I've heard some people say the dives booked through the ship in Belize and Roatan weren't crowded and others say they were really crowded. I wondering if it had anything to do with the time of year. I did book privately and expect small crowds, but I keep second guessing my Belize Seasports booking because of the hassel of tendering/walking to the dive shop. After walking alot on Tulum tour before the Belize tour, I should probably avoid unnecessary walking carrying heavy gear. At least we do get dropped back off at the ship. Oh well, I'm booked and they have a pretty restrictive refund policy unlike the ship, which is pretty reasonable.
Well I'm back and my trip went great. The crowds on my privately booked dives were small (only 4-8 divers), but the boats were tiny, so it's all relative. We did back roll off boats in Belize and Roatan. The walk to Seasports Belize wasn't that bad, but I do think next time I'll try the cruise's excursion in Belize for the convenience. It's quite a long tender ride and we cut it very close getting back from the dives in Belize. They kept assuring us we would be fine even though we got back to the tender dock 10 minutes late because there is always a long line to get back on the last tender. They were right but we were a bit nervous. Every diver I talked to that went with the ship's dive excursions were happy with their experience. Seasports did take good care of us. They packed a lunch and cold drinks, took us to an interesting tiny crab fishing island for surface interval. Very rustic. Only a few buildings, outhouse over the water, a friendly caretaker and a bunch of dogs on the island. Lots of pretty palm trees and water birds. We also had a couple of snorkelers with us to drop off/pickup before and after lunch. Without that diversion, we probably would have made it back with time to spare.
In Roatan with Subway Watersports, they picked us up at the dock and drove us about 40 minutes around to the north side of the island to Turquoise Bay resort, which is beautiful. The drive around the island was nice, because often when you dive from a cruise ship, you don't get to see the other sites. At least we got somewhat of an island tour on the way. The boat ride to the site was only 5 minutes. We got back to the dock with at least 30 minutes to spare, so I did some browsing at the souvenier area right off the ship.
Both operators carried our gear and changed it out between dives. Subway also cleaned the equipment after the dive. They only thing I didn't like about Subway was that they didn't offer us snacks or cold drinks on the surface interval. We went back to their dive shop at the resort to hang out since it was only 5 minutes to/from the reef but there wasn't even anything for sale. Bring your own. There were only 4 divers: 2 from the ship including me and 2 people staying at the resort. There was the leader, the boat captain and 2 dive cons in training diving with us.
All of the diving was guided, follow the leader style. Some people don't care for that, but as a solo diver, pairing up with people I don't know, I find comfort in staying near the dive master. Also he points out stuff that I might not have seen on my own.
I did sign up for a ship excursion dive in Grand Cayman which was with Don Foster. The operation seemed fine, but there were a lot of newbies and it was more crowded. Of course it was a bigger more comfortable boat with a head. But with more people trying to follow the leader, it gets very crowded underwater with newbies cutting you off, kicking you and running into you. Also I don't think they took us to the best parts of the reef since there were a lot of new divers (Wildlife Reef and Fantasy Reef).
