Cruise Ship Diving

[Aviyes]

I researched a bunch of cruises and the downside I saw for the mega sized ships was the inability to be spontaneous. It seems that now you have to basically plan out every activity/meal reservation on the ship prior to the trip and hope some activities weren't booked. For me a cruise should be time to relax and if I see something fun, go participate. Not spend hours planning out each day aboard ship. No problem with planning the port calls, just shipboard activities.

 

[drrich2]

It seems that now you have to basically plan out every activity/meal reservation on the ship prior to the trip and hope some activities weren't booked.

When Royal Caribbean introduced the Oasis-class ships, what you describe became an issue; instead of one main evening show with 2 performances to accommodate early & late seating dinner crowds, several different shows would run daily, and given the large number of passengers, having people schedule in advance became needful. That said, I'm told you can often show up for stand by status at a show without a reservation, and since reservations are free many people who reserved don't show, so you've still got a good chance of getting in.

On Royal, I've sailed Voyager, Freedom and Oasis-class. With the Oasis-class, you get Central Park and the Boardwalk neighborhoods, and more variety of shows and specialty restaurants, plus 2 flow riders (I don't recall what all the others have now). Onboard water park offerings vary; Harmony of the Seas (Oasis class), Liberty of the Seas (Freedom class) & Adventure of the Seas (Voyager class) at least have water slides. The Oasis-class are so huge they're very limited in what ports they can hit, and 2 I used tend to hit 3 islands/week-long cruise. Adventure of the Seas on the other hand might hit 5, and the southern Caribbean route I found more interesting.

I've not sailed R.C.'s Quantum-class. I recommend Cruise Critic's forum for researching cruises. Just like here, there are repetitive debates - get ready for multi-page online combat over dress code adherence, and debates about whether young children or entitled elderly are the most obnoxious.

Richard.

P.S.: I think of a cruise as an appetizer-sampler of varied destinations I might want to come back to someday. You don't get to do a lot, but you can figure out Bonaire is arid and scrubby, St. Lucia very lush, the ocean around St. Maarten & Barbados gorgeous, etc...

 

[scubadada]

Fortunately, to each their own. There is something for everybody. I don't need the large cruise ship, perfect for others

 

[robint]

I researched a bunch of cruises and the downside I saw for the mega sized ships was the inability to be spontaneous. It seems that now you have to basically plan out every activity/meal reservation on the ship prior to the trip and hope some activities weren't booked. For me a cruise should be time to relax and if I see something fun, go participate. Not spend hours planning out each day aboard ship. No problem with planning the port calls, just shipboard activities.

That is true with SOME cruise lines, but not Carnival. They don't do tickets for shows or activities, they are all first come first served. That way you can be spontaneous. We have now done 7 cruises on Carnival and gotten to do everything we wanted, except for a Comedy show one night as the line was long by the time we got there, no seats left. Our fault for being late.

 

[rivers]

I worked on ships for a few years (been off ships nearly 7 now), and learned to dive while there. 99% of the time, I booked my own dive trips, and went to some pretty spectacular sites. Once I stopped working on ships, my wife carried on for several more years. I continued to book my own trips, including Fiji and Vanuatu, when I went out to see her, with the exception of Belize, where I booked through the ship.

 

[tomcatbubba]

I've dove some pretty cool places on cruise ships, mostly Caribbean. I would caution about diving in the Bahamas. Most of the lines use Stuarts Cove, which is not itself a bad operation, in fact I've done some amazing dives with them. However, they are about an hour ride away from the pier. If you book with the cruise line they will wait for you if you get back late (I've had it happen twice where I literally boarded at the departure time). If you don't book with the line, you are SOL If you miss the departure time. Like mentioned before, rinsing and storing gear can be a PITA. Grand Cayman, Roatan and the drift dives off Cozumel are really cool dives and I did them all via cruises.

 

[Bison]

The larger ships are not necessarily better than the smaller. More amenities, but also more people, more crowds, more noise, lower quality food because they have to feed so many people.

Cruises have worked great for my family vacations. This past summer on the new mega sized, 5,200+ passenger Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas was fun, but we all said next family cruise, a smaller boat would be better for us.

My wife and I have found this to be the case as well. We, really she, just decided to skip the massive " flag" ships they have produced and go back to one of the smaller/medium size ships.