Carribean cruise dive locations

[Bowtie22]

My wife and I are going on a Royal Carribean cruise in September and wanted to know where the most affordable dive charters are in Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

I don't feel like getting ripped off with the shore offered excursion package in either location if I can find another dive charter cheaper or a better dive site. If anyone has a list of diving charters or info please reply.

Also we are looking to meet others that may be on our cruise ship that would be interested in going with us on a dive.

Thanks

[Diver Lori]

If your time in port is tight, both ports of call have shore diving close by. Grand Cayman within walking distance at Eden Rock and Cozumel within a short taxi ride from the pier at the shore at La Cieba hotel.

[bobert]

I just went looking for the same info for my last RCCL cruise in June. I decieded to use Neptune Divers in Grand Cayman and was very happy with the dive and the overall experience, including getting there and back. In Cozumel I used Eagle Ray Divers and was extremly pleased with the dive, but the boat was almost as primitive as the ship's excurstion in Jamacia was. However, the real problem was the timing of the conection in Cozumel. Good luck.

[Tim Ingersoll]

The rip-off in cruise aligned dive trips is usually generated by the cattle boat atomosphere combined with the operators push to get everyone in and out of the water as fast as possible. You also have a huge variation in skill level which leads to a dive being held to the level of its weakest divers. The dive ops also enforce the OW dive depth limits. The price was usually within $25.00 of a regular dive trip. The problem with arranging your own diving in port is that the dive op usually wants to fill a boat if they are going to hold one back for the morning dive trip. The only way to fill the boat is to get people lined up before you leave port. We did this on one cruise by posting on cruisecritic.com and asking for other divers to commit. We (three of us) have also chartered our own six-pack boat for about 150% of the cost of a regular two tank dive trip. This is by far the most awesome way to do it. We had two dives in Cozumel on a charter with Aldora which rank in the top ten in my log book. Good luck!