Cruise Ship Diving?

[SBP Studios]

Just did some Cruise ship diving for the first time. 1 in St. Lucia and 1 in St. Croix.

Both dives were the "closest dives" possible and booked through the Cruise ship. We could literally SEE the cruise ship on all dives. Kinda lame if you asked me.

We did the Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas. Id reccomend booking your own if you do go this route. I did like both Dive operations especially the Dive St. Lucia company. Nice DM's but old equipment.

The Cane Bay Divers we used in St. Croix had an impressive operation but the head DM (a 25yr old girl..by my estimates) talks to everyone like they are 3yr olds. That got on our nerves a bit.

 

[Cod]

Dear Cod,

Are you on the Emerald Princess from 11/22 - 29? I plan on diving Grand Turk and St. Thomas, arranging my own dives.

I believe you have other postings about equipment. I would recommend looking at ScubaPro regulators, they are a litle more expensive, but very high quality, and I think it's a good idea to pay more for "life support". BCs are probably not quite as important, but it still pays to get a good one. Once again, my wife has a ScubaPro that is awesome. I have a very basic Aeris which works well.

Do you have computers?

Thanks,

Aquaboy.

Our cruise is June 13th of 2010

Let me know who you book with and if they're worth a hoot or not

And no at this time I don't have computers, regs or BCD's, I'm not sure if we'll have them before the cruise or not.

 

[Jimmydiver]

Hi Jeff,

Princess does not offer any diving in St-Maarten since the operator they had closed down a few months ago. I booked with Scubafun, they picked me up at the pier and because the Emerald Princess arrives at 10.00 AM, they had a boat going out just for the two of us, with no extra charge : we really had a great time... You cannot expect more from an operator.

 

[rcohn]

Dear BoneShakin:
I think we're on the same cruise - Emerald Princess from 11/22 - 29. I plan on diving Grand Turk and St. Thomas, and arranging the dives myself.

On Grand Turk be sure to use one of the dives OPs in town, not the Oasis operation at the cruise ship terminal. Oasis in town is great, but I don't think the cruise ship operation will take you to the best sites.

Ralph

 

[BMD]

When in St. Thomas I recommend diving with Blue Island Divers. I just spent the past week diving with and doing some training for them. The operation used by the cruiseship lines is a cattle boat!! Blue Island Divers is an outstanding operation. Good diving with wrecks and reefs, for everyone (beginners to advanced). Depending on where your ship docks you can either walk to their shop at Crown Bay Marina or they will pick you up at the downtown pier.

Drop them an e-mail at barefoot@blueislanddivers.com, to make arrangements.

 

[Tandoorii]

What dive op did you finally use? Am on Emerald in late February with a Grand Turk stop. We get in 1pm and leave 7pm. Tips?

 

[boneshakin]

Blue Water Divers was absolutely fantastic and I highly recommend them. After a horrible experience in St Thomas I was a bit skeptical going into this dive but they exceeded all expectations!

Blue Water Divers
Grand Turk
Turks & Caicos Islands
649-946-2432

 

[Scubagolf]

I have done maybe 6 cruises since I started diving. The first one to the Caribbean I dove with the cruise ship-sponsored excursions. Never again, I said. After that I followed the recommendations from SB's general travel section for each location (Northern/Southern Caribbean, Central America, French Polynesia, etc.) You can directly e-mail the dive ops way in advance to reserve your spot. Occasionally, the recommended dive op is the one used by the cruise ships and they will refer you to the cruise scheduling apparatus. In that case, I usually looked elsewhere. I have found that with a little research and effort you can do better dives, on smaller boats (ie, fewer divers), for less money. Typically, you get picked up at the same dock right next to where the cruise contractor picks up his divers. Make CERTAIN that you know your ship's docking and departure times and that you run this by your dive operators. They are usually very knowledgeable about the docking times, especially in smaller ports where not so many ships are in port.

 

[dgonza]

Let me introduce you all to a website where you can get lots of great info not only about cruises.....but diving/snorkelling/and tour operators and ports of call. Its called cruisecritic dot com. You can find out anything and everything you ever wanted about cruising recommended operations to avoid cattle boats etc......

 

[The Blue Whale]

The CruiseCritic website has a lot of traffic for the cruisers and there's not too many avid divers there (from our experience over the past 6 years). So, we're thinking about taking that forum style to divers on a smaller scale. Not something like ScubaBoard which is the forum for everything diving. Since we don't sell gear, travel or training, the sites are not designed to 'sell' or even 'call to action' since the selling sites are supposed to do that. Our idea is to reach the divers and help them find the suitable dive operators and gear. We'll be doing reviews and articles to help with good evaluations. The sites are in 'beta' testing right now, but we're hoping to launch them this summer (2010).