Cruise to St. Thomas and Grand Turk - Dive Op recommendations

[EL Pistoffo]

I was looking for answers in the Cruises section but not much goes on there.

Wife and I will be on a cruise in September. The stops we are interested in diving are St. Thomas and Grand Turk.

I'm looking for recommendations on good dive ops that would work well for cruisers. From what I've gathered so far, Blue Island Divers seems to be popular on St. Thomas. Still looking into Grand Turk.

We dove Cozumel and Grand Cayman on our last cruise a couple years ago on the recommendations found here on ScubaBoard and they were fantastic.

Thx

 

[anenomefishman]

I was looking for answers in the Cruises section but not much goes on there.

Wife and I will be on a cruise in September. The stops we are interested in diving are St. Thomas and Grand Turk.

I'm looking for recommendations on good dive ops that would work well for cruisers. From what I've gathered so far, Blue Island Divers seems to be popular on St. Thomas. Still looking into Grand Turk.

We dove Cozumel and Grand Cayman on our last cruise a couple years ago on the recommendations found here on ScubaBoard and they were fantastic.

Thx

try Oasis Divers, Grand Turk.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

try Oasis Divers, Grand Turk.

Hmm, just check their website. They seem to be the official dive Op for the cruise lines. Not sure if this a good or bad thing. At a quick glance they seem to be well reviewed. I'll look into it further. I just want to avoid the chance of this excursion being cancelled because of too few participants. Other thing is that booking through the ship adds $15 over booking direct yet their website states that cruisers must book through cruise line.

Well it's an option. Thx anenomefishman.

 

[jimw]

On St Thomas there is a nice shore dive at Coki Beach and a dive op to go with it--Cokidive, if I remember correctly. We have done it twice on cruise stops, first time we took a tour that included a stop at Coki for beach time--that was MUCH cheaper than taking a taxi sorta directly to Coki. I would take a tour again rather than hail a cab.........Grand Turk has few dive shops, about 3 as of our last visit. The one nearest the ship handles cruiseline divetrips. We normally schedule our own diving, but that caused a problem on GT last trip as we only had 2 divers and they put us with students and we did not get out to the wall. The first time there there were 4 divers and no problems--they use 25 ft Carolina Skiff type boats and 4 is a big group. Very nice wall dives, which is why we went back and suffered thru the students...........When I go again, I will use the ship trip or make sure I have 4 divers.

 

[mikeycanuk]

Oasis is the offical dive op of the cruise lines and on hook to them big time. The ships need excursions and Oasis signed up, took on the loans and now has many catamarans, dive boats etc. Can't speak to their op (we used GTdivers) but Craig is a DM who we dove with the year before on Salt Cay and he's a blast and works for Oasis.

 

[Jersey]

Skip Coki beach diving, go out on a boat. Coki is maybe 40 feet max, even out into the eel grass maybe 50, not much to see, couple broken lobster pots, not much coral. Can be some currents once out around the outflow pipes. And the DM's carry dog biskets to feed the fish, they get kind of agressive and I got a nice chunk taken out of my thumb by a mutton snapper. (I didn't have a bisket, I had my arms in front of me, fingers interlaced, thumbs pointed down. Bugger snuck up from below, next thing I know a couple pound snapper hanging off my thumb.)

There are 2 cruise ship ports in St. Thomas, opposite ends of Charlotte Amalie. Winward Passage Hotel is prolly 10 minutes from either and has a dive shop - Admiralty Dive - onsite. They advertise free pickup for cruise shippers and I've heard good things about them, though I've not been out with them. I dive with Red Hook, about a 20-30 minute drive from Charlotte Amalie, but only 5 minutes from the condo I stay at while working down there.

 

[anenomefishman]

Hmm, just check their website. They seem to be the official dive Op for the cruise lines. Not sure if this a good or bad thing. At a quick glance they seem to be well reviewed. I'll look into it further. I just want to avoid the chance of this excursion being cancelled because of too few participants. Other thing is that booking through the ship adds $15 over booking direct yet their website states that cruisers must book through cruise line.

Well it's an option. Thx anenomefishman.

last time we were in that area we dove with salt cay divers. salt cay is an island about 7 miles south of grand turk. some of the dive masters would go up and work for oasis for the cruise ships. they told us that oasis divers was best op on grand turk.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

I figure Oasis divers is a safe bet on Grand Turk. I'll just book it through the cruise line in that case.

Blue Island Divers seems to be popular with cruisers. They pick you up on their boat right at the docks. Lots of good things said about them. I'll book direct with them.

Thx for all the replies.

 

[CptTightPants21]

I recommend Admiralty for St. Thomas like the above poster. They are excellent.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

Ok, so Admiralty is another to consider. I'll look into how they handle my port times.