Belize / Honduras / Grand Cayman choice, looking for advice

[Ashmai]

First off let me say that I have never been on a diving excursion from a cruise ship, so my knowledge in that area is limited. I have however done the cruise thing and would think you would have plenty of time to get a dive or two in on your own depending on your time in port. If you’re going to dive only one location, I would say do a couple of shore dives on Grand Cayman. It is probably the cheapest thing you can do on this island. That is if you take your own gear. A tank of air and weights might run you $15 per person. If I remember right it cost more to get a couple of cold beers than it does to shore dive. Like the other posts say, Eden Rock is just a quick right turn off the pier. Get some weights and tanks and in you go. The diving is not too deep here, but there is plenty to see. We dove just down the street at the Sunset House and saw turtles on every dive. The diving is easy. Swim west away from shore, descend, swim around for about a hour, swim east towards the shore to until the bottom is about 20' from the surface, swim around until your safety stop is up or you are out of air, and then surface. Then repeat if you have enough time. Plenty of coral, sponges, and reef fish. Also the water is usually calm and warm (80-82 degrees when we were there in April). There is also Cobalt Coast on the north west corner of the island for a nice wall dive if you want to go deep. You can dive right off their pier, but you would have to take a taxi (about 15-20 min away if I remember right).

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Belize is a wonderful place to dive, but I think the diving here is best if you have plenty of time. Our best dives here were about a 45 min to 1-1/2 hour boat ride away from shore. Probably not practical from a cruise ship. However the coral and sea life is very nice here. If you like outdoor land excursions, this would be a good place for it. The wife and I enjoyed the Mayan Temples a lot, or try the cave tubing. (If you drink beer try a Belikin!)

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Roatan is one of the best places we have dived in the Caribbean. The only thing we didn't like here was the lack of turtles and large fish on our dives. With that said, we did have a couple of dives with large groupers and some nurse sharks. The coral is very healthy and there are plenty of small to medium fish. The underwater topography was diverse, but the sea was not as calm as it was in Grand Cayman. However it was not bad, with only a small amount of surge or current on most dives. If you can dive at two places, I would do Roatan as well. If not, this would be a good place to do some souvenir shopping.

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Great info, thank you sir!

 

[lsorenson]

Garrobo

I think you biggest limitation is time... a 3 day cruise out of miami will get you where? I tried digging around but the web site sux and I am in a hurry... 3 day will get you to Nassau for a full day but I don't know what the diving is like... I see folks pushing Grand Cayman but I did not care for "Grand" much at all... better places to go at least for me there are! Coz is great if you can get there on what you want to do... As far as a shop that will work with you and take you drifting; Aldora is who we used and they were great (Aldora Divers of Cozumel)

Best to you but be ready just in case the ports change as they did with us... Do your homework!

lee

 

[Bubble Junkies]

I've dove all three islands and they all have good diving; however, you're not going to have enough time to get to the best diving in Belize and Cayman with only a day trip. If you are looking to dive in one or two places and do land excursions in the others I'd dive in Roatan and possibly Cayman. It's pretty easy to get from the cruise ship docks to West End, where the best diving is in Roatan. I'd contact West End Divers or Anthony's Key.

In Cayman, I agree with a previous post about heading for Stingray City and the North Wall. The latter is a novelty dive, but it's a lot of fun. And the North Wall has better life and coral growth than the sites off Eden Rock near the cruise ship port in Georgetown. There are a lot of great operators in Grand Cayman, just ask enough questions to make sure you're not getting put on a cattle boat. I dove with Ocean Frontiers, Eden Rock and Dive Tech and they were all great. Ocean Frontiers is going to be too far out of your way (on East End), so I'd start with the other two.

If you do dive in Belize, I'd suggest Ramon's Village - and ask for a trip to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Belize has a ton of incredible excursions though, and the really great diving in Belize is in the southern region or out on the atolls - too far for a day trip. This is where I'd do my non-diving activity. Check out an operator called Jungle Paw. They have ziplines and cave tubing - which is amazing - and I believe they'll pick you up from the docks.

One last tip - if you can arrange your excursions yourself, do so. The cruise lines jack the rates of shore excursions by an obscene amount.