Suggest a cruise please ...

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

My wife and I are planning a cruise for 2016 and I would like it to be to a place where I can dive. From the posts here, I understand that diving and cruises make a bad combination and people return home disappointed from the diving they get. Most common complaint seems to be the over-crowding part. Local dive ops often get overloaded with divers and a lot of them take you for a dive not far from the cruise ship itself! The only way to make people dive and return to the ship in large numbers is to throw them into the sea not far from where the ship is and call it a day. Is this a valid concern? Can anyone please recommend a cruise leaving from Baltimore or Boston that would give us a decent place to dive somewhere? Thanks.

 

[Altamira]

From those two ports, you are probably looking at a 10-12 night cruise to get to the better diving destinations because they are so far north. I know Royal Caribbean can get to Coz and Grand Cayman, plus a couple of other stops, and Carnival can get to Grand Turk from those ports. Best thing to do is just go to the cruise lines websites and see if anything fits your schedule and desired dive locations because many of the cruise lines shift their assets to Europe at certain times of the year. Although it may be a little more money to fly to Florida to pick up a cruise, the selection and cruise cost is generally bette if you are trying to get to Coz, GC, Belize, Roatan, St. Thomas, Curacao, Bonaire, Dominica, and Grenada. Even from Florida, getting to Bonaire and Curacao will generally require a 10-12 day cruise, whereas you can get to Coz, GC, Belize, and Roatan on a 7 day cruise, so a shorter cruise is somewhat of an offset for the cost to fly to Florida.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I am open to leaving from Florida. My biggest fear with places like GC, Roatan and Belize is that diving from a cruise operators usually gets horrible reviews with common complaints being:

a) Dive operator over-filled the boat (I can live with this as I have had decent diving experience diving from cattleboats).

b) In order to make maximum people dive in minimum time, dive ops cut the bottom times to half hour or 40 mins etc.

c) In order to make maximum people dive in minimum time, dive ops took divers to the nearest spots and people ended diving in mud!

When thousands of people land at a port then diveshops will get overcrowded and such mess begins to happen. After reading through a lot of reviews, I gathered that Bahamas was the most well prepared for it because Stuart Cove takes cruise passengers on their shark feedings which the conduct not far from where they are based. I would love to hear how these other places deal with such issues.

 

[Altamira]

We have dived in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan, Curacao, Bonaire, Grenada, Costa Maya, and St. Thomas on cruises, sometimes using the ship's dive op and sometimes using independent ops.

Of these, the only ports we have used the ship's op exclusively have been GC (Don Fosters) and Belize (Hugh Parkey), and both ops were excellent. We used the ship's op because the ships tender at those two ports, and getting off the ship in a timely manner can be problematic if you are not on a ship excursion. In addition, in Belize, Hugh Parkey picks you up from, and returns you directly to the ship. Both ops have facilities to rinse your gear.

Coz is the only port where I was not happy with the ship's dive op (Sand Dollar), which in my experience is the only one that I felt shortchanged us on dive time. There are so many other independent dive ops to use, so this is a place where you have a lot of options. We have used Christi's Blue XT Sea Divers in Coz and were very happy with them. Aldora also offers dives that are compatible with cruise divers.

Roatan-have used AKR which is the ship op and Barefoot Divers (independent op). Both were excellent and have facilites to rinse you gear before you go back to the ship.

Bonaire and Curacao have used ship's op or just shore dived. No complaints with the ship's op Dive Friends Bonaire or Ocean Encounters at Lions Dive in Curacao. You can shore dive in Bonaire from any of several dive resorts and Ocean Encounters if you call ahead to set it up.

St. Thomas is another port where you have better options than the ship's dive op.

Costa Maya- have used Dreamtime Divers (ship's op) who were excellent, and one independent op that was less than satisfactory.

Grenada- used Aquanauts and were very happy with them.

With the exception of Sand Dollar in Coz, the dive times when using both ship's ops and independent ops were based on air usage of the divers in your group, but have generally been 45-58 minutes in length. You go down and come up as a group, but if you don't want to deal with that, hiring a private dm is an option to let you dive your air.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

We have dived in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan, Curacao, Bonaire, Grenada, Costa Maya, and St. Thomas on cruises, sometimes using the ship's dive op and sometimes using independent ops.

Of these, the only ports we have used the ship's op exclusively have been GC (Don Fosters) and Belize (Hugh Parkey), and both ops were excellent. We used the ship's op because the ships tender at those two ports, and getting off the ship in a timely manner can be problematic if you are not on a ship excursion. In addition, in Belize, Hugh Parkey picks you up from, and returns you directly to the ship. Both ops have facilities to rinse your gear.

Coz is the only port where I was not happy with the ship's dive op (Sand Dollar), which in my experience is the only one that I felt shortchanged us on dive time. There are so many other independent dive ops to use, so this is a place where you have a lot of options. We have used Christi's Blue XT Sea Divers in Coz and were very happy with them. Aldora also offers dives that are compatible with cruise divers.

Roatan-have used AKR which is the ship op and Barefoot Divers (independent op). Both were excellent and have facilites to rinse you gear before you go back to the ship.

Bonaire and Curacao have used ship's op or just shore dived. No complaints with the ship's op Dive Friends Bonaire or Ocean Encounters at Lions Dive in Curacao. You can shore dive in Bonaire from any of several dive resorts and Ocean Encounters if you call ahead to set it up.

St. Thomas is another port where you have better options than the ship's dive op.

Costa Maya- have used Dreamtime Divers (ship's op) who were excellent, and one independent op that was less than satisfactory.

Grenada- used Aquanauts and were very happy with them.

With the exception of Sand Dollar in Coz, the dive times when using both ship's ops and independent ops were based on air usage of the divers in your group, but have generally been 45-58 minutes in length. You go down and come up as a group, but if you don't want to deal with that, hiring a private dm is an option to let you dive your air.

This is very informative. When you dove with Hugh Parkey in Belize, did you get to go to the sites Belize is famous for like Elbow ref, Gladden Split and Blue hole etc?

 

[diversteve]

Cruise ships moor off Belize City to the north. Gladden Spit is over 200 miles south...Even the liveaboards don't go there - except once last year on a special charter put together by one of the whale shark ops.

Why don't you pick several cruise options, list the ports/time in port and someone can tell you who the alternatives to the cruise excursion are. And probably rate the diving. St. Maarten for example is a big cruise port but the diving there isn't so great.

I can name 5 options within walking distance of where you'll tender in in Grand Cayman for example. All are 8 divers max and you could walk your gear over. Fosters is actually the big boat people there. Plus there's two shore dives - 1 500' from the cruise pier (guess what shape it's in...lol) and another 5minutes south by cab. Interesting thing about the meh dive (Eden Rock) is that when the silversides are in in early summer - it's spectacular!!

I've actually never heard of cruise divers doing the Cove's shark feed either. I suppose it's possible if someone has a later evening sailing but Cove's on their website says that boat returns to their dock at 5PM - and it's a 45min. shuttle ride back to the Cruise port on the north side of Nassau. I was on Carnival once and we overnighted in Nassau so I suppose it's possible but it's been my general experience in cruise ports that most sail between 4-5 pm.

 

[Altamira]

The two times we dived with Hugh Parkey in Belize, the dive sites were on Turneffe Atoll, and all four sites were excellent with good dive times. Only one site at Turneffe Atoll, the Black Pearl, on our June 2015 trip was a bit short (38 mins vs 58 mins in 2014) but that was because the current was pretty stiff, and our DM screwed up the turn, overshot the boat, and then we had to swim into the current again to get back to the boat, giving all of us a very high sac rate. While it is true that there are other dive ops near the tender dock, it is not necessarily easy to get an early tender if not on a ship excursion or you have priority tender due to your loyalty program status (Diamond and above). To complicate things in Belize, we were late getting into Belize City once out of two times there, which would have caused us to miss the dive departure time had we booked off ship. Hugh Parkey has a big dive boat, but it is very comfortable and has never been overcrowded during our two trips with them. They also they break up the divers into groups of six to eight divers, and try to group them according to experience levels.

 

[gr8jab]

Be sure to bring some reading material in case there are delays. I've experienced a fair share of standing around and waiting.

I would only dive if docked. I would skip if tendered. Cozumel and Grand Cayman are probably the best chances of finding a good dive shop/site/boat near the dock.

If you must dive with the ship's excursion, see if they have separate groups for 'have gear' and 'need rentals'. I seem to remember this might be an option. The 'have gear' group will probably be better.

 

[diver 85]

OP, fly to San Juan & take a 7 day---5 stopper--out of there....We did that a couple years ago & our stops were St Thomas, Barbados, St Lucia, St Marteen, & St Kitts----dived 3 of the 5(St Thomas, St Lucia, & St Kitts)--with good 'success'-----even got to dive Piton Wall in St Lucia(which was a great dive site--look it up for more info on that site)......

 

[Altamira]

Be sure to bring some reading material in case there are delays. I've experienced a fair share of standing around and waiting.

I would only dive if docked. I would skip if tendered. Cozumel and Grand Cayman are probably the best chances of finding a good dive shop/site/boat near the dock.

If you must dive with the ship's excursion, see if they have separate groups for 'have gear' and 'need rentals'. I seem to remember this might be an option. The 'have gear' group will probably be better.

Pretty silly not to dive in GC and Belize, both of which are tender operations, when you have two very good ship's dive ops and other good independent dive ops if you can get off the ship in a timely manner. Getting off the ship on the first couple of tenders can be done, even if not on a ship excursion, or you do not have a priority tender spot, but it can be a bit of a crap shoot, especially if the seas in the tender area are a bit choppy or the ship arrives late. These are just my observations and opinions, but they are based on extensive cruise experience with a wide range of cruise lines.