Roatan: Anthony's Key vs. Black Pearl

[timetraveler]

My buddy and I are booked on a Carnival Liberty cruise that will be in Roatan on October 22. Because of the possibility of weather-related changes to the ship's itinerary and the difficulty of matching the ship time with dive time, we've decided not to try to book our dive excursions independently. Carnival offers dives at either Anthony's Key Resort or Black Pearl on Roatan. Does anyone have experience with these cruise dive excursions, or with these dive operators? We've dived with Anthony's previously, but never with Black Pearl and we're wondering if we should try the Black Pearl cruise dive excursion this time, even though it's more expensive. Any thoughts?

 

[sbl212]

I received my certification at Anthony's. Although I stayed at the resort not diving through a cruise, from diving and talking with people who were on a cruise when I was there, they seemed to be happy diving with Anthony's. I don't know about Black Peal but, as you may know, Anthony's run boats on both side of the island so in case of bad weather they can just go to the other side assuming the weather isn't that bad.

 

[fattie1024]

My girlfriend and I are on the same cruise. We have dives booked each day. She fell in live with the Dolphin Dive offered through Carnival at Anthonys Key. I did a ton of research and AK has almost all great reviews. (except for the cost of their photos).

 

[Oldbear]

I have not dove with Black Pearl, but have with AKR. AKR was great and well set up. I would gladly recommend and dive myself with AKR.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

We spent a week at AKR a few years ago and loved it. One day, we saw them bring in a boat load of cruise ship divers to get them geared up. They were not crowded and AKR had 4 to 6 boats operational at the time, which was more than enough. The dive boat goes over to the cruise ship dock to do the pickup/drop off, which is about a 45 minute boat ride. Once you get there, most of the dive sites were 15 minutes from AKR's dock, so it's easy to bag some dives.

 

[mrmikey32]

Just got back yesterday from 3 weeks of cruising...

You can book dives the same day if the weather is an issue.

We booked when we got there and actually did it duriing lunch.

Try and get at least 4 people to go with, and you can get a driver for about 20 bucks each for the day.

feel free to ask