically sensitive at all - never mind not telling us not to stand on the coral....they did, and they even *anchored to it* :mad: ! They were also way too grabby with the sealife. :( There motu meal was nothing to write home about (Pure Snorkeling's was great). So the full-day only added the meal, and it wasn't worth the difference in price. We met people who went with Patrick on Bora Bora, and liked them (and they had a roasted pig at the motu meal). Never made it to the Bora Bora motu.

The only snorkeling we did on Moorea we did from our bungalow (at the Intercontinental Moorea). Some nice areas and sealife. I've heard where snorkeling at the Hilton there is pretty nice.

Hope this helps....I'm sure others will weigh in.

My snorkeling pix:

Many thanks!

Just a quick follow up: do you know anything about the ship-offered excursion in Huahine "Lagoon cruise and snorkel?" Do you think it would involve more time in the water than Marc's motu picnic?

Is Marc's excursion the only one that involves sharks, or is there a shark opportunity in Bora Bora as well?

Your photos are great...which island/excursion had the "aquarium" fish?

Hi Alex

You’re in for a treat. The water in FP is phenomenal and the PG dive crew is top notch. Also, you’re at the tail end of the humpback season so there is an outside chance of seeing them, (Moorea and sometimes Huanine). If you’re up for it, recommend the Discover Scuba on the PG, you’ll get to dive Toopua & Shark Gallery with your husband.

The snorkeling, is adequate at Tahaa but need to swim towards the reef. There are a few coral heads at the Bora Bora motu but IMHO, the BB motu is not to be missed; it is truly spectacular.

About the diving

Toopua is inside the reef, loads of tropical’s and my dive log repeatedly notes octopus, eels, rays at a distance. They oftentimes offer a night dive at this site through an outside operator. We did this once. Night dives are not for us, though I have a clear memory of looking up at 40 ft below and CLEARLY seeing a star filled sky. Kind of cool.

Tapu is outside the reef, tropical’s, gigantic napoleon wrasse, turtles, reef sharks, large, curious lemon sharks.

I would encourage your husband to take all dives but if had to choose only one in BB would dive Tapu.

Shark Gallery and The Canyons dive sites are adjacent. Tropicals, lots of sharks, turtles, eels. Can’t really recommend one over the other but, again, would do both, especially since you double your odds of seeing humpbacks.

There will probably be an outside operator dive in Huanine as well.

The water will be in the low to mid 80s (at depth) and visibility routinely over 100 ft. It is supremely convenient departing for the dives from the ship’s marina and the crew is very professional and all about service. Dives are offered at least twice per day, though I seem to remember only 1 dive site each day (as opposed to doing say Toopa and Tapu on the same day)

Not sure if your cruise is one Cousteau is on, if so, book dives early.

When you board, there will be a dive desk in the reception area and they can fine-tune your dive schedule.

Feel free to ask any questions. French Polynesia is heaven on earth.

I seem to recall that there were dives offered once onboard that weren't available for prebooking. I ended up changing once we boarded. There were no dives offered on Huahine. The first one for us was on Bora Bora. Mantas were cool. It's shallow and the water is very murky so it's difficult to film.

Just a quick follow up: do you know anything about the ship-offered excursion in Huahine "Lagoon cruise and snorkel?" Do you think it would involve more time in the water than Marc's motu picnic?

Can't say. In general, the private snorkel trips we did lasted "all day" (5-6 hours, or even longer, in the case of Huahine) and included snorkeling in multiple places. We did 4 separate snorkel stops with Pure Snorkeling on Bora Bora.

Is Marc's excursion the only one that involves sharks, or is there a shark opportunity in Bora Bora as well?

The writeup for Marc's excursion did not mention the sharks, but we picked up 4 people from a resort who were specifically doing the 'swim with the sharks' segment, so we got that thrown in as well (and at no extra cost). This excursion involved a history stop, vanilla bean place, a blue-eyed fresh-water eel stop, pearl farm (where the boat portion began) looping around the entire island (which is actually two islands) between a minibus and the boat, and several snorkel stops. We did swim with the sharks on Bora Bora as well (and that was in the writeup).

Your photos are great...which island/excursion had the "aquarium" fish?

Thanks! At most of the locations, the guides put food in the water to attract the fish in the area, so you'll see a bunch in most stops.

Thanks to all for the quick and very knowledgeable responses. I have found additional reviews on this site, but wonder how useful information is from experiences that are over 2-3 years old.

You're all great!

We did the 7-day PG Dec 27, 2014 - Jan 3, 2015. I realize I didn't say when we went, but you might have figured out that it was recent from the picture link.