Anyone Dive w/ Sandals ?

[Duca]

My wife and I are headed to Sandals Dun's River in Jamaica in November.. Anyone have any experience in the area of Dunn's River/Ochos Rios or with Sandals in general?

[Natasha]

Being a travel agent, I've sold Sandals several times. Their resorts all over the Caribbean are popular. My favorite Sandals is in St. Lucia, but that wasn't your question.
You can dive with them in the places you named. But my experience is that Negril has the better diving in Jamaica.
If you have more questions you can call them directly at 1-800 Sandals.
Hope that helped.

[DocVikingo]

Hi Duca,

This is not to discourage you, but to share my view of your situation so that you won't be disappointed.

I've never seen a Sandals, Club Med, Beaches, Iberostar or other large all-inclusive that could be considered a dedicated dive resort. I trust the latter is not what you are seeking. On the up side, there will be lots of activities, decent food, nice beach & a well-maintained property.

Your diving with Sandals will be with a highly mixed group, possibly including resort coursers & snorkelers, and tightly scheduled & regimented. On the up side, the boats are big & comfortable, and the op safety conscious.

Finally, Jamaica diving is considered very so-so by most experienced divers. Although the government has made real efforts in the past several years, long years of over-fishing & polluting of the reefs have taken their toll and will require a long time to heal. On the up side, the Dunn's River/Ochos Rios is quite scenic, with some cool sightseeing & river activities.

I suspect you'll enjoy yourself.

Best regards.

DocVikingo

[Ontario Diver]

Duca my friend:

Used to work in Jamaica. Spent some time at Ochos. Outside of the All-inclusives, it is crowded and not real nice. I didn't dive there but my gut (and its a big one) agrees with the good Doctor. It didn't seem like a "diving" place.

I went to a all inclusive in January in Mexico - Plya del Carmen area. It was excellent and the reef diving and dive store were very good. No wrecks so I got a little lost , but the fish were colours other than brown and green, Cool :D

Like Doc said, the food is good, the nightlife OK. I hear similar things about Coz. Things to look for are an on-site dive shop. Something to dive on (reefs, wrecks, caves, whatever...). Free Booze <Grin> And check out whether it be a hotel or a resort. I like the resort style better, and I'm willing to pay for it.

Other than that, have fun and post a trip report

Relax

[Tom]

Not enough thrust and they tend to fall off.
Stick with fins.

Tom

[Warhammer]

The Mrs and I stayed and dove with Sandals Negril last fall. We had a good time overall and we enjoyed the diving. It was a pleasant treat compared to our normal quarry diving, but the fish life wasn't much to speak of. What fish there were were small and lobster traps littered the reef. You can read my full report on the trip on my website (http://user.intop.net/~greggg/trips.html#jamaica). I do suggest that you take your own gear if possible. At the very least you should take your own regs, mask, and fins. Their gear was aged, most all of the regs leaked and were in bad need of service.

The wife tells me that we may go to Sandals Dunn's River next summer, so do tell how it turns out. I suspect you'll have a great time, even if the diving is a little less than spectacular.

[Duca]

Thanks for the feedback.

My wife and I are both new to diving (read: I just got back from my second quarry dive day and got my temp C-card! woohoo!), so we are just hoping that it won't be a "bad" experience... we don't need it to be worthy of a PBS special.

I'm heading to another quarry next weekend to get some "adventure dive" experience towards my advance cert, which I will finish in FL (P.city) the last weekend in Sept. My wife will be finishing her OW down in FL.

We are trying toget as much experience as we can before we go to the carribean.

By the time we get there, we should have everything gear-wise witht he exception of tanks. Based on your experiences with the gear that we should expect down there, is it better to get my wife a Reg or a BC, if she has to choose? Here's my thoughts:

1. The Regs are obviously more important to safety. Either that means that the resort *HAS* to offer decent ones, or it means that we *HAVE* to get her one of her own that we know works well. How do you guys feel?

2. The BC, particularly for a petite woman, might be a more "personal fit for comfort" type item, so she might really be much better off with her own.

[Warhammer]

I'm speaking solely from a Sandals Negril standpoint here, but I'd choose regs over a BC. Sandals uses Cressie Sub gear including the BCs, at least they did at Negril and you'd think it would be standard at all their resorts. The BCs were older jacket style and adequate. If you want to buy a BC instead of a reg set, then rent a reg from a local shop that you trust and take it with you to Jamaica.

[sactomags]

We went to Sandals St. Lucia in '98 and did the two-tank morning dive every day (except one when we did an island tour). That one was less crowded and we had almost the same group each morning. The afternoon dives were always packed, plus the winds came up in the afternoon. Every dive was escorted, we used their gear which ranged from almost-new to pretty worn in for BC's . No problems with the regs either -- all seemed to be in good to excellent working condition. The DMs were are nice and eager to share. We did our first-ever night dive ... and there were only 4 of us who did that trip. That was the only dive that cost extra. All other diving was included in the price. Did we enjoy? Well, we'd do it again so I guess that says "yes."

Have friends who have been to Jamaica and all report it has been pretty over-fished and not a lot of good diving. But when all you know is cold water, or quarry diving (as you said), it is nice to dive warm water (I'm in California).


Hope you have a lovely trip,
Margaret

[Duca]

Well, I've completed AOW and started RD... and spent about $48k on gear. I'll probably have at least one, possibly two more Florida trips under my belt before we head to Jamaica.

We have just about all our own gear now except a good BC for my wife.

Does anyone know if they allow unsupervised shore diving from Sandal's resorts?

[DocVikingo]

Hi Duca,

Wow, $48,000 worth of gear? Now I like a man who is not afraid to go first class (wink).

There is nothing much to see on a shore dive off of that Sandals, and I suspect they would not be in favor of unsupervised shore dives from their property. Perhaps you should e-mail the dive shop before departing so you'll know what to expect.

Have fun.

DocVikingo