Ranking dive destinations

[mcohen1021]

My dates are Dec 19-26. Staying at Casa Mexicana. Diving with Tres Pelicanos. I also use a private DM for Coz. I don’t know what it is about Coz and Playa...I always go back to them although I keep telling myself there are other places in the world I need to see! Somehow the Mexican hospitality makes me happy!

I know right. My dates ate Dec 8-12. I’ve been to Cozumel 14/15x, GC 3x, Brac, Roatan, Jamaica 2x, Dominican, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Ambergris, Maui 2x (a close 2nd place to Cz), Fla keys 2x, Pensacola 2x, Providenciales, and Texas Flower Gardens (awesome BTW)… Nothing has ever come close to Cozumel. Maui is excellent though, and Tx Flower Gardens is damn good.

 

[Altamira]

I have dived in all four locations on cruise itineraries. For most of the year, I like Cayman, Roatan, Cozumel, and Costa Maya in that order, depending on time in port and the season.

Cayman: Tender port as mentioned, but there are ways to get off the ship on the first or second tender if time is critical. This past week, we arrived at 1030 and departed 1800, so had no problem doing a 1PM two tank dive with Lobster Pot and got back in plenty of time to meet the last couple of tenders. Downside: Strong winter winds may force the ship to bypass the port entirely because tender operations can be really dicey in high winds.

Roatan: AKR is the ship's dive op, and all dives have been excellent, and it is not as susceptible to missing the port in the winter.

Coz: If your arrival time is early (7AM), all is good because you can use any number of the really good off-ship dive ops recommended on SB. If you arrive @10AM, your options are reduced, and may have to use the ship's op, which could be good to so-so. Downside: Strong northerly winds in the winter months may close the port or prevent the dive boats from operating.

Costa Maya: Last place because I was not generally as impressed with the reefs I have dived compared to the other three. On a couple of cruises, Costa Maya was the alternate when Coz was closed, but finding a dive op that can take a bunch of divers on short notice may be problematic.

As others have said, if you can, dive all four ports.

 

[Saniflush]

So a little update on my plans as we are within a month of it happening. We are actually diving all five ports. I had not listed Belize because at that point and time there was no way to reach Placencia Village from Harvest Caye. Apparently that has just changed so Belize is now on the list. Going through the ship for excursions for Cozumel, Roatan, and Costa Maya. Two of the three that I was going to use were under contract with the cruise ship anyway and since there is a colossal PIA factor in trying to figure out who wants to dive where and when, then I figured that path was easier. This gives me the ability to let them make their own arrangements if they wanted to and I am not on the hook for money or trying to herd cats.

The other two ports Harvest Caye and George Town the wife and I have set up diving with Splash dive shop and Off The Wall respectively. They have both been very responsive in getting it set up. Will check back in on this thread with a report after we get back the 2nd week of January.

 

[Saniflush]

So rolled back in last night. We had five ports and were scheduled to dive in all of them but only dove in four of them (more on that in a minute).
Let me start out with this...I can see why some people like the cruise ship option. It allows a big group of people with diverse interests to hang out together without anyone being alienated. That being said it is probably not for my wife and I. It was not that we did not enjoy it. It's not that the staff was not very accommodating. We have really turned into folks that that want to dive as much as possible and view the extra travel time as lost opportunities to be making bubbles.
I think it is also fair to say that by only getting in a port for a day at a time we lose the opportunity to see some of the dive sites that are off the beaten path or take more time to access. We went through the ship to dive three of the stops. The other two I contacted and dealt with directly.

Cozumel - (ship) I'm sorry to say that off the top of my head I do not remember the name of this dive shop that contracted with the NCL. I even got a stamp from them that I have in a bag somewhere. Anyway, they were what you expect to get in Cozumel. Professional and knowledgeable. 2 tank drift dives and nothing out of the ordinary except toward the end of the 2nd tank we happened upon the largest loggerhead turtle I have ever seen. I stretched out to gauge the size it was as long as I am tall plus or minus a few inches and I am 6'3". What a wonderful sight to behold for the couple of minutes that it hung out with us until swimming off.

George Town - Contracted with Off the Wall Divers. We did not get to dive due to weather. This one really bummed me since I had heard so much about the diving in Grand Caymen. The folks at Off The Wall had been very easy to contact and arrange through and seemed to have a good plan until our ship had to make for a tendered port on the other side of the island. When that happened everything just started to turn to poo. Thought we were still going to get our dives in since the weather had not hit yet but I think between us getting diverted and them trying to service the other ships that were in port it just didn't work. Off The Wall kept us pretty well up to date on the status which was pleasing and I would certainly give them another chance when we make it back there one day.

Roatan Bay - (ship) Dive was handled by Anthony's Key Resort. It is easy to see why they get top marks for service because theirs was top notch. I was a little disappointed that we dove a reef there on the SW side of the island close to the cruise ship. Not because it was bad but just because I had heard so much about the diving on the other side of the island. Once again I understand that you just have to take what you can get when you have a time limitation. We did 2 tanks. One on a wall that had a hard bottom of about 120' and the other on the reef that fed down to the way. Both good dives but nothing in particular stood out.

Harvest Caye - Contracted with Splash Dive Center. Not sure where to begin this one because there is a lot. I did not realize that Harvest Caye is actually a private island of Norwegian Cruise Lines and thus up until a month ago there was no great way to get off that island and access everything else. I contacted Ralph with Splash eight months ago and he had told me that at that point they couldn't accommodate us diving since there was no way for us to get off Harvest Caye. He told me that if anything changed he would keep my contact info and let me know. I thought to myself "ok sure you will". Fast forward to a month ago and out of the blue Ralph contacts me to tell me that there is not a shuttle that we can catch off the Cay to get us to Palencia Village where he can have his folks meet us and take us out. We were able to purchase the shuttle tickets on board the cruise line before we even got there. Transfers went off without a hitch and once we got to Palencia Village we were met by not only a boat from Splash but also Ralph (who as I understand it is either part owner or he and the owner are married/a couple). Anyway, I began thanking him for working us into their schedule when he stopped me cold by thanking me and telling me that we were his guinea pigs. He went on to explain that they had never tried doing this with people off of a cruise line so he was going to see if it could be done. We proceeded to drive their boat an hour due NE to what we thought would be our only dive of the day. (They were so unsure about the timing that they would only commit to one tank dive and a snorkel to ensure that they could get us back in time to catch the boat.) On the way to the first dive site Ralph told us that the exchange had happened so easily that if we wanted to we could get a second tank dive in if we wanted to? He was so cute with the "if we wanted to". First tank was a dive on a wall. We broke for a surface interval were we went back to a small island 5 minutes away where a Belizian woman had been cooking BBQ chicken and had rice and beans. Talk about a great surface interval! Second tank was done on the sloping sands that headed toward the wall of the first dive. What impressed me so much about both of these dives was that there was SO MUCH soft coral everywhere. Almost on top of each other. I personally had never seen so much in one place. Another personal highlight for me was seeing a male and female puffer fish together. I have seen both separately but never moving together. I could have spent my entire dive just watching them! They got us back to the dock in plenty of time to catch the shuttle back over to Harvest Caye. We will definitely be going back to Belize and we will definitely deal with Splash Dive Center when we do!

Costa Maya - (ship) Dive was handled by Dreamtime Dive Center. I have zero complaints about this dive operation they met us off the ship in a timely manner, got us trucked to their shop where gear was all laid out for those that needed it. We geared up, went right to the boat that is across the street and onto the reef which takes about 3 minutes. This reef also feeds to a wall which we did on one tank and the reef on the other. One thing that I would bring up is and I am not sure who to lay this blame on. Due to time constraints and them needing to get us back to the boat we had to cut our second dive short. Heck I came up with more than half a tank and that's saying something! I would rather get back to the boat and chunk 20 minutes of air but it still hacked me off a little. We had a smaller time window to hit in that port and were about an hour later getting docked. Just seems like someone missed the mark on it. I am inclined to say something to the cruise lines so they can try to do better the next time. I don't think the dive center could have done anything different to conserve any time.


Maybe this will help some others who are looking at diving from the cruise ship. Like I said earlier to the wife and I, a cruise seems to be a taxi cab with a buffet so we will probably not be going that route again although it did allow us to dive in a number of different places and make some good contacts to go back on our own.

 

[Dogbowl]

Great review!

Too bad about the weather in Grand Cayman...we also used Off the Wall when we were there off a cruise ship and we liked them.

We also did cruise ship diving several times, diving all 4 of 4 ports. We have now switched to dedicated dive vacations. However, if going with a group of people (family and/or friends), cruising can't be beat - everyone can have dinner together and do their own thing during the day.

 

[mcohen1021]

@Saniflush - did you rent gear or take your own?

 

[Altamira]

A wonderful thing about diving in the Caribbean is that you can do a dedicated dive vacation in some really nice dive locations, or hop around from port to port, and do some fun dives in those really nice dive locations. It is all good.

 

[Saniflush]

@Saniflush - did you rent gear or take your own?

We took all of our own. I think after having to haul gear on and off the boat, if we had to do it again we would probably just take our mask, fins, and regs and rent the BCD.

 

[mcohen1021]

We took all of our own. I think after having to haul gear on and off the boat, if we had to do it again we would probably just take our mask, fins, and regs and rent the BCD.

Thanks – that’s exactly what I was thinking if we were to be crazy enough to get on a cruise. lol

 

[robint]

Thanks for reporting back!

Roatan - part of the reason you ended up diving on the southside of island is due to time of year. This is their windy season, Nov-Jan in particular are rough water on northside of island. If you go back any other time of year, you will be diving the northside most likely. Just remember, Oct-Nov are rainy season, so vis is low. We have found that diving Roatan is best May-Aug. YMMV.

Cozumel - was probably SandDollar Sports. I think they do all cruise ships now.

We haven't done Costa Maya or Belize but sounds great.

As far as gear - we have taken all our gear before and say next time it will only be regs, masks and fins. Those BCs take up a whole luggage bag traveling and then we always end up booking a balcony room so we have a place for them to dry after diving. Won't need to do that if we don't take them.

Our next cruise is Feb and we are not diving at all this time (Key West, Bahamas).....but we plan to do another one in May and not sure where yet. It will be a diving cruise though. I am actually starting to prefer cruises now, where I can do a couple of days of diving, then a couple of days of topside activities. We spend 17 years doing nothing but dive travel and I am just over it. I like doing other stuff too now.

robin