Cruise Divers - ops for Grand Turk and St Thomas

[EL Pistoffo]

Wife and I will be on a 7 day Carnival cruise this Sept. with stops at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas, San Juan, PR, St. Thomas and Grand Turk. We are only interested in diving St. Thomas and Grand Turk.

I'm looking for recommendations on good dive ops that would work well for cruisers. From what I've gathered so far, Blue Island Divers seems to be popular on St. Thomas. Still looking into Grand Turk.

We dove Cozumel and Grand Cayman on our last cruise a couple years ago.

 

[yardpro]

both are great sites...

i loved diving grand turk...

 

[mikeycanuk]

I don't think you could go wrong with any of the OP's on GT. We did 2 weeks with Smitty of GTDivers had a blast, Oasis is contracted by the cruise lines so you will have to book through the ship. Craig is a DM there and we had a blast with him on Salt Cay the year before. Mitch of Blue Water divers seems to run a good ship but have no experience other than looking around the shop for a few minutes.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

I don't think you could go wrong with any of the OP's on GT. We did 2 weeks with Smitty of GTDivers had a blast, Oasis is contracted by the cruise lines so you will have to book through the ship. Craig is a DM there and we had a blast with him on Salt Cay the year before. Mitch of Blue Water divers seems to run a good ship but have no experience other than looking around the shop for a few minutes.

I always try to avoid booking dives with the cruise lines. The dive excursions are susceptible to cancellations if participation is too low and often not the best ops (cattle boats). I've always had great results with my own bookings working off the advice from ScubaBoard.

 

[DEEPLOU]

Been to Grand Turk twice in recent years. To me it seemed like there was nothing in close proximity to the pier where ship pulls in other than the shops that are part of the pier
Don't know where any other operators, besides Oasis, are or how to get to them from the ship.

 

[mikeycanuk]

From our little excursion to the cruise pier I did see a shack with a compressor and lot's of tanks. At GTDivers on our first day there was great confusion when we brought our gear and so did a group of cruisers. We were all from the same LDS with identical Apek's reg bags. We sorted everything else and thought it quite funny. Also funny was watching cruisers in safari zebra themed "jeeps" driving slowly past like we were wild game or something (I had thoughts of swinging from the trees...). Then there was the "train". Another day one of them dumped a nice looking scooter going too slow around the bend onto Duke st.

After a week I figured out what "that" sound was when I saw the line of dune buggies going along the main st. If I had one to myself and go tear-a**ing around the island I get. Being in a conga-line eating someone else's dust...not so much.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

I'm gonna go with Oasis at Grand Turk. They are the excursion dive Op for the cruise ships and must be booked through the cruise. They are a well regarded shop do I'm good.

As far as St. Thomas goes, it's a toss-up between Blue Island Divers and Admiralty Divers.

 

[BigJoeBob]

I am going to Grand Turk on Carnival Breeze in June. Still trying to decide whether to use Bohio or GT Diving Co.
My family is doing a beach day at Bohio but they will not confirm a spot in the morning dive until the in-house guests are all signed up.

GT Diving Co looks like a great outfit. Both are a cab ride from the pier.

There is a scuba show here 3 weeks before our cruise. Both GTD and Bohio usually have booths there. I am going to go down and see if either company wants to make a special offer. Will let you know how it goes.

P.S. Good luck with Oasis. We never book via the cruise line, as they always seem to be over priced cattle boats.
In Grand Cayman we paid less to have a private 6-pax take us to Stingray City as soon as we got off the ship. We had 5 rays playing with us for an hour. Then they and we left just as the hoards of excursion boats arrived.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

I hear ya. I don't like to use cruise ship excursions either. I've only booked 1, maybe 2 excursion through a ship ever and they were not dives. I always go private. With the case of Oasis, they seem to be highly recommended. The only caveat is the cruise line taxing it.

Let us know how your dive op experience goes in June. I'll be diving the Vandenberg in Key West this June.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

I booked with Admiralty and GT Divers. Thanks for the help folks.