Royal Caribbean - Harmony of the Seas stops CoCoCay Bahamas, St Thomas, St Maartin

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Scubasteve1950

Registered
Messages
57
Reaction score
1
Location
Findlay, Ohio and Clearwater Fl
# of dives
500 - 999
I will be cruising this July with the family and can only pick one to dive. I am looking for any information on the diving at any of these islands. Most likely, I will book through the cruise line. I have not dove any of these islands before.
 
Definitely NOT Coco Cay - it's their private island and the only dive is a shallow one on the snorkel boat. You can google it or look for past threads here.

The cruise operator for St. Thomas does not have the best reputation. There are some posts about it in this forum.They often seem to go to one of the barges when there's better dives nearby - south of Charlotte Amalie is littered with wrecks.

Personally I'd use either Blue Isldand Divers or Admiralty. BID will have their boat waiting - it's marked and you wave them in as they're only allowed to briefly touch the WICO dock to pick up. I've seen it work. On the off-chance that your ship docks at Crown something? Marina instead - you can walk there. http://www.blueislanddivers.com/01_diving/CruiseShips.html

Admiralty picks you up with a van - their advantage is the shop is downtown and the boat moored across the street so when you' done diving they'll give you some time to look around befroe dropping you off.
https://www.admiraltydive.com/

Last option if the family is doing the beach excursion to Coki Beach - there's a shallow dive there. It's decent and gets better past the Coral World inlet (to the right) but the current really picks up past there. If you get caught in int, let it blow you around the point and swim towards the moored boats - exit there and walk across the street back to Coki Dive. This would be the least desirable option IMO.

don't know St. Maarten at all...
 
i dove st thomas back in feb through princess cruises and the dive boat was underwater adventure great crew decent dives i believe it was the shipwreck costanza .lots a beautiful reef fish a few turtles and just got a glimpse of a blacktip reef shark before it took off .my 2 cents anyway
 
I second Admiralty Dive in St-Thomas, I dived with them last March and they were great. They picked me up at the cruise port and had great dives with a small group of 4. I'll dive again with them next time I stop on that island.
 
I have used Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas many times and have never been disappointed.
St. Marten can be tricky. On a good day it is amazing diving. On an off day the waves can be sporting. I have had more adventurous days than not.
Coco Cay did not offer diving the last time I was there.
 
I’ve dove cococay twice. Neither were from a boat. The first was a shore dive. We did a short swim from the beach and then went down. Max depth was 45 ft on that dive. It was ok. Decent amount of fish and the reef was ok. It was eagle ray mating season so they were everywhere. Which was cool. The second time I dove the water was a little choppy so they took us out one by one on the back of jet skis out to the dive site. That dive we went a little further out and the max depth was just below 50ft. We dove along a rock wall and a small reef. It’s a nice easy in the sense you just get off the ship and the dive shack is right there on the island about 200ish ft from the beach. You gear up and go.

St marteen I dove again through Rccl. The dive op is pretty close to the port. It’s literally a 2 mins bus ride. They pick you up right at the dock and drive you to the shop. Geared up and headed out. The seas were pretty rough that day. We did the fish bowl and i forgot the name of the second site. Decent amount of fish. A few sharks which is always fun. There were 14 of us from the ship. Plenty of room on the dive boat. All rental gear was decent though i did use my own regs and computer. Used their bcd and weight belts.
 
If you chose St. Maarten consider booking directly through Dive Adventures/Aqua Mania, which is who the cruise line uses. The shop is about a 10 minute walk from the port. Was there in April on RC Allure and booked directly.

Not only was it cheaper but there were only 5 divers on my boat as opposed to 14 on the ship excursion's boat. The water was quite rough but the dives were good.

As for CoCoCay, I'm booked to dive there in Dec. Had heard it was decent diving and I'm a new diver, I got it on sale for a one tank shore dive for $54. It'll be a good warmup for my Roatan dive later in the cruise.
 

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