Airlie or Cairns/Resort vs Referral

[general]

I'm making a trip to Australia in November. I had looked into diving the reef from Cairns, but my local contact said that doing so from Airlie Beach would be a better idea. Does anyone have any experience with this? Going out to the Whitsunday Islands does seem amazing.

Ignore the resort vs referral part. I'm going to get certified fully stateside.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[paschen]

Airlie is cheaper - but do you want cheap or safe and experienced?
Come visit us at www.diveoz.com.au and go to the discussion boards - you will get the info you need there.

 

[Andrew Jones]

Hey General,

Your ID doesnt say where you are from, however consider the following:

Where do you fly into........ Whitsundays Airport situated on Hamilton Island. 750km from closest International Airport in Cairns or 1100kms from Brisbane. Return flights approx $300 each way to get there.

What type of diving do you want, liveaboard or day trip.

Most diving on Whitsundays is Island Diving that I find to be low vis and lacking in colour.

Kianna goes further out to the actual reef and I consider this expensive $469 for 3/2 night plus $50 bucks a dive.

Note: I am not on this site often enough to always answer your replies so email me at info@scubadive.com.au or visit my site www.scubadive.com.au for all the boats and good answers to relevant questions

Regards AJ

 

[general]

I fly into Sydney. I realize that these places are far apart. I'm looking for whatever diving is good. I will be doing a two day tour on a sailboat out of Airlie so I can do some diving there. I'm up for whatever diving is good. From what I know, Cairns diving on a day trip means a lot of travel and way too many people. I don't really want to spend money to get out to Cod hole and the operators out there seem to nickle and dime you for everything.

 

[MarkH]

Why not try diving in Sydney? There are lots of boat and shore dives. They say it's cold, but compared to where you're going to be certified it's actually pretty warm. When I went in their Spring, the water temp was 19 degrees Celsius. They thought this was cold and suggested I wear a hood. Then they gave me this little spandex beanie. I felt so cool.

 

[slipslop]

I thought the diving as better out of cairns, there seems to be more reefs and the reefs are closer from cairns than they are from airlie beach and the choice of liveaboard trips was better from cairns/post douglas. this is just my humble opinion
though.

 

[Darnold9999]

Was near Cairns last November. Dove out of Port Douglas for two day trips and then went on a Mike Ball trip to Cod Hole.

Going all that way, spending all that $ for the trip (even on points going first class you are forgoing a lot of other trips) and you are nickle and dimeing yourself.

The day trips out of Cairns would just be a teaser. They convinced me that I really wanted to get out the the unspoiled reef, the liveaboard convinced me that I really want to get further out to the reef and perhaps up to PNG.

If you are really on a budget check to see if there are any stand by spots open on one of the liveaboards when you get there. They heavily discount open spots at the last minute.

As a diver I am not sure I would want to go to OZ and miss diving the GBR. For me the liveaboard was the highlight of a 5 week trip down the east coast.

 

[general]

"Going all that way, spending all that $ for the trip (even on points going first class you are forgoing a lot of other trips) and you are nickle and dimeing yourself."

Items such as buying a house sooner rather than later in a very hot real estate market are a big deal to me. Should I approach a vacation with the 'came all this way' attitude, I'd end up staying at the Ritz and spending every last penny I have. I will consider the cod hole trips, but they are all expensive and all nickle and dime people (extra charges for gear, extra for items needed for night dives, etc).

Your standby idea though is very interesting. Could I possibly be setting myself up for failure? What are the chances that there will be a liveaboard going out to Cod hole on a particular day that is not full?

 

[CARHILL]

We always do standby every time we go to Cairns, got to go on lots of different dive boats. Sometimes the liveaboard was cheaper than staying in a hotel in Cairns. We have never not be able to go out diving going on standby. But, we are spoiled for we have better diving 800 feet from our beach home here on our island.

Dale
Still on a little rock in the Pacific
P.S. you need to fill out your profile

 

[Darnold9999]

Re standby, and not being available. That is the risk you take not paying full price. You may be dissappointed. When I was there I tried to book the boat I was most interested in. It was full. My second choice had one spot left, gave me 30% off if I booked that day for a trip leaving the next day. If there are more spots open you will be able to get a better price.

I suspect that if I had worked my way down the list of boats, I could have found a better deal. If not then I would have been perfectly happy with the day trips. Still pretty good diving particularly as you are just starting.

Re nickle and dimeing - for me the whole point of going to OZ was to dive the GBR, I wanted to experience the best of the reef within my budget. Your priorities are different, but this is a dive forum so I assume your priorities are similar, but to miss the diving becuase the operators charge for extras seems counter productive. Some people come with their own gear and would be annoyed if they paid the same price as someone who didn't.

OZ is not a cheap place to vacation - wait until you get your first restaurant bill. Restaurants in OZ make their money on the food, not like here where the profit is in the booze.