Cruise Ship Diving on Puerto Rico?

[TNEngineer]

As noted in some of my other threads, in addition to destination dive trips we often dive during cruise trips. We've got another one coming up in August and one of our stops is San Juan PR. We've done the on-shore stuff in San Juan and this is a dive cruise for us (we're bringing all our gear and already scheduled dives on most of the other islands) so we're thinking it might be nice to try some PR diving.

From a scan of this site it appears that the diving near the cruise ship port in San Juan isn't the best. That means an on-land shuttle, which doesn't bother us because we often have to do that on other islands. We're good at grabbing taxis both ways if the shop doesn't provide a shuttle.

EDIT: I've just run across a site called "Escambron Marine Park". It's close to the cruise terminal. Reported as shallow and not great visibility but possibly interesting things to see underwater. Anyone know more?

My questions are:

1) Is it worth diving during a one-day cruise ship stay?

2) If so, where on the island? I've read that the better diving is on the south shore. Is it reasonable to get there and back for a couple of tanks?

3) Which are the recommended local dive shops?

Thanks!

 

[Wants2divemore]

As noted in some of my other threads, in addition to destination dive trips we often dive during cruise trips. We've got another one coming up in August and one of our stops is San Juan PR. We've done the on-shore stuff in San Juan and this is a dive cruise for us (we're bringing all our gear and already scheduled dives on most of the other islands) so we're thinking it might be nice to try some PR diving.

From a scan of this site it appears that the diving near the cruise ship port in San Juan isn't the best. That means an on-land shuttle, which doesn't bother us because we often have to do that on other islands. We're good at grabbing taxis both ways if the shop doesn't provide a shuttle.

EDIT: I've just run across a site called "Escambron Marine Park". It's close to the cruise terminal. Reported as shallow and not great visibility but possibly interesting things to see underwater. Anyone know more?

My questions are:

1) Is it worth diving during a one-day cruise ship stay?

2) If so, where on the island? I've read that the better diving is on the south shore. Is it reasonable to get there and back for a couple of tanks?

3) Which are the recommended local dive shops?

Thanks!

I dove in the Escambron Marine Park in San Juan in June 2022 on a cruise ship stop, with Scuba Dogs. It's about a 10 min taxi from the cruise terminal. It's a shore dive, max depth 30', viz was 20-30' max. Not a lot of life or interesting things to see. Scuba Dogs was a great shop.

I've been to PR a bunch but only dove that one time. I've read that the good diving is farther away, like Rincon and the southern side of the island. But given you'll probably have limited time on the island since you're on a cruise stop, I'd be hesitant to try and go somewhere better farther away from San Juan. From my research back then the shops along the park only do 1-tank dives. San Juan is a great city to walk around and see, especially Old San Juan. If you really want to dive, I'd do the 1 dive then spend the rest of the time in San Juan.

 

[sparragus]

I think you'll be disappointed at the Escambron Marine Park. Like you said, not great visibility, and shallow.

I'm not sure what a one-day stop actually means. But whatever it does, I'd find it very hard to go dive in the south, or in the west side.

In the south you'll find Island Scuba and Paradise Scuba, in Guanica and La Parguera, respectively. But both boats leave sometime between 7am-8am.

In the west side is some nice shore diving in Crash Boat, in Aguadilla. Black Anchor Diving is a good shop to call to arrange a guided dive there. They dive around 9am.

However, I think I'll be stressed af if I had to go there and be back. Both places will be at least 2h - 2.5hours away from Old San Juan. And I guess you won't have a car.

So my suggestion is, either don't expect much of Escambron (and hopefully it'll be better that what you expected). Or just walk around Old San Juan, which is a very beautiful place. Or if you can schedule a tour to a place like El Yunque, I think that'd be a great idea. I like the hiking there.

Have fun in your diving cruise trip!

 

[TNEngineer]

Thank you both for your comments.

As I said, "We've done the on-shore stuff in San Juan". We've been there several times already and have done both personal walking around and more formal "tours" of the city, forts, etc. It's a charming place but this time we want to see what's under the water.

From your comments it doesn't sound like there's much within reasonable distance of the cruise terminal in San Juan. Perhaps it's just not worth the effort. I guess if we went into Escamron with low expectations it would be all right.

Maybe I'll reach out to Scuba Dogs and see what they say.