Aquarium Diving

[xyrandomyx]

If $60 gets you two boat dives, I have to try South Africa diving.


Please pardon any typos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dive boats here are all RIBs, so that might explain the price. But, yeah, around $30 is the going rate. A bit cheaper in the more popular areas for diving in SA; also a bit cheaper if you get a 10-dive boat card; a bit more expensive if it's an infrequently dived site with a long ride out. So $60 for an aquarium dive seemed pretty steep to me and some of the prices in this thread seem totally ridiculous.

 

[maniago]

Dive boats here are all RIBs, so that might explain the price. But, yeah, around $30 is the going rate. A bit cheaper in the more popular areas for diving in SA; also a bit cheaper if you get a 10-dive boat card; a bit more expensive if it's an infrequently dived site with a long ride out. So $60 for an aquarium dive seemed pretty steep to me and some of the prices in this thread seem totally ridiculous.

Not trying to be snooty, because I think its possibly a missed business opportunity, but here you'd get laughed off the boat dock if you ushered people to a RIB for money, mid-atlantic speaking....

 

[dytis-sm]

One thing to consider is that some (many?) aquariums will not let you use your own gear (contamination concerns).

That ruled it out for my dive buddy since without her prescription mask she could not see anything.

The mask should not be an issue. The contamination concern is for BCDs, gloves, hoods, etc., basically neoprene and equipment that may have retained water and therefore organisms found in open ocean...

---------- Post added April 20th, 2014 at 11:12 PM ----------

Aquarium of the Pacific | Exhibits | Webcam: Tropical Reef - the AOP dive live. Dives start after 3PM Pacific.

There are dives throughout the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific. I volunteer during the day so I know that the morning dives/presentations during the week are (times PST) 9:45am at the Blue Cavern, 10:30am at the Tropical Reef (feeding), 11:15am at the Blue Cavern (feeding), 12:15pm Tropical Reef. I am not sure about the remainder of the day since I am on a morning shift but you can check out the action through the day until 4:30 the last presentation for the day.

You can checkout the "LIVE" action when there are presentations (camera shows a LIVE red box). The rest of the day the feed is pre-recorded (camera status is OFFAIR).

 

[Diving Dubai]

You Can dive Dubai Aquarium which costs $186 for a 30 min dive. You aren't allowed any of your own gear - they provide it all to ensure no contamination. It's a bit Steep but then again is is quite a big one with a max depth of 36' Not sure how it matches with those in the USA ..The blurb on it is as follows

A purposely built shark aquarium, with a capacity of 10 million litres of salt water (2,645,000 US Gallons), the Dubai Mall Aquarium is home to over 33,000 creatures from 140 species. The aquarium is the largest suspended aquarium in the world and houses one of the most diverse collections around. There are over 400 sharks and rays in the tank, including the world’s biggest collection of Sand Tiger sharks. Other shark species include black-tip and white-tip reef sharks, zebra sharks, wobbegongs, grey reefs and nurse sharks. There are also many ray species in the aquarium including cow-nose rays, fan-tails, eagle rays, leopard rays, shave-nose rays and bowmouth guitarfish. Other fish in the tank include tropical species such as napoleon wrasse, batfish, big-eye trevally, clown fish, faint grouper, giant trevally, moray eels, snappers and unicornfish

Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo | About | Aquarium Tank

 

[diversteve]

There are dives throughout the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific. I volunteer during the day so I know that the morning dives/presentations during the week are (times PST) 9:45am at the Blue Cavern, 10:30am at the Tropical Reef (feeding), 11:15am at the Blue Cavern (feeding), 12:15pm Tropical Reef. I am not sure about the remainder of the day since I am on a morning shift but you can check out the action through the day until 4:30 the last presentation for the day.

None of what you listed seems to allow members of the public dive community to dive - or am I mistaken?

I was only referring to this since the OP refers to dives the public can do at aquariums - Aquarium of the Pacific | Education Program | Dive Immersion

Your chance to dive in an Aquarium exhibit!

Journey into our warm, 350,000-gallon Tropical Reef Habitat and meet more than 1000 tropical fish up close and personal. In this two and a half hour experience, you get a personal behind-the-scenes tour of our dive program, a dive in our largest exhibit,

Availability: Daily Time: 3:00-5:30 p.m.
Capacity: 4 participants

The rest of the day the feed is pre-recorded (camera status is OFFAIR).

I see that now...5AM and there's sunlight in the shark lagoon tank....LOL. I don't suppose there's any chance of diving it?..

 

[Derek S]

I've dove the Epcot Living Seas exhibit and while it's expensive, it's worth it, IMHO. You're already there, and the look on other guest's faces (especially the kids ) is priceless. Plus, you get to see myriad marine life in one spot that you won't elsewhere. It's pretty cool. No, I wouldn't choose it over a specialty dive vacation, but if you're going to be there anyway...

 

[dytis-sm]

None of what you listed seems to allow members of the public dive community to dive - or am I mistaken?

I was only referring to this since the OP refers to dives the public can do at aquariums - Aquarium of the Pacific | Education Program | Dive Immersion
I see that now...5AM and there's sunlight in the shark lagoon tank....LOL. I don't suppose there's any chance of diving it?..

The AOP program allows diving only in the Tropical Reef. Even among the volunteers, only those trained specifically for Shark Lagoon, are allowed to dive it. There are special safety precautions/protocols for that. But the Tropical Reef where the guests dive has a few Zebra sharks and some smaller bonnet heads.

 

[dallaskincaid]

I've done it a couple of times. Once when I was a new diver, and then when my girlfriend had just got certified as kind of a training dive before her first dive in an actual ocean. The best part of it, in my opinion, is the ability to interact with visitors to the aquarium. After that, it gets boring quick.

 

[RooCeleste]

You Can dive Dubai Aquarium which costs $186 for a 30 min dive. You aren't allowed any of your own gear - they provide it all to ensure no contamination. It's a bit Steep but then again is is quite a big one with a max depth of 36' Not sure how it matches with those in the USA ..The blurb on it is as follows

A purposely built shark aquarium, with a capacity of 10 million litres of salt water (2,645,000 US Gallons), the Dubai Mall Aquarium is home to over 33,000 creatures from 140 species. The aquarium is the largest suspended aquarium in the world and houses one of the most diverse collections around. There are over 400 sharks and rays in the tank, including the world’s biggest collection of Sand Tiger sharks. Other shark species include black-tip and white-tip reef sharks, zebra sharks, wobbegongs, grey reefs and nurse sharks. There are also many ray species in the aquarium including cow-nose rays, fan-tails, eagle rays, leopard rays, shave-nose rays and bowmouth guitarfish. Other fish in the tank include tropical species such as napoleon wrasse, batfish, big-eye trevally, clown fish, faint grouper, giant trevally, moray eels, snappers and unicornfish

Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo | About | Aquarium Tank

I just dove the Dubai Aquarium last month with Al Boom Diving and it was GREAT! It's a 10 million liter tank with lots of different species and a bunch of sharks, some quite big! It was about $186 USD for 30 minutes and the GoPro card was $50 USD. You cannot bring anything of your own other than your mask (and I wore my dive watch) but their equipment is top notch. They provide everything else including a 7mil wetsuit with which I was still shivering at the end because the water was 73 degrees. Max depth was 35 feet. I was lucky and had the aquarium and divemaster to myself (he was EXCELLENT and really friendly, even giving me shark teeth he found on the bottom of the aquarium during our dive), but I later saw a duo who was diving together with a divemaster. You WILL be escorted around the tank and told where to sit or hold onto the rocks; it is NOT a free-for-all dive doing whatever you want wherever you want.

It was a really neat experience to realize you're diving in an aquarium, and having four levels of people standing there watching you...and the best part is when the people in the tunnel through the aquarium realize you're above them! You will be given one ticket to the aquarium that you can give to a friend, so they can walk along with you and take pictures. As my friend was progressing along the viewing wall with me, she realized she was about to be funneled out of the aquarium (through Rainforest Cafe, no less) so she told the guard she was not going to leave just yet because I was still in there diving. So she circled back around and was able to keep taking pictures.

Definitely a MUST DO if you're in Dubai. I was wishing I had more time to do their whole series of dives in the aquarium....next trip!

The only bad part about the dive is that there is no hairdryer in the bathroom, so you have to walk around the fancy Dubai Mall with wet hair unless you want to pay one of the salons a whopping $35-50 USD just to blowdry your hair or wear a ball cap, like I did.......and I got quite a few looks from the Emirati people with my ball cap on!

 

[GrandpaScuba]

I guess aquarium diving is the diving equivalent to a petting zoo. Like a petting zoo, disease transfer is an issue, but to the animals, not the humans. Many aquarium diving programs require you to use their suits and equipment. Since your equipment has probably been used in the wild and they don't know what bacteria or parasites might be hiding on your stuff.