Southern Carribean Cruise, November 2015, port guidance

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redlohdr

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Messages
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Location
Western Pennsylvania
# of dives
25 - 49
Apologies if I should not start a new thread for this. I've looked pretty thoroughly and cannot find cruise-friendly dive operator info for most of the ports we will be hitting in November (Cruising on Celebrity, in case it matters).

We have 4 divers / 2 snorkelers in our party. Snorkelers will happily go site seeing if combined diving/snorkeling isn't possible. Through the cruise ship forum, we may be able to round up another pair of divers to make a solid six pack. I'll be referring tripadvisor as well, but would like to know if anyone has any direct experience with operators at these ports, positive experiences (or otherwise), etc.

Sailing out of San Juan
* Tortula
* Fort De France
* Roseau, Dominica
* Basseterre, St Kitts
* Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas
* Back to San Juan
 
If the cruise operator for St. Thomas is Underwater Safaris you may want to pick someone else - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/le...ri-avoid-dive-shop-st-thomas.html#post7302497 Some of the cruise lines also do excursions to Coki Beach - it's a pretty shallow, somewhat average dive but they also offer snorkel/snuba there. Coki Dive Center | St Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands | Scuba and Snorkel

Two choices are Admiralty Dive Center or Blue Island Divers. Both are reviewed here favorably often. Either will pick you up at the cruise port - practically right off the dock.
St. Thomas Scuba Diving - USVI Dive Center | Admiralty Dive Center
St. Thomas scuba diving

We B Diving is about a block or so from the cruise pier on Tortola. IDK if they're the cruise operator. We Be Divin Location, Road Town, Tortola, BVI If not it's probably one of these since that's about all of them - bviscuba.org

That might be one place where I'd plan separate trips. The signature cruise dive is the RMS Rhone Wreck off Salt Island. The wreck is in two pieces - the front half is at 70' and the end of the back around 35'. I'm sure I saw 50+ there also - it's a real long ship. (300' total)

IMO opinion, the best snorkeling is probably at the world famous Baths on Virgin Gorda - there's cruise excursions and day trips there from Tortola just for it. Some operators even do day trips from St. Thomas. It's often listed as one of the top 10 snorkels in the world and has very interesting rock formations also. The Baths - Virgin Gorda - Reviews of The Baths - TripAdvisor

The Rhone is a little deep for any kind of decent snorkeling although Salt Island is nearby so I suppose it's possible to do both there. I haven't heard the best things about it but there's also a dolphin encounter on Tortola for non-divers.

Except for DveBVI, I know all the other shops by reputation only as I don't cruise.
 
Thanks, Steve - great info!

Doing some parallel research, I found the RMS Rhone as the "must do" dive in Tortola. The cruise offers it as a 2-tank dive excursion at $160/person. Local dive operators offer 2-tank dives (inclusive of equipment) anywhere from $100/person (Blue Water Divers) to $120 per person (We B Diving). This is our first cruise, and I've been repeatedly cautioned about arranging my own excursions, as the ship doesn't wait if we are not back in time. So finding a cruise-friend local operator would be very important in order to save $80-$100 between my son and I.

Thanks again for the input! If anyone else out there has advise on cruise-friendly dive operators any of the ports I mentioned earlier, I'll gladly soak it up.
 
I will be hitting St Kitts in a few weeks as well as St Thomas. I am going on the RCCL Quantum of the Seas. I have dives planned with Blue Island and with Dive St kitts. I will try to respond when I get back with reviews for both of them. Reason I wanted to do them is I read reviews how they would go out with few people on the boat even if it was not a busy day. I have been on many a cruise (82 nights RCCL alone) and found many times the cruise line cancel a dive due to "lack of participation".
 
Thanks, Patrick. I'll be very interested in your reviews of those operators. I've also heard that cruise lines can cancel, and definitely want to know my options.
 
There's no such thing as shore diving off Tortola so you're looking at a boat ride if you want to dive there. It's about 5miles across the channel to Salt Island. The small unmarked island just west of there on this map is Dead Chest - where Painted Walls is - the other site you may've read about for cruise dives.

So I really don't see the downside. There'll be about a dozen boats from Tortola at the Rhone also during the day - it's pretty popular. So on the extremely unlikely chance that yours broke down you could likely get a ride/tow back.

I was wrong about snorkeling the Rhone - some of the wreckage is as shallow as 20'.

I see a lot of posts where it's recommended that you book thru the cruise line to guarantee they won't leave you - often by the cruise line. I think they sell a lot of cruise excursions that way.

On St. Thomas Blue Island does dives south of the port - many are pretty close to the cruise pier. Should your ship dock at Crown Point Marina instead - the shop/boats are there also. Blue Island Divers Dive SItes

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Id be curious about this as well as I'm doing this exact cruise I October. I can tell you one thing though, if you coordinate w/ the dive op you go with and let them know you'll be on a cruise (They deal w/ this a lot) they'll make sure you're back. I've probably done 30 or 40 dives from cruise ships and none have been w/ the ship. Haven't been late yet. Haven't even been close to be honest. Just let them know. SO back to the locations, I've read that Dominque may not be a great place to dive but i'd like any input others have.

Dave
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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