Equipment to bring on Cruise

[SteveDiver]

I am going on a cruise leaving Galveston on Jan.30th. My cabin mate and I are both bringing all of our equipment. It is important to dive with equipment that you are comfortable in...Tell your wife to leave her makeup and ten outfits at home (lol) (-:
Space should'nt be an issue there is a small sitting area and shower that you can use. I am going to Cozumel, Progresso and Belize. I already booked my dives locally. Just a suggestion book locally do not book on the Cruise Ship. They will charge you double and you will be diving with a group of sometimes 20+divers...

 

[fmw625]

Thanks guys for all the good information and response that I can give to the wife. Hopefully I can get her to agree that I really need all of my personal gear.

 

[DiveMaven]

I really have to agree that you should take all your own gear. I've heard way too many stories about shoddy equipment that people have used, especially in the Caribbean and Mexico. Remember that these countries don't have the same safety laws and legal system that we do, so they have no fear of your family suing them if you get hurt diving with them.

One particulary hairy experience that a good friend of mine had was on a DISCOVER scuba dive in Mexico where the DM took him down to 110' with a BC that didn't inflate properly and a reg that had a leak (it streamed small bubbles the entire dive)!!! Since he had no experience with diving, he didn't realize how dangerous this was, but when he got certified later, he got goosebumps thinking about how close to dying he may have come that day.

Take your own gear, it's why you bought it in the first place. It's all life saving equipment and your life isn't worth the "convenience" of having a little more cabin space. Heck, you probably won't be in your cabin except to sleep and change clothing anyway!

 

[diveborg]

Thanks guys for all the good information and response that I can give to the wife. Hopefully I can get her to agree that I really need all of my personal gear.

Yep, take all your own gear, but do you really dive with a snorkel? I can't stand to have that thing hanging off the side of my mask. It would be especially annoying on a drift dive.

One thing you can leave at home is your dive knife. It you want something to cut with underwater, snips are the way to go.

 

[tndiveinstruct1]

My non-diving wife and I took a cruise a couple of years ago. We had an interior stateroom.

I took my BCD, mask, fins, reg, and a skin. It went very nicely in my Armor backpack.

As for what to do with it until it dries, I hung it up in the shower stall overnight and the following morning it was dry.

BCD was an Oceanic Pro Tour BCD which folded up quite nicely.

My reasoning behind taking my own gear is that I KNOW how it operates and introducing new gear would just add to the stress you are trying to get away from by going on vacation....

Hope this helps.

Randy Cain

 

[thebz]

My hubby and I went with Royal Caribbean in October out of Galveston. We both took all our own gear in our big roller dive bags, plus our suitcases, (with my makeup and 10 outfit changes, thank you very much ). We had room in the closet to store the dive bags and the large suitcase was stored by our balcony door. We did dry our things out on the balcony but we could have used the shower. We transferred our gear to mesh backpack bags for the diving, to take up less room on the dive boats.

From the view point of a diving wife, there should be no option on not taking your own gear. Tell her you will have plenty of room for your gear, you just don't have room for the tux

 

[ABQdiver]

I'll put my 2cents worth in; My daughter and I dive, wife doesn't. This makes cruises a nice compromise for all of us.

We have had two staterooms with balconies, which is definitely the way to go. Nice to sit out there and have coffee in the morning, plus it keeps the wet/damp gear out of the shower. My wife was complaining (slightly) about having to move the gear to clear the shower on the one cruise when a balcony was not in the works.

At least take your regs, mask, fins and dive computer.

 

[scuba91709]

Just back from a cruise on the norwegian Star, had an inside stateroom and brought everything except tanks and weights. The big surprise was that the three trips on and off the ship that security passed my BCD with the BC knife in plain view.

Don

 

[lostboy]

Take it, minus the dive knife (it will be taken from you as you try to reboard. You can look at an earlier rant of mine about the NCL nazi-like protection force and steak knives ), snorkel, compass, & 7mm dive suit

As others have stated, there are places to hang wet gear in the room (balconies are better, but...). The Carnival rooms are slightly larger than the NCL Sea room <sarcastic remark removed> my wife and I shared and the drying was not a problem for the pair of us.

The rental equipment we saw in Coz was better than other places, but were still pretty threadbare and scary looking.

jwh

 

[scubatwinned]

I have never been on a cruise ship, so my question is, do they not have secure rooms to dry stuff for passengers who are diving? I might not leave all my stuff in there but to keep some out of wifes hair is that an option? Although from the rest of the replies it should not be a problem. Take your own gear!!!!