Helmet Dive - St. Maarten or St. Thomas better?

[BabsterA]

We are going to be on the Getaway at the end of October and I'm looking at booking the Helmet Dive since my son and I enjoyed it so much a couple of years ago in Costa Maya.

 

The excursion is offered in both St Maarten (via a boat) and St Thomas (via a vehicle). Is one "better" than the other, ie more fish, prettier site, etc? We LOVED the previous excursion and can't wait to share the experience with my son's girlfriend.

[DrNora]

I actually saw this question posed here by one of my kids.

 

st Maartten had a thumbs down as the swim is difficult, there are issues with the platform yada yada

 

st Thomas requires no swim as it is done right off of the dock area at Coral World.

 

There is a review of it from this spring in a Getaway review titled " a week in paradise" by CC member . She even has some pictures.

Highly recommended it.

 

Don't forget to try the ports of call boards!

 

Nora

[wrmiles]

We did the one at St Marteen about three years ago and it was great. No problems with a difficult swim or platform. There may be different vendors, though, so don't know if it is the same now.

 

You go over in a boat direct to their dock. The helmet dive is in two different groups, and you can snorkel while the other group is doing the helmet dive.

[ronandannette]

I actually saw this question posed here by one of my kids.

 

st Maartten had a thumbs down as the swim is difficult, there are issues with the platform yada yada

 

st Thomas requires no swim as it is done right off of the dock area at Coral World.

 

There is a review of it from this spring in a Getaway review titled " a week in paradise" by CC member . She even has some pictures.

Highly recommended it.

 

Don't forget to try the ports of call boards!

 

Nora

 

We did it in St. Thomas and loved the experience but we didn't really see too much sea life. You walk a "track" through a man-made coral reef. You're down for about 30 minutes but the time just seems to fly by! Coral World itself is a nice little place also and it's included in the price of the helmet dive if you book the excursion in advance. We actually "outsmarted" ourselves by assuming we could do it cheaper on our own but considering we had to pay for transportation, we came out behind.

[BabsterA]

I ended up choosing St Thomas as Coral World looked interesting. Thanks for the responses! Looking forward to experiencing the Getaway.