Caribbean cruise dive suggestions

[Fishermark]

My family and I will be going on a Caribbean cruise in November on Royal Caribbean. We will be going to Key West, Cozumel, and Belize City. I plan on diving at one of these locations with my son and daughter. Due to finances we will probably only be able to dive one location. Living in Florida I can go to Key West any time, so it will either be Cozumel or Belize City. Any suggestions as to which one? Any sites at either place recommended above another? For those familiar with cruise ships, is it better to line up a dive through the ship sore excursions, or line my own up at a local shop?

 

[Tractor Tom]

When divers talk about a destination in the Carib, Cozumel is ALWAYS near the top of the list. It is usually drift diving along the reefs there and very highly reguarded. Diving in Belize is usually off shore on the reef, a pretty good distance from Belize City. By unqualified, I'll state that I have never dived at either place. Will be going to Cozumel in the spring with my LDS.

As for diving from a cruise ship, I have done that on our last two cruises... First time on St. Croix and second time on three islands during a 10 day cruise with Celebrity, this past January. On each of those three islands, I did some reading on the internet and set up my own diving with vendors on the islands. On St. Maarten, the vendor I picked WAS the vendor that did business with the cruiseline and was very good. On Barbados and St. Thomas I picked a 'smaller' operator who provided a lot of bang for the buck and had an excellent time. Many of the dive operators that do business with the cruise lines, are real cattle boat operations and are not much fun. The one operator in St. Thomas, has a HUGE pontoon style boat, that handles about 50 divers. They pack you on, give you a safety briefing and a tank and take you out in the harbor for a 20 minute dive in the harbor. I stay away from them like the plague!

You might check the Rodales web site. There is a button there that says something like "where do you want to dive?" and you load in your distination and it will give you information on the operators at that location and comments from divers who have been diving with them. This is how I found my dive operators on Barbados and St. Thomas.

Good luck with the research and the diving!

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

I have dived at both locations off the NCL Sun. If you are only doing one then take Cozumel by all means. Belize was a two hour boat ride to some pretty mediocre diving. Cozumel, on the other hand, was fantastic. Definitely arrange your own diving. The cruise ship sponsoreed dive op was a cattle boat that was a rush em int eh water rush em back to boat kind of op. I heard a lot of complaints back on the Sun about what a slam bam thank you maam kind of day it was. In Cozumel I always use Aldora. Thye are a little more expensive but they use steel 120's and the bottom time is almost always over an hour. We chartered our own boat coming off the ship and it was fantastic. Their shop is right near the main cruise ship pier and they were very amenable to waiting for us. Remember, they won't let you off the ship for an hour after they dock. You may want to charter your own six-pack boat. Its a little more expensive but the one on one attention is fabulous. If you want to try a different shop I am sure you can get a lot of recommendations on this board. Just make sure they understand that you will be coming on a cruise ship and they will have to hold one of their morning dive boats. Good luck and let me know if I can help in any way.

 

[Fishermark]

Thanks!

 

[MAGELLAN]

Do both!

If your actually going to Belize city, the diving will be kind of far away, however, there isn't much to see in the city anyway (they do sell some pretty cool wood sculptures of sea creatures though). I don't know about dive shops actually on the mainland. There is a short plane trip you can take out to San Pedro island. I suppose this "flight" will not count against you? Don't know about that, otherwise you'll have to take a boat out and that could take awhile. If you go to San Pedro, try to make it out to HoChiMan Cut (SP?) it's a park you'll have to pay a fee to visit, but you'll see quite a variety of fish. We dove with Amigos Del mar just across from the Mayan Princess Hotel, they were very freindly, even gave us a boat ride to the air strip, when we were late.
Cozumel would be much easier, since you'll find plenty of diving opportunities where you dock. A dive site nearby is Chankanaub (sp) park. Again, you'll have to pay a fee to enter, but it's a good place to start.
I would reccomend making your own arrangements too, try to avoid the trips set up by the cruise people, it's not usually a good experience. Try to find small reputable operations. you can find out a lot from the internet and posting some more specific questions about dive operators here.