Best place for diving on a budget?

[LavaSurfer]

I hear the diving in hawaii isnt all that great, but I have never been diving there so dont know from first hand experience. Although I am tempted to visit hawaii as I just found RT airfare to the big island for $326, but hotel rates are killing any chances of me going unfortunately

Hotel rates are not that bad unless you are into staying at the resort hotels that sit on a beach. Get away from the resorts and you will discover a whole other Hawaii.

Royal Kona Resort and King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel are good ones and the rates arent too bad. Name brand hotels will wipe you out like the Hilton, Sheraton
and Marriott.

You can get rooms as low as $70/night, I have done it often.
I rent my 1500 sq ft condo at $120 night and its better than any hotel.
I am not trying to sell my condo but make a point, There are many myths about hawaii.

Also check out www.vrbo.com, thats where I advertise my place and there are many options. Condo's are ALMOST ALWAYS better priced than Hotels and have more room.

As or the diving, Personally, I like the diving there. Its very diferent from the Caribbean in a good way. Its all subjective. Maybe others can pipe in on Hawaii's diving.

 

[herman]

I'll be recieving my OWC shortly, and I'm in Chicago. What is the best place for diving on a budget? This means I will mostly be shorediving. Also looking for a cheap hotel. Any recommendations? I'm thinking Bonaire? Is there any good shorediving in Aruba or Cancun?

Welcome to the board.
On a per dive basis it's pretty hard to beat Bonaire or Curacao, I typically do 3 to 5 dives a day on these islands with each dive at least an hour long. In addition to cost, as new diver you need to consider the level of diving in the area. Some locations, here in NC for example, don't really offer the best dives for new divers. Both locations offer some fairly easy diving but at the same time the diving is really good. Getting to Bonaire has gotten easier lately. There is a flight out of Huston on Contental Airline starting in Dec and the charter out of Ft Lauderdale starting in Nov, both flights run in the $500 range. If you don't insist on accomidations that are on the water and there is really not much need on Bonaire, you can get room/truck/dive packages in the $500pp range putting a complete trip out of Huston or FLL in the $1300- 1500 range. Drop me a PM if you would like some specific places to stay on Bonaire.
Again, welcome to the board.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I hear the diving in hawaii isnt all that great

You hear wrong.
Rick

 

[Rick Murchison]

Around here we have Lake Martin. Cost is gas to get there and gas for your tanks.
For warm salt water, with a little research, and especially if you're willing to camp, you can get a lot of diving in the Keys (10 dive packages) for very little. I haven't tried shore diving around Ft. Lauderdale but that's probably a good budget place too.
To dive places like Bonaire "on a budget"... pack plenty of peanut butter.
Rick

 

[tiggrr]

Thanks to this thread, I have some local diving lined up. I'm looking for some warm weather diving too. Seems like cancun airfare is cheaper, is there shorediving in cancun? Do they charge to shoredive?

If you have cheap airfare to cancun, you may as well go to cozumel. Fly into cancun, hop the bus to Playa Del Carmen, then take the ferry to Cozumel. There's decent shore diving from the hotels along the beach though, I think you have to be a guest to access. Its mostly boat/drift diving there but, its amazing. I can't remember the hotel a friend was staying at (not on beach) but it was like $35 a nite. PM me if you have questions.

Don't know how cheap you are looking for but, the way I usually do it is cheap airfare, cheap hotel or room, and most of $ spent on diveboats.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

My instructor went to Hawaii last year and found some great, inexpensive mom and pop places to stay. She said you just have to look around and get away from the tourist trap areas. I don't think she was diving on that trip though. Opinions on dive sites are going to vary greatly. I have heard Hawaii diving is both great and it's not great, which to believe? Going to any site with expectations of paradise will leave it coming up short in your mind, each site is going to be different but for a new diver with only cold water experience the diving is going to have a lot of WOW factor. Conditions at sites are constantly changing, you may have excellent vis one day and not so excellent vis the next but the "quality" of the vis whether great or bad is in the mind of the diver. A diver who regularly dives in limited vis (5-15 feet) is going to be excited about 60 feet of visibility while a diver who regularly dives in 100+ feet of visibility is going to call the visibility bad. You can enjoy a dive at a new location no matter what the visibility; get some books and try learning to identify some local fish/coral/plants/wildlife/whatever before you go then see if you can find and identify them on your dive.

We really enjoyed Grand Turk when we went there, don't know what airfare is but the dive package and hotel were reasonable. Right now anywhere you have to fly is probably going to cost a lot unless you can find some of the special deals that are out there. We ended up finding great airfare to Nassau last year at the last minute so we did a last minute change to our plans to do a driving vacation to Michigan and had a fantastic time diving the warm waters of the Bahamas. Tobermory Ontario is another inexpensive place to dive. They have some great shallow wrecks that are fun for beginners as well as some great deep ones that you need experience with deep, cold diving to dive safely. We dove with G&S and the deeper dives were $59 Canadian (two dives) with the shallower ones being $55 Canadian. Don't rule out Canada as a dive destination, I hear Brockville has warm water diving; check the posts in the Great Lakes Wrecking Crew section of the board for the latest trip some of the gang took to Brockville.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[LavaSurfer]

You hear wrong.
Rick

Thanks Rick!
I didn't want to come of as preaching being that I am a bit biased.

 

[SterlingDiver]

I'll be recieving my OWC shortly, and I'm in Chicago. What is the best place for diving on a budget? This means I will mostly be shorediving. Also looking for a cheap hotel. Any recommendations? I'm thinking Bonaire? Is there any good shorediving in Aruba or Cancun?

.......inexpensive if done right. Fly out of Houston to San Pedro Sula (SAP) take island hopper plane to Utila. (Stay away from the resorts, they charge as much as anywhere in this hemisphere) Rooms as cheap as $3 a night in town. Meals .80- $6 each. Diving $17 per dive.

Pretty hard to beat those kind of prices.

BTW, the diving is way above average!!

Good luck and good diving.

Dave

 

[SplitFinJunkie]

.......inexpensive if done right. Fly out of Houston to San Pedro Sula (SAP) take island hopper plane to Utila. (Stay away from the resorts, they charge as much as anywhere in this hemisphere) Rooms as cheap as $3 a night in town. Meals .80- $6 each. Diving $17 per dive.

Pretty hard to beat those kind of prices.

BTW, the diving is way above average!!

Good luck and good diving.

Dave

It looks like all the cheapest places are the most expensive to get to? So regardless of where I go, I'm going to spend about the same amount of money. If it's not the diving or hotel rates that do me in, it's the flight cost

 

[scubasassy]

I'm with Tommer! Heading back to Thailand for the third time this Jan. From my experience, any Carribean trip is going to cost you average $1400 for a week. Most won't go to Asia though because of the distance/time involved.