If you husband and buddy wanted to book with a local dive shop there will be a problem they need to be aware of... I was attempting this dive off a Cruise Ships and because you use tenders to ferry you to port, alot of time is wasted. We booked all of our dives through local dive shops (Cozumel and Roatan) but went with the cruise ship for Belize because of the time it took to get to shore!!! On our cruise ship, they pick you up at the boat saving a great amount of time and makes the dive possible....
However, our cruise line was having a tiff with the local tenders and we ended up going to the Grand Cayman instead... Bad for us cause we took this trip for one reason and that was to get a "taste" of Belize...
With this being said, I would suggest the same as above... Book through the ship for this dive and you with you friend book a snorkel... any other dives I would use the local dive shop...
Just my thoughts... lee
Just saw Laurie post, we were going to use Seasports as well but we had such a short window we decided to use the excursion... Laurie, did they pick you up at the ship??? We were on the same cruise and was told by Seasports they could not pickup at the ship at least they said they could not last year...