Best Dive Operators near Westin Grand Cayman
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Turtle Reef (at Macabuca/Cracked Conch) are a great couple of dives (and great lunch spot post dive). Sundivers is on site to rent tanks/weights from. You can go left or right on the miniwalls and both are nice dives (left has a Tarpon cave). Then main wall is also reachable with a short swim as well - just check currents as it is not always diveable.
Lighthouse Point (DiveTech) is excellent as well. The Guardian of the Reef statue is there at about 65 feet. Headling left is a great dive with a nice miniwall. Heading right you can follow ropes out accross the sand to a nice coral finger that gets you to the main wall - very dramatic. They also do scooter/DPV and night dives. Again, currents can sometimes be an issue.
We've seen lots of Turtles at both sites in 3 years of diving both sites!
OF is Ocean Frontiers out at East End (~50 minutes from 7mb). They are an awesome shop to dive with and a full service, valet dive resort. Great dive sites and will probably be able to get out to the incredible North Wall sites in July. There are a few sites at East End where sharks are almost guaranteed to join your dive group as well
We are heading down in two weeks and staying at Coconut Bay Condos in West Bay located next to Turtle reef. About a 1/3 of the price of what we paid for a condo on 7MB. No beach. Ironshore but with its own shore diving facility.
OF is Oceanfrontiers, a nice facility and dive op on the East End. Nice accommodations, pool, restaurant. Nice and quiet but could be too quiet for the nondiver. Really depends.
OF is Oceanfrontiers, a nice facility and dive op on the East End. Nice accommodations, pool, restaurant. Nice and quiet but could be too quiet for the nondiver. Really depends.
Sorry to hijack your thread but which part of Grand Cayman should we stay in. Looking at West Bay but only a few places left either in West Bay or into 7MB that are under $200/night. Should we be in a hurry to book? Looks like a lot are sold out based on online searches.
Calypso Cove?
Sunshine Suites?
Calypso Cove?
Sunshine Suites?
Doctorfish
Contributor
I generally would not recommend staying west and diving east. Too much time in the car. Maybe one day just to give it a try but I would certainly not want to do that for a week when there is so much good diving west and north. I know there are garden view 2 br condo units in Christopher Columbus and Anchorage which are around $200 a night off season. Nice quiet part of 7MB.
Clark Fletcher
Contributor
I'd just like to thank everyone for this thread. I'm taking my family (wife, son, daughter, and spouses) to Grand Cayman NEXT summer. And, we're most likely going to stay at the Westin.
Quite honestly, I thought my only option was to go through Red Sail since they have a shop at the Westin. It's nice to know that I have options because I too would like to stay away from the crowds (especially cruise ship crowds).
Also, I would like to dive both ends of the island. Nice to know I can stay on the west end and do a day trip to dive the east end.
Great information. Hope this thread continues for a while.
Quite honestly, I thought my only option was to go through Red Sail since they have a shop at the Westin. It's nice to know that I have options because I too would like to stay away from the crowds (especially cruise ship crowds).
Also, I would like to dive both ends of the island. Nice to know I can stay on the west end and do a day trip to dive the east end.
Great information. Hope this thread continues for a while.
howswedeofme
Contributor
BradMM - OF does a 3 tank dive on Wednesdays. We stayed at Coconut Bay and did an east end three-tank with them to make the drive worth our while. We were back at the dock around 2:30 I think, so not a terribly long day. We planned to end at the site off their dock because you can usually catch a few sharks bee-boppin around after lunchtime (and we did!). I'm glad we did it because my favorite dive site to date is out on the east end. We plan to do another 3 tank with them next time we are on island.
As others said, you can pick whoever you want to dive with. Every op will pick you up to bring you to the boat and bring you back. If you do a package with Dive Tech (3 days or more of 2 tanks), it includes shore diving at Lighthouse Point, as well. We like Dive Tech and DNS the best. I've also dove with Ambassador and liked them, too, just not quite as much (mostly based on the boats). DNS is full valet and will rig up all your gear and swap out tanks for every dive. They also have cookies instead of orange slices. Dive Tech will help with gear, but doesn't do full valet. Both have great instructors in the water who will search for good macro stuff to see (my favorite!) and generally pick pretty great dive sites (i.e., skipping the boring ones). I think we had 6-9 per boat when we dove with both ops last time, but it was also during the high season. We had two days with Dive Tech with just the four people in our group, too, so you never know. DNS leaves the dock earlier than all the other boats so the upside is if you go with them, you get your pick of the sites and are back earlier to get more shore diving in or have more time in the afternoon for the beach or site seeing. Dive Tech goes to the north wall quite a bit when the weather cooperates, so you wouldn't need to head to the east end to do North Wall diving. I believe DNS has a larger boat than the one we were on that goes to the North Wall sometimes, too.
I haven't stayed at Sunshine Suites, but their on site restaurant is our favorite place to eat on the island. We do breakfast there twice every trip.
tkaelin - so glad to hear you're staying at Coconut Bay! I think we talked about that on a different thread before but I didn't realize you had booked. Enjoy Hepp's Pipeline. We are going more toward the summer months for our next trip so we can get more shore dives in off the property. We only had 2-3 days when the current would cooperate when we were there during the month of January, which is still great for that time of year, but we wanted more!
As others said, you can pick whoever you want to dive with. Every op will pick you up to bring you to the boat and bring you back. If you do a package with Dive Tech (3 days or more of 2 tanks), it includes shore diving at Lighthouse Point, as well. We like Dive Tech and DNS the best. I've also dove with Ambassador and liked them, too, just not quite as much (mostly based on the boats). DNS is full valet and will rig up all your gear and swap out tanks for every dive. They also have cookies instead of orange slices. Dive Tech will help with gear, but doesn't do full valet. Both have great instructors in the water who will search for good macro stuff to see (my favorite!) and generally pick pretty great dive sites (i.e., skipping the boring ones). I think we had 6-9 per boat when we dove with both ops last time, but it was also during the high season. We had two days with Dive Tech with just the four people in our group, too, so you never know. DNS leaves the dock earlier than all the other boats so the upside is if you go with them, you get your pick of the sites and are back earlier to get more shore diving in or have more time in the afternoon for the beach or site seeing. Dive Tech goes to the north wall quite a bit when the weather cooperates, so you wouldn't need to head to the east end to do North Wall diving. I believe DNS has a larger boat than the one we were on that goes to the North Wall sometimes, too.
I haven't stayed at Sunshine Suites, but their on site restaurant is our favorite place to eat on the island. We do breakfast there twice every trip.
tkaelin - so glad to hear you're staying at Coconut Bay! I think we talked about that on a different thread before but I didn't realize you had booked. Enjoy Hepp's Pipeline. We are going more toward the summer months for our next trip so we can get more shore dives in off the property. We only had 2-3 days when the current would cooperate when we were there during the month of January, which is still great for that time of year, but we wanted more!
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