Sandals Jamaica

[rnhockey]

Has anyone dove with Sandals in Jamaica? Is it a good experience?

[rnhockey]

Forgot to say we will be staying at Grande Ocho Rios and that diving is only a portion of our trip! We will be there in October so how is the water temp? Any help would be appreciated!

[brains]

We stayed at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios in December of 2006. We were not certified divers then but decided to do the resort course there and dove three times overall. Of course we were limited to 30 ft. but the water was clear blue, nice reef but not a lot of fish except small fish. Water temps were mid 70's. I dove in board shorts and a rash guard but the dm's and some others were all in 3mil's, shorty's and fulls.

Resort: They have a beach side and a mountain side. The beach is very small and narrow. Take your dive booties to the beach with you as it is also very rocky in parts. Not much snorkeling at all unless you want to pick up silverware from the restaurant on the dock. The mountain side is a lot of walking to the rooms and a bus ride across the highway to the beach. If you like pools better than ocean, stay on that side, i think they have 80 or so pools over there. The food was great, the drinks flowed and the piano bar at night was the place to be. Have fun! If you have specific questions about the resort or things to do there like side trips let me know. I have been to jamaica every year for the last four or so.

[rnhockey]

Thank you for the info! I knew about the 2 sides of the resort, but the rest was very helpful!

[CompuDude]

I've stayed at the Montego Bay resort, but not Ocho Rios, although I've visited. They're all pretty similar, of course.

Think of it as a vacation with some diving, and not a dive vacation. The dives are pretty, the water is clear and warm, but the sea life is limited (heavily overfished). It's a nice, pleasant time, but not really all that spectacular, as Caribbean diving goes.

If you're used to diving cold quarries, you'll have a great time. If you have warm water diving experience from better locales, like Cozumel, Bonaire, Grand Caymen, etc., you won't be impressed.

The DMs are very friendly, and very used to dealing with newer divers with little experience. If you have a fair amount of experience, however, it can take a while to convince them to leave you alone and let you do your thing.

[crgjpg]

I was at the Grande Ocho Rios for my honeymoon in 2005. For me the diving was exciting because it was my first ocean dives. Thinking back, I agree that that the diving is not the best for the Caribbean. Like CompuDude said, think of it as vacation with diving not a diving vacation. When I was there there were two dives per day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I dont know if it is still the same. Recently, I have been to the Royal Caribbean in Montego Bay. There was two dives in the morning and nothing in the afternoon. Sandals offers night diving if enough sign up for it and you have to pay extra. I agree with brains about the resort. The beach is almost non existent and rocky.

[CompuDude]

Important tip about diving with Sandals:

If you're not already certified, budget plenty of time (read: a day) to jump through their hoops, before you're going to get wet. Even if you are certified, they'll want to see you in the pool before they'll take you out, and you'll have to go on the afternoon dive to the "bunny slope" sites before they'll let you go on the more "advanced" dives in the morning.

Two dives per day, so if you're expecting to be able to dive on day 1, you'd better arrive early enough to fill out paperwork, do the pool stuff, and make it to the afternoon dive (which, I think, leaves around noon?). And leave plenty of time... it's not easy to get Jamaicans to hurry, unless their last name is Bolt. I really really wanted to dive on the first day, and had a really tough time making the boat due to the various administrative boxes that had to be checked before they'd let me on the boat. It was pretty stressful. Depending on how long your trip is and how much diving you want to (or care about) getting in, this may not be an issue for you.

I wasn't able to get a night dive in on my last trip, because there were not enough divers interested in (a) doing one, and (b) paying the extra $ to do one. (Can't recall if it's $50 or $75 extra.)

They include basic gear for free, IIRC, but apparently a wetsuit isn't considered standard gear ($5 per day isn't much, but it's annoying when it should be included). I usually go in January, and the water is pretty warm, and it's possible to go without the wetsuit, but I often was glad I had at least the shorty on the deeper dives.

They will not let you dive below 60' or so without advanced certification. Bring your log book... if you have deeper dives and recent experience, they will sometimes make an exception.

Also, dive times and meal times clash terribly. You'll have barely enough time to scarf breakfast, and then you won't really have time for a nice leisurely lunch before leaving, and again you'll miss the lunch window. So you end up eating at the one little place that serves burgers and fried junk all day, rather than the nicer food options. IMO, they really haven't put too much thought into integrating divers into the resort schedule.

[LaCroix42]

I was there last week. If you've been diving in the last six months, and have your card and book, you shouldn't have to do the pool (at an extra charge) work.

Night diving is $80, and they will hound you to do your AOW there if you're not already one. The diving is GREAT if you're used to CSSP or other no vis places, I can't comment on the others about comparing it to other Caribbean spots though. As others have said, it's a vacation with diving, NOT a diving vacation. They run one boat on Sunday, at 0900 and two boats the rest of the week, 0900 and 1400. Be there 30 minutes prior and only bring your absolute necessities. You will NOT be allowed to take your bag on the boat unless it's a night dive.

(This should be a no brainer, but) bring water. The boat ride is usually only 5-10 minutes, but the water is NICE after a 30 minute dive.

Don't expect them to be long. 50 minutes was the longest, and it was a night dive. That single two tank dive they advertise? Forget it. Single tank, twice a day, 30 minutes on the bottom. That's it. I didn't ask because I'm not trained with doubles and wanted to enjoy the dives.

If you have a weight integrated BCD and take it, INSIST on the weight you know you need. I told them I wear 8 pounds in a 3/2 shorty in fresh and they handed me 8 pounds. I was pissed the entire dive. The following day I told them to give me 12 loose, and I was fit, snug, trim, and enjoying the bubbles.

Richard and Kevin are both cool as hell, "Capt. Jack Sparrow" (his safety sausage says it too!) is pretty cool and very laid back.

If you're like me and keep a constant eye on your guages, you'll be shocked at how infrequently anybody else does. Keep away from the resort trained divers, they're dangerous. After the first PM dive with them, if you know what you're doing he will pretty well let you do your thing so long as you don't stray too far or jack up their time table. I stayed well in back with my wife and we kind of did our thing, but stayed near enough to get attention if we needed it. He pretty well stopped asking us for pressure checks because we were both always right near his and at least 600PSI higher than anybody else, with one or two exceptions. I think he realized we have pretty low SAC rates when we came up from the second dive with 1600PSI left.

The $20 no flash camera sucks, and I bet the $40 dive shop camera (EXACT same, but with flash) won't be much better. Bring your own camera and housing, if you can. The digital is $400.

Lastly, if you're a smoker, don't let Richard see you. He'll bum a smoke from you and give you grief about it. My wife kept him quite after the first time though, never thought I'd seen a black man blush that much either.

See here for more info:

Things a new diver learns resort diving


Feel free to PM me if you want, but that's a pretty good AAR for it, and most of what I remember.
Oh, yeah! If you go on the night dive, make sure you've got a dirty joke in your head before you get on the boat. And insist the captain tells the airplane joke.

[rnhockey]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I am a relatively experienced diver (many dives, all kinds of conditions, many specialties, etc...) and my wife is fairly new to diving. We just dove a couple of weeks ago so I guess we should be OK.

[rnhockey]

So to get in two dives you have to go out on both morning and afternoon boats? Sorry, trying to plan a fun, memorable trip, but there is no info on their site about diving times etc...