NEW WAVES vs. LOCAL DIVE SHOPS

[samjj]

Trying to decide whether to book Discover Scuba Diving through the New Waves program on the Star Princess, or whether to book it myself through a local dive shop.

 

Who does Princess use in St. Thomas for this program?

 

Any recommendation on which local dive shop in St. Thomas to use? So far, I've read good things about Chris Sawyer and Coki Beach. Any others?

 

I'm not sure where the ship will dock, does that make a difference in which to choose?

 

thanks for your help!

Jaime

[bruce-r]

I don't think that you will be disappointed with the Coki Beach dive club. They were very nice people and it is easy to get to. http://www.cokidive.com Chris Sawyer has an excellent reputation for scuba diving, but I don't know if they do offer discover scuba. In either case, I think you will be doing a discover scuba as a shore dive. This is actually better because if you are with a group and not everyone wants to the discover scuba, the non-participants can hang out at the beach while you have the fun.

 

I don't think it will matter too much where you dock.

[scuba dad]

Over our Christmas cruise we dove with Blue Island Divers. They docked their boat at the port and we just walked over from our ship. Very easy.

 

They were a fine operation. The boat was nice and the equipment looked good, we brought our own. They lead the dive, if you wanted to go with them, but you did not have to. There was no limit on the bottom time which is nice because the dives were fairly shallow, max depth 60 ft.

 

They took us to the Navy barges for the first dive. Okay with some swim throughs. The second dive was a great reef right outside the port. That was nice. They diving is close to the port so we were back within 3 hours.

 

Over all I would recommend them as they were easy to work with and let us dive our dive. They did provide nitrox. blueislanddivers.com