My husband and I, along with our 18-year-old daughter, are going to be in Australia in early April. We are staying in Sydney a few days at either end of our trip, but want to do some diving in the middle 2-3 days diving with day trips to rainforest, etc. after before flying back to Sydney. We are all certified Recreational divers, but only get to dive a couple of times a year mostly Caribbean islands, Mexico, Belize, etc. We mostly stick to shallow dives and aren't particularly interested in wreck diving - we are definitely amateurs! Daughter has had issues with pressurizing last couple of dives, so we want to have the option of letting her stay at the hotel pool or snorkel if problems persist. We were originally enchanted with Lizard Island, despite the price of the resort, but the $700pp transport is giving me pause. It seems as if Port Douglas would be a good base, but I'm unclear, even after reading threads, if that is a good choice. We are not at all fussy about needing to visit certain spots or any adventure diving (I've been to Belize 3 times and never made it to the Blue Hole!), and are perfectly content as long as we see a variety of fish, nice coral, maybe a turtle, etc.
Live-aboards don't seem to be a good option in case daughter can't dive, so it seems either basing in Port Douglas or on an island would be our best bet - so I'm looking for suggestions for either another island with a resort or an opinion regarding operators in Port Douglas (or maybe Palm Cove is better?) that are small-boat operators vs. the giant snorkel/scuba outfits.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Live-aboards don't seem to be a good option in case daughter can't dive, so it seems either basing in Port Douglas or on an island would be our best bet - so I'm looking for suggestions for either another island with a resort or an opinion regarding operators in Port Douglas (or maybe Palm Cove is better?) that are small-boat operators vs. the giant snorkel/scuba outfits.
Any help is greatly appreciated!