Cruise Ships?????

[CJ Waid]

Has anyone ever heard of a cruise ship offering scuba diving??? Like maybe a cruise ship that goes somewhere and has scuba as part of thier package??? I know you can't dive off the side of a cruise ship (well, your not suppose to), but I was wondering if anyone has taken a cruise on a big cruise line and heard of scuba offered???

[Hemlon]

Most cruise ships offer scuba trips as shore excursions. If you are looking for a dedicated scuba cruise, look for a smaller live-aboard. Blackbeards is a good one to check out!

[DiverLS]

I've been on two Princess Cruises, 1st in the Southern Caribbean and 2nd in the Western Caribbean. The first was in 96 and the second in 2001. At that time, Princess was the only line to allow you to book your dive through them. All the dives were good, and no "cattle boats." We were offered 2 or rarely 3 dives in the packages. The advantage of having the Cruise line book your dives is that if you are late, they won't leave without the group. You can go to their site at Princess.com. You can see the "shore excursions" for each cruise. The scuba diving is usually at the bottom of the list.

[rhyz]

I've done alot of Carnival cruises and depending on the stops and times in port they will have a couple of excursions with diving. I myself have only gone my own route and grabbed a charter on my own.

[JRScuba]

Did the Eastern Carribean on the Royal Carribean last year. They have a scuba section on the boat. If you signed up, you would do your class and pool on the boat. Then do your open water in one of the ports.
If you need any more info PM me.

[truck1]

Just about every cruise line I know of offers scuba excursions or snorkling usually both.The easiest thing to do if you are planning a cruisie is that you look up online the specific ship and cruise and it tell you every excursion offered.I generally use this link:
www.vacationstogo.com
They have just about every cruise ship and destination listed,along with excursions for all of the port of calls.They also have excellent discounts if you can leave at a moments notice.

[Jay_SMART_Diver]

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=120225

[Maule]

While im in the minority I think, as far as SB members are concerned, I find cruise diving to be a fun and cheap way to dive alot of different locations.

[ags1013]

although I have never taken a cruise, I have been diving with people from cruise ships on various vacations and they usually book their own, if they have experience, otherwise they get taken to very shallow dive sites and the quality is poorer than if you book on your own, based on your experience

[lazyturtle]

I've worked in many places that recieved cruise ships, and I have to make a comment about them. In general the worst diving in the area is offered for sale on the cruise ship. This is not done intentionally, it just works out like this:
Picking up passengers from the ship and taking them diving is a clockwork proceedure. Most excursions have a limited time frame (so the ship can sell 2 tours while in port). This means that the dives that you're taken to are the closest to the pickup point. Combine that with a big load (some operators take 10+ divers per trip) and the operator(s) going to the same 2 sites twice a day, 5-7 days a week and you get a pretty beat up dive site. My advice would be to scope out the area you will be visiting on your cruise online and arrange diving with a non-ship affliated dive shop. You'll get better dives and get better service that way.
Another point (at least to me) is that cruise ships take the lions share of the money you pay for your excursion. They typically contract the diving to the lowest bidder. One dive shop I worked for in the past got $30 per diver from the ship, while the ship sold the tour for $85!