Fort Lauderdale Questions

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marshallkarp

Contributor
Messages
574
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Location
Massillon, OH
# of dives
100 - 199
My wife and I are discussing our summer trip, end of June, and looking at Fort Lauderdale. Where is the best resort to stay with a beach? What's the best dive operation? What are the best dive sites, coral and wrecks? What are the best restaurants?

Thank you.
 
Those are a lot of questions.

Beach - do you want to shore dive too?
Sites - how far do you want to drive to dive?

Restaurants - there's a million - nobody in South Florida cooks.
 
Restaurants - Type of food and price range?

Hotels on the beach - Starwood has everything from 2 Sheratons on the low end to the Atlantic and St. Regis. All are on the same beach, most are accross the street.

Dive Op - American Dream - great boat, good crew
 
marshallkarp:
That would be nice. Please suggest.
Ocean Manor in Fort Lauderdale - it's pretty much in (LBTS) Lauderdale by the Sea. Excellent shore diving from the hotel (which is ON the beach) other hotels to the south (like the st regis etc) aren't actually on the beach.

You can check out hotels in Zip Code 33308 and look for anything on Ocean or El Mar, and you're right there in LBTS, and great shore dives, and a lot less money than Fort Lauderdale "proper"

Dive ops in Pompano are also good, and closer to LBTS - I frequently go with SFDH (http://southfloridadiving.com) - they run trips that appeal to me more than American Dream's schedule, which is usually a wreck and a 30' reef (not to mention it takes about 20 minutes to drive there vs 5 minutes to SFDH). I think the 30' reef is about the same as what you'd see from doing shore dives from the hotel I mentioned, so why pay a boat to dive that? SFDH has 3 boats, and can accomodate any skill level. Check them out.
 
I went with idivestarfish.com ... nice group. They're in the Boynton beach area. There's a nice little shore dive right off of Deerfield Beach. You have to enter by the Rocks (Gap in rock near sandy area) on the South End of the Beach right before you hit private property. The current should drift you up toward the peer. There's really only muck diving in this area but it has some cool stuff.

The reefs of Lauderdale are much healthier than I expected however, a plethura of small stuff seems to always make viz a challenge (40ft being the norm). I've heard that pro dive in Lauderdale is a good shop. I rented all my gear from Dixie Divers when I did my shore dive there. I've also heard they're very good. As a matter of fact, I think you can still pull some great shore dive locations off their site. Here's a general link.
http://www.diveftlauderdale.com/
www.dixiedivers.com
 
I was down earlier this month and stayed in a little hotel in Pompano called the Dolfin Inn. Nothing fancy but very clean and neat. It was just across A1A from the beach and there were plenty of nice places to eat along Federal Highway. I dove with 3 different ops during my stay and all were nicely run. American Dream Diver in Ft. Lauderdale and the other 2 were within a mile of my hotel. Parrot Island and Scubatyme
 
HowardE:
Ocean Manor in Fort Lauderdale - it's pretty much in (LBTS) Lauderdale by the Sea. Excellent shore diving from the hotel (which is ON the beach) other hotels to the south (like the st regis etc) aren't actually on the beach.

You can check out hotels in Zip Code 33308 and look for anything on Ocean or El Mar, and you're right there in LBTS, and great shore dives, and a lot less money than Fort Lauderdale "proper"

Dive ops in Pompano are also good, and closer to LBTS - I frequently go with SFDH (http://southfloridadiving.com) - they run trips that appeal to me more than American Dream's schedule, which is usually a wreck and a 30' reef (not to mention it takes about 20 minutes to drive there vs 5 minutes to SFDH). I think the 30' reef is about the same as what you'd see from doing shore dives from the hotel I mentioned, so why pay a boat to dive that? SFDH has 3 boats, and can accomodate any skill level. Check them out.

Howard has it (almost :) ) right- 33308 is the zip of LBTS. It's centrally located to a lot of good Ft Lauderdale dive boats. My favorite is American Dream II (south of LBTS a few miles) but I also like The Diversity (north) & Parrot Island (not quite as far north). Typically these dive ops do a wreck & a reef- Howard likes reef/reef better. I like SFDH too but usually do my few boat dives with one of the other three I cited- beach dives are what I do most locally.

There's a good site for hotels HERE. Even addresses are ocean side, odd, are across the street. Look for lower numbers on El Mar (below 4400) to be below Commercial Blvd where the best beach diving is in LBTS. (& closer to both Howard & me :wink: ) If you don't mind crossing the street to the beach, Sea Echo is very diver friendly & has great rates- Betty is a sweetheart.

Let us know when you get things nailed down a little, There are a bunch of locals that dive quite often & love to meet & dive with vistors!
 
Yes Marvel... I like reef/reef better, and I prefer drift diving :) SFDH accomodates me 95% of the time with what I want.

Parrot Island - also good. A good list of dive ops is here listed by boat name, so some companys have more than 1 boat you'll notice.

Most area OPS do the Wreck / Reef schedule. But my advice would be to find one that is doing at least their second dive on the "third reef" :wink:

After you've been to all the wrecks a few times... (you know what I'm sayin')
 
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

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