DazedAndConfuzed
Contributor
Hi,
Wife decided to take a breather from the nothing but dive trips and/or rocked 24/7 by liveaboards..thus deciding the next trip would be a cruise. Given that she wanted to go to one right in our city (NY), we are stuck with very limited choices of where we can go. The most diverse is the NCL 9 day from NYC to San Juan, St Maarten, St Thomas, Samana/DR (not surprising, very few ports of calls, given that most of our trip will be going from NY to the 1st/last island and back). If we flew to FL, we could have done the whole western Caribbean thing.
I know most of the islands don't offer diving (San Juan, Samana), but I am wondering how St Thomas & St Maarten would be. I read some review of those islands from here, but many are from newly certified or novice divers. If those destinations' dive sites are only so-so, it might not even be worth it to lug the gear onto the boat (although with no airline to fly, there is no need to only carry essential gears).
I read somewhat on St Maarten and the dive sites Moonhole and One Step Beyond sounds interesting. Moonhole is a crater with swimthrus and One Step Beyond is a double pinnacle (like Eye of the needle in Saba?). Does any dive ops guarantee that they will go to one of those dive sites? Or do they always take you to the generic cruise ship sites?
Wife decided to take a breather from the nothing but dive trips and/or rocked 24/7 by liveaboards..thus deciding the next trip would be a cruise. Given that she wanted to go to one right in our city (NY), we are stuck with very limited choices of where we can go. The most diverse is the NCL 9 day from NYC to San Juan, St Maarten, St Thomas, Samana/DR (not surprising, very few ports of calls, given that most of our trip will be going from NY to the 1st/last island and back). If we flew to FL, we could have done the whole western Caribbean thing.
I know most of the islands don't offer diving (San Juan, Samana), but I am wondering how St Thomas & St Maarten would be. I read some review of those islands from here, but many are from newly certified or novice divers. If those destinations' dive sites are only so-so, it might not even be worth it to lug the gear onto the boat (although with no airline to fly, there is no need to only carry essential gears).
I read somewhat on St Maarten and the dive sites Moonhole and One Step Beyond sounds interesting. Moonhole is a crater with swimthrus and One Step Beyond is a double pinnacle (like Eye of the needle in Saba?). Does any dive ops guarantee that they will go to one of those dive sites? Or do they always take you to the generic cruise ship sites?