SANDALS: Scuba Included

[FoxHound]

Agreed, i was at the sandals in st lucia, great resort, nice dive boats, and the staff was nice.

They wanted my wife and I to do their check out.....yeah that was by-passed with a couple of tech and instructor cert cards shown.

We get out on to the boat....which we were llucky to even get spots, unlimited diving my ass, the divers that were on there were just an absolute train wreck, hitting the coral, bugging the marine life.....one lady, 15min on every dive had an empty tank and darted for the surface leaving her buddy every time....nothing said to them by any of the staff.

Over all I like the sandals resorts....great food, and drinks, service

I would NEVER plan a dive trip to a sandals. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better options for diving, at better prices for what you get. I was extremely disappointed with the diving

 

[RJMETZ]

I have been to a number of Sandals and done probably 150 dives with them. After the Antigua accident, Sandals hired an expert to review their dive ops and safety procedures. The dive ops differ a little from resort to resort. Diving at Emerald Bay and Antigua were ok though the dive crews at EB were very good. The dive sites and crews at TCI, Nassau and St Lucia were very good. At St. Lucia they do some pretty spectacular dive sites like Coral Gardens and Superman"s Flight. The dive crew at Nassau is very good, been around a long time, and this resort tends to get the most repeat divers. We have been twice.
They get a really wide variety of divers from novice to expert and tend to try to group abilities as possible. We have been on some dives that were 40 minutes and some that were sixty minutes. The unlimited diving thing is a little awkward becuase most of the time the boat will do a two tank dive in the morning and a resort dive or snorkel trip in the afternoon. It is probably worth mentioning I think the average age is mid to late fifties, as am I. The crowd tends to dive in the morning, have lunch, umbrella drinks in the afternoon on the sand. It is not a dive intensive experience. A little adrenaline rush in the morning. Kick back afteroons. If you are looking for a dive intensive experience this may not be the place for you. However, the dive boats do tend to fill up everyday with a lot of us old folks and we love the place. Headed back to Nassau in September!

 

[Belmont]

I started diving with Sandals six years ago when I was 56.
I'm now an active cave diver, (was in Pet Cemetary two days ago)
I still dive with them because I like the place and my wife, not
being a diver, needs to have a nice place to wait for me.
Their operation is safe and the crews are very competent.
It's by no means a live aboard environment but I like the relaxed dives done there.
Going to St-Lucia in September.

 

[drrich2]

Only Sandals includes unlimited diving and the Caribbean's most comprehensive resort diving program.

If you're already a scuba enthusiast, you can enjoy up to two dives daily. And you have the option of choosing many other unforgettable dive experiences, such as private dives or night dives. Only Sandals takes adventure to such depths of excitement.

Bold emphasis mine.

Does wherever this is posted from have truth-in-advertising laws?

Richard.

 

[DiveGusto]

Just back from Sandals Antigua. Sandals/Beaches are vacation resorts with some diving not a resort diving operation. Staff and gear all very professional but I always bring my own. Boat leaves in the morning around 8 a.m. with 2 tanks and leaves again at 2 p.m. for a single tank. Sites are about 30-45 min trip. Storm had left things stirred up so viz was about 30-40 ft and currents/surge made the circle (down one side of the reef back the other) a challenge for some. The sites sandals visits are beat up and a lot of deal corral is evident. Since most were only OW cert they kept us in the shallow areas 60-70f sw but one diver went out for his AOW cert so he got to drop off the ledge. Our group had pretty good gas management so we were usually out 40-48 min. Once back under the boat we took our time before conducting our safety stop.

As to the left divers 5-6 years ago the boat captain took off when he was confronted with a big storm blowing in and got scared. All including the Sandals DM were abandoned until it was discovered what happened and the boat was dispatched back out to recover them, about 3 hours. The boat captain has never been heard from again, just kidding but was relieved on the spot. Jason was our boat captain and very professional. Those running the boat had never heard about the abandoned divers, might have been the replacements. I asked Jason if he was still going to be there when we came up and he said of course they never leave, that is when the story got told. A diver in our group was there the day it happened and scheduled to go out on the afternoon dive which got cancelled.

Sandals is starting 2 new resorts in Grenada Sandals La Source and a Beaches where diving will be more prominent. It has first class dive sites and I suspect there will be 2 boats going out each morning one for AOW and another OW as in Turks & Caicos. There are a lot of nice wrecks in the area, some shallow some deep. They will offer EAN 32-36% for $10 a tank.

One issue with the Antigua operation was having to bring the gear out to the boat thru the water since there is no dock, public beach prevents one. Many of their regs had no dust caps so salt water was going into the Scubapro first stage.

 

[drbill]

My niece is doing a destination wedding at Sandals in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Of course she told her uncle (me) that there was diving included. From what I've heard the dives are very limited in terms of depth and duration. Since I'm "solo," it would cost me $400/night at the single rate. I could go on a week long liveaboard with 4-5 dives a day for the price of two nights. Of course since this will be a family wedding, we will have a lot of other things to do besides diving. However, I probably won't go unless there is some other solo attending to share the room cost.

 

[Belmont]

Ochorios,I did nice dives there in the last five years with Sandals. In January I found the place devoid of interesting sea life, there has been a constant degradation of quality diving in Jamaïca. I did 22 dives with Sandals Halcyon and Regency in St-Lucia last September.

 

[HazardSports]

Me and my GF / (Dive Buddy) have been to:
Sandals Grand St Lucia
Sandals Antigua
Beaches Turks and Caicos

We are both very happy with our experiences at all of these resorts and dives. For us it's the best of both worlds. We can have a vacation and do dives. Not a "Dive Resort" but more then enough for us. We're already planning our next Sandals trip.

We've done two - One tanks dives per day; however, there were night dives going out also. We have had dives 100+' and dives over 50min. Seem like if your DM has a group of all AOW they are more generous with your bottom time.

Here is some close-up footage of our last trip (Turks) from this month:
http://youtu.be/JpVsWRA02sU

 

[drbill]

They really need to correct their advertising. Two dives per day at 30-35 min each is NOT "unlimited" diving. It is VERY limited diving. I have more bottom time on a single dive than they give you as "unlimited." On my last trip in the Philippines we were doing 2-2 1/2 hours on a single Al 80 and doing four dives a day. Of course I don't expect that as I want some topside time with my family during the wedding.

 

[jsdavis]

Sandals is very strict on the diving. I personally feel they try to discourage the diving. If you go, Make sure you answer "no" to all questions on the medical or you will not dive. The form is the RSTC standard form used for "students" but they use it for everyone. If you want a nice vacation with some diving Sandals is OK depending on location (All Caribbean diving is not the same) . If you are looking for a dive vacation, go elsewhere