Is it worth going to Ambergris for the day from a cruise ship?

[captio2000]

I understand there are absolutely wonderful places to dive in Belize but my trip to Ambergris Caye was kind of underwhelming. I hear the atolls are wonderful.
I do want to bring up an issue no one else has discussed though. Taking a plane (Mayan Air) to the island may not be a problem but you shouldn't fly back the same day to catch your ship. I suggest you work with the LDS local to the ship's port to eliminate risk of DCS from flying the same day as diving.

 

[chillyinCanada]

If your concern is expense you're better off to take the dives from the cruise ship. It'll save you time and money and my understanding is that the dives are at Glover's. You'll enjoy. And yes, east winds blow out the diving. It is unfortunate that AmbergrisCaye is so affected. I always stay on the island for fairly long periods of time so being blown out for a few days isn't problematic for me but if I was only doing one week and certainly one day when weather negatively affects, indeed,that is problematic!!

By the way, Elbert is the owner of White Sands diving on Ambergris Caye not Belize City operator.

 

[Seymour Fisch]

As just one more data point:

I was in a similar situation as the original poster, on a RCI cruise a little over a year ago, as part of a mini-convention group, and I'm not a fan of large ship cruising. In Cozumel, I booked independently (fantastic experience with Scuba with Alison), but for Belize, based on what I had read on-line, I opted for the ship's dive excursion (to Turneffe Atoll).

As noted earlier in this thread, the big cruise ships all anchor quite far offshore for Belize City, necessitating tenders to get to shore. The biggest plus of using the cruise ship's dive excursion is getting off the boat first, directly to the dive boat, with no need for taking a tender into Belize City. Also, if there are any delays, with the cruise ship's excursion, the ship will wait for you. The operator we had was Hugh Parkey's Belize Dive Connection, and I think they handle all the cruise ship dive excursions. We got picked up directly by the dive boat... I think it was a 40-50' boat, with about 18 divers, 3 DMs, captain, and mate, iirc. With a big, fast boat, the rides were comfortable, and the boat didn't feel crowded. They took us from the cruise ship to their dive center on Spanish Look-Out Caye to pick up rental gear, tanks, etc., and from there to Turneffe Atoll.

They split us into three groups, with 1 DM for each. They said they normally split by ability, but since there was a bunch of us from the convention, they kept us together as a group of 7 (of widely varying experience), with the other divers in two other groups. We dove two sites: Mandy's Dandy and another site whose name I don't recall at the moment. The diving was very pleasant, with great viz and lots of corals and sponges, but I'm too inexperienced to say how it'd compare globally. It didn't strike me as that much different from my dives in Cozumel on the same trip, though. The DM sent the faster breathers up separately, letting the others have more bottom time, but I'm sure they had an overall time limit, too. After the dives, they took us directly back to the cruise ship, and we circled for a while to watch dolphins playing in our bow wave. The entire trip was an all-day affair.

People on Scubaboard seem to be pretty positive about Hugh Parkey's in general, and I was very happy overall: easy logistics, fast comfortable boat, not too crowded, friendly helpful crew, great diving. My only caveats are that the rental gear was very beat up (my buddy got a broken fin, my first reg set was missing a ziptie on the mouthpiece), and my DM was the only one of the 3 who seemed rather sullen. He also told me to abandon my buddy, saying that watching my buddy was his responsibility... (My semi-insta-buddy was a trained firefighter, so he was great at buddy skills, very situationally aware. However, he was an even newer diver than me and was having problems with his buoyancy, equalization, his broken fin, and being overweighted.) I don't recall there being any snacks provided, but there was a big cooler of drinking water.

The overall cost going through the cruise line was more than going independent: I think it was somewhere between $150-$200 for the two dives with all gear. But I was happy to have done that, avoid all hassles, and get away from the cruise ship masses for the day. If I'm in the same situation again, I wouldn't hesitate to do the same trip; but if I had a really long port call, though, I'd probably try one of the local operators, just for variety.

I hope that's helpful for someone...

 

[chillyinCanada]

Turneffe is great diving.

 

[AWMIII]

Belize City is not an ideal place from which to start a dive, but that is where the ships go. That said the independent day 2 tank trips from Belize City are MUCH more expensive than from the Cayes. The trade off is that there are very few people diving other than the cruise passengers in the places where the cruisers dive. Most diving in Ambergris Caye revolves around a 9am start for the first of 2 dives. Diving later in the day is done, but is not nearly as common. It looks like both Maya and Tropic start their days from Municipal at 930 during the week. They do fly earlier on the weekends, but could you really get off the boat and to Municiapl by 7:30? So you would likely miss the first dive.


As for flying on the puddle jumpers after diving, the pilots are good at spotting wet passengers. I have been on the plane where we never went above 1,000ft. A quick word with the pilot would keep him low.


Its not worth the hassle. Huge Parkeys and Sea Sports both have good reputations and nice boats. For reference, Sea Sports charges 125 for 2 tanks without equipment. Diving on Ambergris is 75-85 plus tax and equipment unless you are diving multi day.

 

[olphart]

I don't get the negative attitude toward cruise ships. I've been on several, including that Carnival dive cruise, and for most dives, arranged my own, though the ones provided by the ship, while more money, were fine. I would certainly use HP in Belize.

As for the "crappy" ships, you try to find a resort where the food, cleanliness and service come anywhere close to a cruise ship for less than $100/per night. I'm not a fan of cruise ship life as such, but at least there's a show after dinner every night, after which you can toddle off to a clean comfortable room, or go clubbing if that's your thing. I've certainly never been to an AI resort where the food and service came anywhere close to the worst of my experiences on a cruise ship. The best cruise, and the worst I was on were both Carnival; and even the worst was pretty damn good, just had to ask for a different waiter.

The biggest negative for me is the short time ashore can mean tight scheduling for dives or sightseeing, though a two day stop in Maui made that a non issue on that cruise. I recommend a balcony cabin for dive gear,and if you're concerned about instabuddies, (or even if you're not), I highly recommend travelling with your own buddy..more fun that way I've found.

 

[AWMIII]

I don't get the negative attitude toward cruise ships. I've been on several, including that Carnival dive cruise, and for most dives, arranged my own, though the ones provided by the ship, while more money, were fine. I would certainly use HP in Belize.

As for the "crappy" ships, you try to find a resort where the food, cleanliness and service come anywhere close to a cruise ship for less than $100/per night. I'm not a fan of cruise ship life as such, but at least there's a show after dinner every night, after which you can toddle off to a clean comfortable room, or go clubbing if that's your thing. I've certainly never been to an AI resort where the food and service came anywhere close to the worst of my experiences on a cruise ship. The best cruise, and the worst I was on were both Carnival; and even the worst was pretty damn good, just had to ask for a different waiter.

The biggest negative for me is the short time ashore can mean tight scheduling for dives or sightseeing, though a two day stop in Maui made that a non issue on that cruise. I recommend a balcony cabin for dive gear,and if you're concerned about instabuddies, (or even if you're not), I highly recommend travelling with your own buddy..more fun that way I've found.

The negative attitude comes from two sources. Cruise passengers overwhelm attractions and can ruin it for others. The sheer number cause this as well as the tendency for the passengers to lose their sense of self and become a part of the group. This can cause them to seem rude to people who are not part of the group.

The other cause for negativity comes from people like myself that really want to visit a place, not just go past it. A typical dive day for me in Belize involves rolling out of bed. Throwing on a pair of board shorts and walking 10 minutes barefoot up the beach to the shop. Then I check in and make sure they have a trip. Afterwards, I walk over to a place and either grab a couple of meat pies or a fry jack from a deli to eat on the dock or have a light sit down breakfast on the beach next to the dock. The boat leaves at 9. My gear is assembled for me in the boat. The groups are usually less than 10, sometimes as few as 2. After a 5-10 minute boat ride, I throw my rig into the water and jump in to get out of the way of the less experienced divers. Then I descend for 50 minutes, get back into the boat for a 5-10 minute ride back to the dock. I walk over to a little cafe on the beach, have a smoothie or iced coffee and maybe a snack if I feel like it. After the 90 minute surface interval, we are in the water back at it just like the first dive. Another 50 minutes is spent at a somewhat shallower depth. When we return to the dock, I rinse off under the dock shower, rinse and hang up my rash guard and booties, and go to lunch with my wife and or daughter usually on the beach. After lunch we walk 10 minutes back to the room for a real shower and a nap. Then we hang by the pool until we head out to dinner. We either walk or take a water taxi to any one of about 40 places for dinner. Dinner might be a lobster burrito for two for $14us with a couple of $1 beers in a place full of people that live there. Sometimes we go out for a nice dinner on the beach and spend about $25us per person. Maybe then we take our daughter out for ice cream. Then, we walk home and go to bed. In the morning we do the same thing. I can do this for weeks straight. Occasionally, we go fishing to mix it up. My wife and daughter dive about half as much as I do. That's the San Pedro diving lifestyle. It is very different from being herded around with a couple thousand of your newest (drunken) friends. It is not for everyone.

 

[Downing]

The way i look at it, the more people riding around in cruise ships, the more room there is for me everywhere else.

Until one parks off shore. Then you have to make adjustments until it leaves and life can return to normal.

 

[Yoyodyne-88]

"A Tourist knows where they are going. A Traveller knows where they have been."

I'd rather be a traveller. Not a prisoner in a floating mall.

 

[UKmarcus]

Ok, well I'm back. Got a nasty case of Fire Coral burn in Cozumel at Palancar Reef but other than that, all is well. The answer to my question is no, it's not worth it - and I'm glad I didn't try. Someone else on the ship tried, and after flying there, the trip was cancelled.

The ship stays waaaay off shore and the tender at Belize City is so long, that there's no doubt in my mind that it's totally worth taking the ship's tour for this particular destination. I'm so glad I did. Hugh Parkey is a top notch operation and the slickest of the entire itinerary. They took us all the way to Turneffe Atoll, which is where divers go who are staying there for a lot longer than one day. It was a long boat ride but their boat was FAST covering the 20-25 miles in a decent amount of time. Sure, thee were more than six of us, but they divide you into small groups of 5 so it really doesn't matter. Plenty of staff to go around. The diving itself was good, but not fantastic and not really what I was hoping for, but that goes for the entire itinerary (and not the subject of my question. I think I just need to hit the Red Sea or Fiji to see what I'm hoping for).

To summarize the rest of the cruise: I went independent in Cozumel with Deep Blue, who were great, although it was a 20 minute cab ride into town (cheap) - and I think there must be someone closer than that, since the dive boat drove us all the way back, past the ship again, and then some which was a little pointless. In Roatan, I again dove independently with West End Divers who were also pretty good, but another 20 minute ride to the west end of the island. No real way around that if you want to dive where it's at. Reef is so close to shore, we took our SI back at the dive store. Finally, in Caymen, I took the ship's offering again with Don Foster, since my original choice would have missed the last tender. Yeah, it's another tendering port but must closer, and Don Foster is very close to where you exit - but so is everyone else. They were good but I would try someone else next time since they spent about 15 minutes explaining how to fill out a waiver form, which drove me NUTS and they all just talked waaaay too much like they were tour guides or something. Great little boat but no snacks. Finally, if you're contemplating something like this, be aware some ships keep their own time zone (Miami in this case) and destinations will be about an hour behind, which can cause you to miss the ship if you're not paying attention. To make matters worse, Roatan doesn't have day light savings, which means it was 2 hours behind ship's time. So when the ship tells you to be back at the port by 3pm, you need to tell the dive store 1pm, and plan accordingly.

Thanks for all your input!~