Diving While on Western Carribean Cruise

[devildog]

My wife and I who are recently certified will be going on a cruise this Feb.
We will be going to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize and Roatan Bay. We have a few questions.

1. Should we use the ships dive excursions or go to Dive shops?
2. Does anyone have any reccomendations for good Dive shops at these locations that are used to working with cruise ships?

Thank you very much for any advice.

Ken

[georoc01]

I did a similar cruise last year.

Belize you want to use the ships excursions. The ship will anchor quite a ways from the port and the dive op will pick up directly at the boat and take you to the reef from there.

Roatan is a funky port in that getting in and out of there was a challenge. I did use the ship excursion from there as well. We dove at Anthony's Key.

Cozumel and Grand Cayman are wide open with lots of options. In cozumel, your best bet is to use a site like CruiseCritic.com to try and find two more divers, and an op like Aldora will hold a boat for you with a four diver min.

Grand Cayman has dive ops right off the boat. Eden Rock I think was right there. Stingray City is a unique dive here if you haven't done it before.

[c.edmiston]

My wife and I went on the same cruise earlier this year. I dove at Grand Caymen and Coz. I used the tours from the cruise ship and everything went very well. If you want to rent equiptment, it will be included on the cruise ship tour but you will get charged extra if you go directly to the dive shops. More importantly, if you use the cruise ship tours and are late getting back from the tour because the tour is running late the ship will wait for you. If you go directly to the dive shop and run late, by by cruise ship. Have fun.

[c.edmiston]

My wife and I went on the same cruise earlier this year. I dove at Grand Caymen and Coz. I used the tours from the cruise ship and everything went very well. If you want to rent equiptment, it will be included on the cruise ship tour but you will get charged extra if you go directly to the dive shops. More importantly, if you use the cruise ship tours and are late getting back from the tour because the tour is running late the ship will wait for you. If you go directly to the dive shop and run late, by by cruise ship. Have fun.

[Kokomo]

We are also going on a western Caribbean cruise in February and plan on using the cruise ship shore excursion. Don't want to be late getting back.

[TX SCUBA FAMILY]

Originally Posted by Kokomo

We are also going on a western Caribbean cruise in February and plan on using the cruise ship shore excursion. Don't want to be late getting back.

Which line and cruise are you on? We are on Carnival Legend departing Tampa 2/17/208.

[navyhmc]

I did a cruise excursion through Anthony's Cay in Roatan. Had a good time. Good guides and decent surface interval activity. As said above, you're best plan is to use the shipsdive package-the gear is waiting for you and you have the security of knowing the boat will be there if you're late. Not so with a personally planned trip.

[BuoyNC]

We are on the Carnival Conquest leaving Galveston on January 6. We plan to shore dive at GC unless anyone has any better suggestions. Is Eden Roc the dive shop just to the right of the pier everyone is talking about?

Also, we will be diving with Emerald Dolphin in Coz. We were with them our first trip in September, on recommendations from ScubaToys. (We got our basic in July and Advanced in September - seriously hooked, now). It was awesome.

Our first stop is in Montego Bay, and we're open to suggestions if anyone has them. Thanks ya'll.

[TxHockeyGuy]

Originally Posted by BuoyNC

We are on the Carnival Conquest leaving Galveston on January 6. We plan to shore dive at GC unless anyone has any better suggestions. Is Eden Roc the dive shop just to the right of the pier everyone is talking about?

Also, we will be diving with Emerald Dolphin in Coz. We were with them our first trip in September, on recommendations from ScubaToys. (We got our basic in July and Advanced in September - seriously hooked, now). It was awesome.

Our first stop is in Montego Bay, and we're open to suggestions if anyone has them. Thanks ya'll.

I did this exact cruise a year and a half ago. I can't remember exactly where I was in GC (which brings up another point, those fruity drinks on the ship are more alcoholic than you think, watch out!) but we did some shore snorkeling and it wasn't that great. There were a lot of tarpons, some other fish, but almost no coral, alive at least. The dive operator we went with through the ship on Cayman took us to mostly dead reefs, but since I hadn't seen better than 10' of vis before I was still completely thrilled. The one thing I will say is that the DM's were extremely competent (seeing some of the divers, they had to be) so I have to give kudos there. Grand Cayman I will say was awesome, you can go anywhere down any back alley and feel completely safe. Do take some time to just walk around.

Grand Cayman is actually the second stop so I'm doing this a bit out of order, oh well. At Montego bay we just did a snorkeling trip, no diving. I really enjoyed it and there were some interesting formations to snorkel down towards on the ship excursion we took. Not sure what there is in the way of diving here but I would say avoid the downtown area. I, my father, and my brother are are fairly large individuals and we did not feel very safe downtown. Now the Margaritaville on the other hand was awesome, but if you're diving before or the next day take it easy. I loved their idea of "shots", lean your head back and they poor away. Certainly not for everyone.

At Cozumel we also did not go diving, and I really regret this to this day. I still haven't dove Coz and since I'm in Dallas I need to rectify that. From my understanding it can be difficult to get a dive op on the island to deal with the cruise ship schedule here but since you have, I say go for it. Can't really comment much on the diving since I haven't dove here. But once again, take the opportunity to walk around, it's a nice place and I always felt safe.

[scubasamurai]

stick with the cruise ship especially if you have problems, you stand a better chance of getting a refund. also and more importantly the operators that deal with the ships, want the business so they tend to be more client friendly. not to say on shore operators are not, but you really do not know what your getting when you get off the boat, unless you dove with them before. i never had a problem with diving cozumel with the ship sponsored trip.