Carnival Valor & Diving

[cbpraigg]

You are correct! Thanks for pointing it out. For whatever reason, I failed to see the year when doing my search. Again, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[parkerco]

Doing the Valor myself in October. Thanks for all of the great suggestions. I think I will book with Neptune in GC, Subway Watersports in Roatan, skip Belize and Scuba With Allison in Coz. Looking forward to this! Chuck e, would love to hear how it goes for you and if you have any suggestions being fresh off the boat. Thanks in advance. -Charles

Hi Charles ... did this iternerary on the Legend in August and dove GC and Roatan (wish we had dove all four in retrospect). I would advise you to book your own excursions earlier than later if you are going to go that route, as a lot of the shops book up early (I wanted to dive with Scuba with Allison in Cozumel, in fact, but she was booked that day -- however she did give me a recomendation when she let me know).

If you do the Carnival-provided scuba excursions, when I was there GC was contracted to Don Foster's Dive Cayman. I was blown away by their crew and the safety measures they went to -- the people were amazingly friendly, the DM's we had that day were great and for our first "real" dives out of OW we couldn't have asked for a better experience. For reference, 20 people on the boat divided into 2 groups of ten. In Roatan we dove with AKR -- the diving there was better (more colorful and saw more) but I wasn't blown away with the rental gear quality or the supervision given the experience level of the group -- 20 people on the boat in 1 big group, took us to 80' in a spot that went far deeper (and a lot of divers were going deeper) and over half my group lost the DM at one point. If you want something you'll probably remember more, though, in Roatan see if you can do one of AKR's "dolphin dives" in the time limit you have. We didn't know that existed but it looked pretty damned amazing (info on their website).

If by "fresh off the boat" you mean relatively new to diving, a couple things that we learned or had reinforced (the hard and/or fun way):

- CHECK OUT YOUR RENTAL GEAR BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE DOCK! AKR gave me a regulator with a missing mouthpiece when they were divvy'ing up gear =)

- Do a thorough buddy-check ... especially important since you'll probably be using new/unfamiliar gear. Don't let yourself be rushed on the boat and skip any steps, including a buoyancy check.

- Before you actually dive off the boat, get the plan from the DM (including max depth of the site), make your own and follow it -- know your limits, monitor your gauges and your buddy and do the appropriate safety stops. Don't put your own safety in someone else's hands by blindly following the DM. That includes what direction you will be going, so in case you actually do lose the group/DM you have a clue which direction to finish the dive in.

- Unless you really get cold in warm water, don't bother with bringing a wetsuit -- it's a pain in the ass to deal with on the cruise ship. However, those beach towels you can check out at the pool on the cruise ship are awesome boat towels =)

- Something a friend who cruises a lot told me that was great advice ... first day on the cruise ship, go to the casino when it opens, have them punch a hole in your "fun card" or whatever the hell Carnival calls your door/charge card and get a lanyard from them for it -- you'll use that stupid thing for just about everything while you are on your cruise.

I wrote up my and my girlfriends experience here and got some neat feedback from much more experienced divers -- hope you find something useful there. And have fun on your cruise!