Advice on dive excursions - caribbean

[Ory]

My wife and I are cruise virgins but have been scuba certified for a number of years. We're looking for a chance to dive in January when we are on a western Caribbean Celebrity cruise.

 

Our ports are Georgetown Grand Cayman; Cozumel; Puerto Costa Maya Mexico; and Roatan Honduras.

 

I'm not sure how I feel booking diving independent of the ship - being new to the cruise experience, I think I want someone else to take care of the details and I can just dive!

 

Anyone have any experience booking scuba excursions with X at any of these ports, and any recommendations?

[SCUBA Mark]

My wife and I are cruise virgins but have been scuba certified for a number of years. We're looking for a chance to dive in January when we are on a western Caribbean Celebrity cruise.

 

Our ports are Georgetown Grand Cayman; Cozumel; Puerto Costa Maya Mexico; and Roatan Honduras.

 

I'm not sure how I feel booking diving independent of the ship - being new to the cruise experience, I think I want someone else to take care of the details and I can just dive!

 

Anyone have any experience booking scuba excursions with X at any of these ports, and any recommendations?

 

The ships offer dives in all 4 places. Since this is your first cruise, I would recommend you just dive through the ship. You can always venture out on future cruises.

[Pilot70D]

I'm not sure how I feel booking diving independent of the ship - being new to the cruise experience, I think I want someone else to take care of the details and I can just dive!

 

Anyone have any experience booking scuba excursions with X at any of these ports, and any recommendations?

 

I am going to give you the opposite advice from the previous poster. We have been diving all over the Eastern and Southern Caribbean over the last year. We have ALWAYS made our own private dive reservations with only one exception.

There are many advantages to making your own reservations. First, you can avoid the 'cattle car' dives that sometimes happen when booking through the ship. Bear in mind that dive operators can and often do have divers from hotels and resorts going with them in addition to cruise ship divers. By using the individual ports discussion board you cna find out who used what dive operator and why.

Second, you will often have more flexibility and more say in determining which dive site you go to. Dive operaotrs pay a commission back tothe cruise line consequently cost caontainment often becomes the name of the game. Because of this cruise ship divers will often be taken to the closest dive site and usually a dive site that isn't too difficult. Many operators will not take cruise ship divers to the best dive sites. Operators sometimes have an underlying assumption that cruise ship divers are neither very good or very experienced divers. Not all are like this but many are.

Third, you can often find a dive operator that is willing and able to tailor the dive excursion to your desires and needs. That rarely happens with dive excursions booked through the ship.

There are a couple of disadvantages to booking your own excursions. Numer one - you will have to do your own research and then make your own reservations. I have always looked at that as time well spent. you're spending a lot of money to go on the cruise and even more to go diving. That being the case I wwant to do everyhting in mmy power to insure that it isa pinnacle experience.

The other drawback is you're going to hear that if you don't get back to the ship before it sails you're out of luck and you bear the expense of cathcing up to the ship. This is true however in ten years of cruise ship diving we have NEVER even come close to missing the ship. Dive operators are aware of the time constraints that cruise ship divers have and tailor tripps invloving them to insure that the cruise ship people get back to the ship in time.

SO my bottom line advice is book your own dive excursions even though you're new at so doing. There is a wealth of information here on Cruise Critics to help you. There are also other sites exclusively for divers that have even more info on dive operators.

Hope this info is helpful to you and that you all enjoy the diving no matter how you arrange it.

:):):)

[Middleager]

Pilot gave you great feedback.

 

I have always arranged my diving privately. Even since the first cruise (and pre-cruise near the port) we've done it that way. Heard too many stories of the cruiseline provided excursion with cattleboat where they take a lot of new or rusty divers, that does not do very good diving.

 

All the 4 ports you are going will have good diving. There are lots of dive ops to choose from in Cayman and Coz. Not as many in Costa Maya and Roatan, but still many there are ready to serve cruisers.

 

In Costa Maya, there was one company that was charging $75. As soon as they signed with a cruiseline, they cannot take any booking from cruise passengers, while the cruiseline charge $150 for anyone booking thru them.

[dirvin0500]

Great posts above....When we went on our first cruise we booked with the ships excursion. We never did it again. I hate decending through a curtain of bubbles because there are so many people on the dive.

We were in Costa Maya in January and went with Maya Palms. Owned by a couple from Missouri. Great wall dive and good lunch. Went with "Dive with Alison" in Cozumel. Great cookies during SI. Like was said earlier...there are a lot of operators. Researching CC via the "Search" engine and also researching through Scubaboard.com will help tremendously.

[divers wife 09]

Hi to diver,

I am going to be on a cruise January 28 2011.

I would like to dive in some of the ports.

I did do a another cruise before I only used the ship dive excursion I was

disappointed with the dives.

That is why I want to arrange my own dives.

My other doesn't dive ,so I am looking for a dive buddy also.

Can any one help me. I am on the Holland American Maasdam

The ports we will be at are Tortola / St Barts/ Martinique / Bonaire

Curacao /Aruba .

[belarus70]

We just returned from a cruise with the same itenaerary. We chose to dive with Bananarama in Roatan. We were a little nervous going independent but are so pleased with our decision. Bananarama was wonderful. They provide transfer to and from the port. There resort is beautiful with a beach with on site bars, restaurants and live entertainment. The 2 tank dive consumes about 3 hours so we made arrangements with there driver Omar to not pick us up until a set time that allowed us plenty of time to have lunch and relax on the beach before we returned to the ship. The dive personel, Sophia, Marco, and Martin were all so friendly, yet professional. They gear every dive to your experience and comfort level. We will definitely return to Bananarama in the future.

On another note, there is not alot to do in Costa Maya so you may choose this as your port for diving and save Roatan for exploring or hanging on the beach. Not sure how much diving you plan on doing but we only alotted on port for our cruise. Also, Grand Cayman has some great snorkling from the beach walking distance from the ship. We snorkeled The Wreck of the Cali which we thought was just amazing. Right off shore in about 25 feet of water. Another half mile down and you have cheeseburger reef. Hope some of this helps and that you have a wonderful time.

[teresastreed]

Whether you book with the Cruise Line or on your own just make sure you DIVE in ROATAN! Roatan has the BEST Diving in the Western Caribbean.

[Ory]

Thanks for all the great replies. I'm definitely convinced now that I need to book away from the ship!

 

We're figuring 2 dives - likely Cozumel and Roatan, then see the stingrays above water in the Caymans and take a Mayan ruin trip in Costa Maya.

 

We've been spoiled - our last caribbean trip was a week in Bonaire.:D

[scf1270]

Hi to diver,

I am going to be on a cruise January 28 2011.

I would like to dive in some of the ports.

I did do a another cruise before I only used the ship dive excursion I was

disappointed with the dives.

That is why I want to arrange my own dives.

My other doesn't dive ,so I am looking for a dive buddy also.

Can any one help me. I am on the Holland American Maasdam

The ports we will be at are Tortola / St Barts/ Martinique / Bonaire

Curacao /Aruba .

 

Join your cruise's Roll Call. It's a great place to "pre-meet" fellow passengers and see what others have planned. You can also ask if anyone is interested in diving with you.

 

Thanks for all the great replies. I'm definitely convinced now that I need to book away from the ship!

 

We're figuring 2 dives - likely Cozumel and Roatan, then see the stingrays above water in the Caymans and take a Mayan ruin trip in Costa Maya.

 

We've been spoiled - our last caribbean trip was a week in Bonaire.:D

 

These will be our ports in Dec, 2010, also. In GC 2 are doing shore dives with a private guide (they are newly certified) and 2 are doing a catamaran snorkel trip to the stingrays and two other stops. There are dive trips that include the stringrays as the 2nd of two stops. GC has mild current.

 

Cozumel has stronger current, so a beach day for us :-)

 

Costa Maya - ruins with Native Choice (really good reviews)

 

Roatan - still working on this. Boat dives for 2, and who-knows for the other 2!

 

We just returned from a cruise with the same itenaerary. We chose to dive with Bananarama in Roatan. We were a little nervous going independent but are so pleased with our decision. Bananarama was wonderful. They provide transfer to and from the port. There resort is beautiful with a beach with on site bars, restaurants and live entertainment. The 2 tank dive consumes about 3 hours so we made arrangements with there driver Omar to not pick us up until a set time that allowed us plenty of time to have lunch and relax on the beach before we returned to the ship. The dive personel, Sophia, Marco, and Martin were all so friendly, yet professional. They gear every dive to your experience and comfort level. We will definitely return to Bananarama in the future.

On another note, there is not alot to do in Costa Maya so you may choose this as your port for diving and save Roatan for exploring or hanging on the beach. Not sure how much diving you plan on doing but we only alotted on port for our cruise. Also, Grand Cayman has some great snorkling from the beach walking distance from the ship. We snorkeled The Wreck of the Cali which we thought was just amazing. Right off shore in about 25 feet of water. Another half mile down and you have cheeseburger reef. Hope some of this helps and that you have a wonderful time.

 

Good stuff about Bananrama. They are on our short list. There is a beach for us non-divers, but no umbrellas :(. Their communication has been very, very good.

 

We will use Sunset House in GC for the shore dives.

 

Hope you all are as excited about your trips as we are!!!!

Sara

[jimw]

We've been spoiled - our last caribbean trip was a week in Bonaire.:D

 

We have done a number of cruises involving those ports and have stayed on Roatan, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel a number of times.

 

I suggest a shore dive a short distance from the tender pier on Grand Cayman--a nice dive for the price of a tank, $10. there are several places to the right as you come off the pier, I like Sunset House best. All are walking distance if you are not lugging gear--taxi if you are. As easy as Bonaire!!

 

There's a good shore dive at Coco View Resort on Roatan, we arranged it thru the us office--ride to the resort and back and diving, etc. A great dive on a small freighter wreck and wall--you could do 3 shore dives here and not repeat yourself.

 

Coz, take a boat!! Costa Maya, dove once--not bad, but something else might be called for. No shore diving.

[ScubaCruiser54]

We started on a cruise excursion dive on our first cruise. It was a cattle boat approach by the dive operator in Key West, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman. They expected you to stay with the dive group and at key west, that was basically a dive leader trying to swim the divers out of air in the quickest time possible. We did not swim with him and stayed within 50 yards of the dive boat and carefully examined the reef for critters. Noone on that trip saw any of the critters we saw as they were all trying to keep up with the dive leader.

 

Cozumel was a cattle boat ...24 divers, but they actually spilt the group into 4 groups of six and dropped us in these groups on Santa Rosa wall...We did not run over each other as they allowed about five minutes between groups going in... drift diving in Cozumel requires a divemaster for safety.

 

Cayman was 18 divers and they were too close and you had bubbles and noise that scared off critters

 

After that, we have always arranged our own dives. You can look on various dive boards, cruise boards and even do as we did at the start... Look for dive operators by country and location. We found good operators in Cayman....DiveTech, Neptune Divers, and Aquaventures.

 

In Cozumel we have always dove with Blaue Angel and arranged a private dive (we normally have 4 divers and the cost was about $550... We had a boat to ourselves, went to the sites we wanted (weather permitting), and had a chance to get the dive master and boat captain we were familiar with on our dives.

 

In Roatan we dove with West End Divers... They were OK. We dove our own profile and stayed along the West Wall... Some of their hotel divers and the divemaster bounced to 150 feet to recover some tires and junk from a recent wreck. This was unsafe as they had already made two dives when we caught up with them. They also tagged a single diver with us after we got in the water and we did not have a chance to coordinate what we were going to be doing, so I was taking extra care watching him. He turned out to be a good guy and a competent diver. He was supposed to dive with one of the hotel divers, but he was from our cruise ship, so they tagged him with us.

 

Do some research and you will find that if you get a good operator, it is well worth the effort. If you are a new diver, tell them and let them know you want to have a divemaster or a dive leader with you (we once made a dive in St. Marteen where the boat did not have one for smaller groups as they expected the divers to be more experienced (we were - Rescue qualified and over 100 dives for the least experienced diver in our group). Diving is supposed to be a fun experience. Keep it that way. If you are out on a dive and the circumstances are not good and you are uncomfortable with a diving situation, never make a dive that makes you uncomfortable or that you just don't feel good about. I have passed up a couple of dives where I did not have good rental gear, was not comfortable with how I physically felt at the time, or that the dive conditions were what I felt to be potentially dangerous for all of my group.

 

Enjoy the experience. A cruise ship gives you a great choice of dive locations. One other thing I would say is to become very familiar with the symptoms of DCS. When the big boat leaves the shore for the next port, the only exit is by helicopter if you are still in range, or the next port if you get bent. Dive conservatively and stay within your dive profiles when you are cruise diving.

[scf1270]

good points ScubaDiver!

 

Sara

[gmcrow]

We have done both and usually prefer to book on our own. Most independents take REALLY good care of cruise passengers in your ports because they aren't having to share the revenue with the ship. In Cozumel we have used Blue XTSea several times and on Roatan we like Pasquale at Las Rocas Resort. Both have websites and are total opposites of the cattle boat experience.