We took this exact cruise in March of this year (Celebrity Equinox). We absolutely loved this cruise. It was a great balance of at sea relaxing days & ports to see stuff.
Here is my thoughts:
1) GC - the port was canceled due to not being reopened from pandemic. We got Nassau instead. Didn't go diving.
2) Curacao - We used Curious 2 Dive. They accommodate cruise passengers and will pick you up from the Port. They do small groups (it was just my wife & I & one other). We did a two tank tank dive - one was a wreck (Tugboat Beach) and other was directors bay. My camera was acting up; so I left it on shore. Hans took several nice photos during the dive and shared them afterwards. Hans was a great host. A former chemical engineer who has been on the island a very long time. He is also very active in coral restoration and took us (underwater) through their coral farm. Very Cool. I highly recommend.
3) Bonaire - I think we contacted H2O Vision first but they subcontracted us out to Bon Scuba (
www.bonscuba.com). Bon Scuba is a small outfit. Paul (the owner) picked us up right at the port and basically drove us directly to dive sites. It was just us in the group & he pretty much gave us choice of what we were interested in. Very hospitable & answered all our questions about the island during the transport. When we return to Bonaire, we definitely will use Paul again. He was excellent as well.
4) Aruba - when we booked the cruise, Aruba was only doing boat excursions only. So we booked the scuba excursion through the boat (we had a bunch of OBC & wanted to make sure we were underwater at least once during this trip). We did the ABC in reverse so this was our 3rd day of diving & easily the most disappointing. We loaded up with scuba divers & discovery divers group & headed to a resort there (I think they were 20 of each). When we got to the resort, discovery group went for their instruction and scuba divers went on the boat. This included gear; so most had to collect their gear, turn in forms, check cards, buddy up if you needed one etc. It was a 10 min ride out to SS Antilles our first dive of the day. Max depth was 50 feet and dive time was 45 mins total (Back on the boat). You have to follow a guide and stay in the group. Safety & liability was a major focus as we returned to the boat with easily 1200+ psi at the end of the dive. The next dive was Pedernalis (another wreck) but the max depth was 23 feet. This is where the discovery group was doing their dive as well. Again - 45 mins dive time. At the end of the day, we had fun but don't recommend it. We enjoy blowing bubbles, meeting some of our ship mates and hearing their stories but the diving was subpar at best. Many people we dove with were very new to the sport or don't dive regularly & they all had an excellent time. But we spent a lot of time dodging people or the guy starting his youtube diving channel who spent more time chasing fish, disrupting the bottom, completely bailed on his dive buddy (who was also his wife), etc. Just after our previous experiences; this one was lacking. Although I did learn a lot about the type of diver I don't want to be.
If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
