Scuba Cruise of a Lifetime :)

[breanne.wieler]

Hi all!

 

Hubby and I are going on three back-to-back cruises, and we want to scuba dive most of them!

 

Cruise ports are:

Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Belize, Cozumel, St Thomas, St Kitts, and St Maarten.

 

So far I think we have Aruba, Bonaire, St Kitts, and St Thomas covered for dive operators.

 

1) Suggestions for good dive operators for Grenada, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Belize, Cozumel, and St Maarten would be much appreciated.

 

2) Are there any "don't bother" locations or any "must dive" locations? So far we are considering Bonaire our "must dive". Everything else is up in the air.

 

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Hubby and I are extremely excited - we have only been able to dive cold, murky (boring) water so far, so we're looking forward to beautiful Caribbean water!!

 

Breanne

Manitoba, Canada.

[breanne.wieler]

Also, is there certain locations which shore dives are a good option? That many dives...would be nice to have a slightly cheaper option if possible!!

[MommaBear55]

Cozumel's San Francisco drift dive was amazing

[omeinv]

For Barbados:

 

I strongly recommend West Side Scuba Center (westsidescuba.com). Peter Grannum there will take care of pick-up and return to the pier, and the diving is excellent.

 

Belize is one place to consider the cruise ship's dive, The ship is anchored quite a ways out, and if you take the tender in to Belize City you lose a lot of time. The ship's operator, Hugh Parkey's has the dive boat pick you up at the ship.

 

St. Maarten: We dove with Octopus Diving (http://www.octopusdiving.com). They were good, and the diving was OK. It's a bit of extra expense because you have to pay for a cab (which they arranged) from the pier to the French side where their shop is. The fact they set it up was good, but if there was an island you wanted to take a day off, this might be the one.

 

In Cozumel, I've yet to find an operator I'm really impressed with I've done ship's tours there, and certainly wasn't impressed with Sand Dollar, their operator. Next trip I'll be using Aldora, who have received a lot of good reviews.

 

Even though you mention you've got St.Kitts covered, I can't say enough good about Dive St. Kitts. (http://www.divestkitts.com). They really made a day of diving fun.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

[breanne.wieler]

Thanks Harris and Mamabear!

 

And Dive St Kitts is first on our list, much due to your recommendations, Harris! :)

[BillOh]

I hope you will share what you have planned, or when you get back. I have a 2017 cruise planned that stops in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. My only thoughts about Aruba is some of my non-diving friends on this cruise may have something planned there.

[Lefty Writer]

Hi all!

 

Hubby and I are going on three back-to-back cruises, and we want to scuba dive most of them!

 

Cruise ports are:

Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Belize, Cozumel, St Thomas, St Kitts, and St Maarten.

 

So far I think we have Aruba, Bonaire, St Kitts, and St Thomas covered for dive operators.

 

1) Suggestions for good dive operators for Grenada, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Belize, Cozumel, and St Maarten would be much appreciated.

 

2) Are there any "don't bother" locations or any "must dive" locations? So far we are considering Bonaire our "must dive". Everything else is up in the air.

 

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Hubby and I are extremely excited - we have only been able to dive cold, murky (boring) water so far, so we're looking forward to beautiful Caribbean water!!

 

Breanne

Manitoba, Canada.

 

Wow, sounds like a LOT of fun! DW did a B2B on the Liberty/Breeze in 2013 and hit several ports like y'all are doing.

 

For Cozumel, we like using either Chucho Divers or Scuba with Alison. Both are popular, and fill up fast, especially Alison, so you need to book early with them. Both use small, fast boats and are based out of Caleta Marina, just a short cab ride away from the terminal.

 

For Belize, we like Sea Sports Belize. Their dive shop is about a 5 minute walk from the terminal once you get off the tender. All of these dive ops offer nitrox for just a bit more.

 

As for St. Maarten, I'm such an aviation nerd that I won't consider diving. :eek: GASSSP! I know, that's heresy, right? :p It's straight to Maho Beach for me to watch the aircraft come in for their famous LOW landing pattern. Just check out this search here from YouTube to see what I'm talking about.

 

I think most of us here who frequent this particular forum would love to hear about your trip when y'all get back.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Lefty Writer

[breanne.wieler]

Definitely will share when I get back. Thank you all for your suggestions.

 

No one has mentioned Granada or Antigua - not such great dive locations?

[omeinv]

Grenada has famous diving, I just haven't been there yet. I'm going to use EcoDive when I'm there in Feb.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

[J&KCruiser]

Grenada has famous diving, I just haven't been there yet. I'm going to use EcoDive when I'm there in Feb.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

 

I have dove in Grenada and was very surprised. Do not recall the details. IMO you will need to get away from the port city so dive.

 

As for Cozumel Allison is great and so are the prices. Have used her approx. 3 times for drift diving.

 

John

[breanne.wieler]

Man I love this group! :) You guys/ladies are awesome.

 

Any of you going to be cruising in January? We are doing the Serenade Jan 4, then the Independence Jan 16, then the Equinox Jan 22. Love to join up with any of you if you are :)

[NemoCrownie]

We dove with Aquanauts in Grenada this past February and had a very good experience with them. They arranged for transportation at the pier and transported us to their shop at True Blue Bay Resort. We did a wreck dive of the Bianca C and a reef dive. Both were fantastic. After the dives we were dropped off at their store on Grande Anse, rinsed our gear and were able to leave it there while we spent some time on the beach. When we were ready to go back to the ship they provided the taxi. Easy, great diving, and a wonderful experience.

[Podie]

Man I love this group! :) You guys/ladies are awesome.

 

Any of you going to be cruising in January? We are doing the Serenade Jan 4, then the Independence Jan 16, then the Equinox Jan 22. Love to join up with any of you if you are :)

 

Equinox is my favorite ship of all. Sea Sports Belize would also be my choice. There is much better, pristine diving a couple of hours south of Belize City, but of course you can't do it off a cruise.

 

I'll be diving in Aruba and Bonaire next month and will report back.

[breanne.wieler]

Oh! That's great to hear. We have never cruised Celebrity before, just Royal Caribbean (and once on Carnival).

 

Definitely anxious to hear about your Aruba and Bonaire adventures!

[snoozcroozr]

For St Maarten, we dove with Ocean Explorers. They had the shark dive feeding dive. It is not quite a frenzy as other shark feeding dives since they don't want the sharks to be purely depend on them for food. But it is still awsome.

 

As for most of the other places, I only dove there via liveaboard or as part of a dive trip, so I don't know about which dive ops are best.

 

For must dives, Cozumel must be on that list. I don't know if any shops will take you, but Palancar/Columbia/Punta Sur are a must. But the best they likely will do is take you to Santa Rosa wall, which is still great.

 

Bonaire is almost nothing but shore dives, so you can rent a truck and DIY from some public beaches or boat piers. If you are going by boat, diving on Klein Bonaire is a good option, and so is Salt Piers.

 

As for don't bothers, having dove extensively on the B and C's of ABC island, the A island (Aruba) was always mentioned as the don't bother of the 3. But if you are a die hard, you might still want to dive there. Heck, I dove in Key West on one of cruise where I dove on every port .

 

Most of the issues I have with these crooze dives are the 2nd dive. They get lazy and frequently take you to the house reef or something close since they want to bring you closer back during the surface interval, and with Cozumel, from what I remember, all the shallow ones were pretty lame after the hurricane a while ago. Maybe it has changed by now, I haven't gone there in 5 yrs.

[snoozcroozr]

To expand on the shore dives in Bonaire, it is almost nothing but shore dives, so you can rent a truck and DIY from some public beaches or boat piers and maybe squeeze 3 dives into the trip, or do a couple of 90 min dives at a shallower profile. It is super easy since the whole reef is sloping. All you have to do is find the buoy on the way back, and with the reef being sloped, you are likely to do a swimming safety stop coming back, thus if you can't find the buoy, just pop your head to the surface to see where you are.

Edited November 13, 2015 by snoozcroozr

[breanne.wieler]

Thanks snoozcroozr! The info on the Bonaire shore dives is much appreciated. We have an odd 8-2 time spot in Bonaire, and the ship dive is over $140 (and they won't give us any sort of credit for having our own gear). So we are going to "wing it" and shore dive in Bonaire, but since we've never dived in Bonaire, the "unguided" part seemed a bit intimidating. Less so now!

[snoozcroozr]

Or to make it even easier, take a cab to one of the resorts that has a house reef, rent a couple of tanks from then and dive right off their dock. One tank to the left and one to the right. Some resorts like Divi Flamingo are right next to the cruise pier, others a short cab ride. I remember the Plaza resort's house reef, the right is a sloping reef and the left is a reef that splits into a upper and lower reef.

 

You just have to make sure they let you use their dock. I am sure they would if you are getting air from them.

[skittl1321]

To me Cozumel is without a doubt a must dive. I also recommend Scuba with Alison, but so many of their independent operators are fabulous. Just don't go with the ship; it is not a port where that is in any way necessary!

 

My favorite dives there are Columbia Deep and Shallows (you get such a LONG dive to look for little critters), Palancar Bricks and Gardens, and Santa Rosa Wall; but I've never been to a bad site; you really cannot go wrong. Most of the independent operators will try to suit the fancy of those on the boat, so tell them if you really want to see coral structures, fish life, turtles, sea horses, sharks- rather than a specific site,- obviously they can't guarantee any of those but the coral, but they usually know where the critters have been spotted most recently.

[jcpelly]

When we stopped there we did the Hugh Parkey dive through the ship out to Turneffe Atoll. They pick you up at the ship and head out from there so it saves a lot of time to get to the dive sites. The ride to their little island and dive shop was cool too. They had a family of dolphins in their lagoon (one newborn) and when the boat left 2 of the adults followed and jumped in our wake right next to the boat for a few miles. When we went they split up the 2 boats and groups into experience levels so that was nice too.

[breanne.wieler]

That's really cool to hear jcpelly - we just booked the tour through the ship there - a lot due to the time restrictions and the tendering required.

[Bellfree Bat]

We used EcoDive in Grenada. Diving was just okay...

 

Sea Sport Belize was awesome. Small boat within walking distance of pier and they drooped you off at the pier after the dives. Great lunch provided at surface interval between dives.

 

I Cozumel we have used Alison and Chucco but the last time we used Aldora and enjoyed it. We are booked with them in a couple weeks again.

 

We never dove in Antigua or St Marti so no advice...

[idlenote]

Just back from a 21 day around the Caribbean cruise, we had some very good and a couple not so good:

 

Aruba: Ship tour to the Antilla, way over crowded and very difficult to stay with your group, probably would not do this again.

 

Bonaire: Used Gooodive to do 2 guided beach dives, absolutely first class and a very safe operation, probably the best I've ever dove with.

 

Grenada: Went with Scuba Tech and dove on the underwater statues, very eerie but really worthwhile.

 

St. Maarten: Supposed to dive with Ocean Explorers but due to weather we changed the itinerary, called to change the dive and was told they didn't have room and the dives were cancelled. Not happy.

 

Grand Turk: Went with Blue Water Divers and had a ball, wall dive and was excellent. Only supposed to go to 60' and went to 78' without realizing it, it was really so good.

 

Trying to figure out when I can do some of these again.

 

Jim

[breanne.wieler]

In Aruba - was the ship's dive with Red Sail? I'm curious because I've heard a lot of bad reviews about them!!

 

In St Marten, was Ocean Explorers through the ship or booked privately?

 

In Bonaire - did they pick you up at the port or did you walk or taxi? What kind of price for shore diving?

 

Thanks for the info!!

[idlenote]

For Aruba I looked in the log book and there is no stamp, I checked my diary and it said that I thought it was Red Sail but I wasn't sure. They were not bad but it was just overcrowded. Had an instabuddy and we got along fine on both dives, but there are just so many people from about four boats diving on the wreck that you have to be very careful to stay with your group. When I get round to filling out the feedback I will probably give them three stars.

 

St. Maarten the dive was booked privately, and once the itinerary was changed and I called the dive shop, I was out of luck when they said they had no room. I did try to book a trip from another local dive shop but they were so backed up that by the time I got to the counter there was not enough time to go back to the ship and get my gear.

 

Bonaire I took a taxi from the terminal. it was $10 to the Gooodive shop. Did two guided beach dives and IIRC it was about $130 (but I was on my own so it seemed very reasonable). The first dive was on the house reef across from the dive shop, then we took the shop truck to the second site down by the airport, and after we went back to the shop and got cleaned up they took me back to the terminal. This really was the best day diving on the whole cruise, and DW had a good time ashore while I was doing my thing, we talked about it afterwards and agreed we would probably be more than happy to go back there again.