Cruise Diving in Belize?

[Phawkes]

The hubby and i will be cruising the Western Caribbean in June on the Carnival Dream with ports in Cozumel, Roatan, Belize and Costa Maya. We have all the dives booked (mostly due to suggestions I've read here) except for Belize. Due to having to tender to shore, should we just book with the ship, or venture out on our own? The itinerary says we'll be there from 8am-6pm EST. (6am-4pm local?) If we do book our own dives, any tried and true dive ops so we don't miss the ship's departure? Any help is much appreciated!

[TommyG74]

I just got back from Carnival Legend trip, Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, Grand Cayman. We dove in Belize with a local shop, Sea Sports. They were good, but there were 3 on out boat off the same ship that had a 4 PM Ship time last tender. We did have to push the operator to pick up anchor and get headed back to the pier he was in relax mode. Also on our first dive he did have us going to a depth of 130ft, it was a tough call for me, not having AOW, it was go with the group for that depth or turn around on me own with my wife and go back to the boat on our own. I would say go with the ship, although when we were there Carnival cancelled the dive, telling one person it was sold out, and telling another person it was cancelled due to lack of interest.

The 3rd diver that was with us on the Belize dive did go diving in Roatan with the excursion, he said it was it was much nicer than Belize.

Grand Cayman, wife and I did a shore dive on our own through Don foster which was a nice dive. It was the same dive the cruise offered for 69 a person. Me and my wife paid 60 total, that was renting a BCD, REG, and shorty. We did have time to do a second dive for the cost of a tank each, but wife wanted to ship.

[sparky923]

We cruised the first week of April on Norwegian and one of our stops was Belize. I went through the ship, and it wasn't that great. They used Hugh Parkeys. There were 2 Norwegian ships in Belize that day and they grouped both ships onto one dive boat. We had 4 groups of 6 plus a dive master in each group. We would anchor and all 4 groups dove from the same spot, just in different directions. I was really disappointed. We saw some nice sponges, but not much else. Maybe my expectations were too high, but it was pretty uneventful. Just a basic flat reef.

Over the last year, I've dove Roatan through Barefoot, Costa Maya through Costa Maya tours, Cozumel through Aldora divers and Belize was the only dive booked through the cruise ship, and it was far and away the worse. I'm pretty sure we will be going to the same 4 ports next year on a cruise, and I'm not sure what I will do as far as diving Belize.

This is Costa maya that I dove the day before.




Maybe I'll just go tubing with the kids in Belize.

[Zsuzsika]

We will be on the Dream in July; we are heading over to Ambergris Caye for the day if the ship remains in port till 5pm - I have not checked our itinerary yet. We have been to Belize City several times on a cruise, and don't think much of the dive sites you can get to by diving locally, though Seasports Belize (walking distance of the tender port) is a great dive operation. The ship's dive operator will take you to much better dive sites further out - but it's also very expensive.

I will be taking my dive group on a cruise next year and have some info at our website on how the fly/dive package in Belize works. If nothing else, you can see if it will work for you. Like I said, I too happen to be going on the Dream in July, but I have no idea how much time we have in Belize. Our ship next year remains in port all day.

[CajunDiva]

If you book through the ship, there should be 2 different options. The basic two tank dive trip will be close to where the ship docks. It is not so great. There is another (more expensive) two tank trip to Turneffe Atoll...THAT'S the one you want to book. When we were there we booked through the cruise line and a boat from Hugh Parkey's picked us up at the ship. That avoided lots of extra time tendering to shore and we had time to get over to Turneffe Atoll for the diving. It was fantastic and I would recommend it without a doubt

[Razorback76]

My wife likes to go on one cruise a year. I did the Turneffe dives last Nov through NCL. They were the worst dives of the lot. The crew was nice but were just going through the motions when selecting the sites. They just wanted to get it over with. Took us to the quickest ones they could. To be blunt...they were c**p dives. Was not at all worth the price they charge. Roatan and of course Coz would be the ones to go on imho. Because of this when i fly out once a year to a place Belize is not even on my radar.

[mbwilliamn]

My wife likes to go on one cruise a year. I did the Turneffe dives last Nov through NCL. They were the worst dives of the lot. The crew was nice but were just going through the motions when selecting the sites. They just wanted to get it over with. Took us to the quickest ones they could. To be blunt...they were c**p dives. Was not at all worth the price they charge. Roatan and of course Coz would be the ones to go on imho. Because of this when i fly out once a year to a place Belize is not even on my radar.

I've dove all of those sites and I agree with Razorback....Belize was the least impressive (and most expensive) of the lot. Just take the day off and soak up the rays.

Barefoot divers at Roatan, Aldora in Cozumel. Both awesome operations.

Costa Maya was a little different...we booked (as with all other places but Belize) our own trip. We drove about 30 minutes south of the port to a little fishing village. The first dive we swam through a cut in about 10 feet of water and dropped into a canyon. there were literally hundreds of monster tarpon....it was amazing! Two dives, lunch transport, was ~$100 each for 3 of us.