Blackbeard's to move to Freeport, Bahamas

[mike_s]

There still a bit pricey at 1795 + airfare and all the taxes and such. It's also not a sailing liveaboard. Cuan Law seems to be the only sailboat liveaboard that offers nitrox, anybody know of any others

I thought they were pricey also and thought about doing the Nekton boat instead
since they "advertise" cruises starting at $1395 (but they are typically more
costly than that.) But once you add up the "surcharges" of the Nekton boat,
the AquaCat price doesn't seem that bad.

Aquacat Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1895 Typical crusie (price increase for 2006 to $1895)
$ 75 port fees (per person)
$ 100 Nitrox for entire week (Much cheaper than Nekton)
$ 15 Departure fee (paid at airport, but included for fair comparison)
--------
$2085

Nekton Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1795 Typical 2006 Nekton Pilot Cay Sal or Northwest Bahamas cruise
$ 72 Bahamian Government charter fee of 4% of the cruise fare
$ 15 Bahamian Government departure fee per person
$ 3 US Passenger vessel excise tax of per person
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Charge
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Security Fee
$ 10 Fort Lauderdale Saturday ground transfer fee
$ 100 Fuel surcharge
$ 250 Nitrox per week
--------
$2225 per person.

I included Nitrox as most people doing repetitive diving daily will
want Nitrox on a liveaboard. Including it also to show the HUGE
difference in price you'd have to pay for different boats and the
"equal" price at the end for the same service.
None of these figures include crew gratuities either, BTW.

So... Though Nekton "advertises" a lower price, once you add all their
fees together for comparison, the Aqua Cat is a cheaper fare. Of course
Aqua Cat departs from Nassau and Nekton from Ft Lauderdale and you
typically have a higher airfare rate to Nassau (which should about equal
them out).


However it's much more expensive than Blackbeards. Well, with
the nicer, bigger, newer, fancier boat, you have increased capital
and operation(fuel/maintenance) costs. You also have private
cabins verses a "bunk". It's two entirely different markets
for people with different wants/needs.

Compare it to the Agressor Fleet, which is $1995 per week
or a few hundred more for Belize (plus $100 nitrox)

In case you ask where I came up with this info, here's
the Sources of information:
http://www.nektoncruises.com/Reservations/Info.aspx
http://www.nektoncruises.com/departures/Schedule.aspx
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/scuba-diving.html
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/dive-equipment-rental.html
http://www.aggressor.com/rates.php

 

[cowdog77]

that was very helpful. After 2 Blackbeard trips we were starting to look at other options since they're leaving FLA. Appreciate it. ~

I thought they were pricey also and thought about doing the Nekton boat instead
since they "advertise" cruises starting at $1395 (but they are typically more
costly than that.) But once you add up the "surcharges" of the Nekton boat,
the AquaCat price doesn't seem that bad.

Aquacat Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1895 Typical crusie (price increase for 2006 to $1895)
$ 75 port fees (per person)
$ 100 Nitrox for entire week (Much cheaper than Nekton)
$ 15 Departure fee (paid at airport, but included for fair comparison)
--------
$2085

Nekton Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1795 Typical 2006 Nekton Pilot Cay Sal or Northwest Bahamas cruise
$ 72 Bahamian Government charter fee of 4% of the cruise fare
$ 15 Bahamian Government departure fee per person
$ 3 US Passenger vessel excise tax of per person
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Charge
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Security Fee
$ 10 Fort Lauderdale Saturday ground transfer fee
$ 100 Fuel surcharge
$ 250 Nitrox per week
--------
$2225 per person.

I included Nitrox as most people doing repetitive diving daily will
want Nitrox on a liveaboard. Including it also to show the HUGE
difference in price you'd have to pay for different boats and the
"equal" price at the end for the same service.
None of these figures include crew gratuities either, BTW.

So... Though Nekton "advertises" a lower price, once you add all their
fees together for comparison, the Aqua Cat is a cheaper fare. Of course
Aqua Cat departs from Nassau and Nekton from Ft Lauderdale and you
typically have a higher airfare rate to Nassau (which should about equal
them out).


However it's much more expensive than Blackbeards. Well, with
the nicer, bigger, newer, fancier boat, you have increased capital
and operation(fuel/maintenance) costs. You also have private
cabins verses a "bunk". It's two entirely different markets
for people with different wants/needs.

Compare it to the Agressor Fleet, which is $1995 per week
or a few hundred more for Belize (plus $100 nitrox)

In case you ask where I came up with this info, here's
the Sources of information:
http://www.nektoncruises.com/Reservations/Info.aspx
http://www.nektoncruises.com/departures/Schedule.aspx
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/scuba-diving.html
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/dive-equipment-rental.html
http://www.aggressor.com/rates.php

 

[dyarab]

I thought they were pricey also and thought about doing the Nekton boat instead
since they "advertise" cruises starting at $1395 (but they are typically more
costly than that.) But once you add up the "surcharges" of the Nekton boat,
the AquaCat price doesn't seem that bad.

Aquacat Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1895 Typical crusie (price increase for 2006 to $1895)
$ 75 port fees (per person)
$ 100 Nitrox for entire week (Much cheaper than Nekton)
$ 15 Departure fee (paid at airport, but included for fair comparison)
--------
$2085

Nekton Typical Bahamas Cruise:
-------------------------------
$1795 Typical 2006 Nekton Pilot Cay Sal or Northwest Bahamas cruise
$ 72 Bahamian Government charter fee of 4% of the cruise fare
$ 15 Bahamian Government departure fee per person
$ 3 US Passenger vessel excise tax of per person
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Charge
$ 5 Port Everglades Port Security Fee
$ 10 Fort Lauderdale Saturday ground transfer fee
$ 100 Fuel surcharge
$ 250 Nitrox per week
--------
$2225 per person.

I included Nitrox as most people doing repetitive diving daily will
want Nitrox on a liveaboard. Including it also to show the HUGE
difference in price you'd have to pay for different boats and the
"equal" price at the end for the same service.
None of these figures include crew gratuities either, BTW.

So... Though Nekton "advertises" a lower price, once you add all their
fees together for comparison, the Aqua Cat is a cheaper fare. Of course
Aqua Cat departs from Nassau and Nekton from Ft Lauderdale and you
typically have a higher airfare rate to Nassau (which should about equal
them out).


However it's much more expensive than Blackbeards. Well, with
the nicer, bigger, newer, fancier boat, you have increased capital
and operation(fuel/maintenance) costs. You also have private
cabins verses a "bunk". It's two entirely different markets
for people with different wants/needs.

Compare it to the Agressor Fleet, which is $1995 per week
or a few hundred more for Belize (plus $100 nitrox)

In case you ask where I came up with this info, here's
the Sources of information:
http://www.nektoncruises.com/Reservations/Info.aspx
http://www.nektoncruises.com/departures/Schedule.aspx
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/scuba-diving.html
http://www.aquacatcruises.com/dive-equipment-rental.html
http://www.aggressor.com/rates.php

Nitrox on the Nekton is limited to a certian number of guests... according to their website. Why I dont know? For $250/person the entire boat should be allowed to dive Nitrox... not just a few. But I digress...

Don't know if anyone's mentioned it but Airtran flies to Freeport for a decent rate, even better when they go on sale. So people in Atlanta (Corigan) can get there for a decent price. But I'd be in Corigan's corner... I wouldn't add airfare to the price for Blackbeard's. Camping on water is not my style... but hey, that's me.

 

[Damselfish]

Nitrox on the Nekton is limited to a certian number of guests... according to their website. Why I dont know? For $250/person the entire boat should be allowed to dive Nitrox... not just a few. But I digress...

I don't think it's a matter of "allow" - I don't think their system has the capacity to fill enough Nitrox tanks. Like they installed it when not as many people dove Nitrox and didn't anticipate eventually most people would? Or they didn't have the space? Or they cheaped out? They also say it's 26-29% and give IMO a lame reason for that. And it's pricy. Seems like something they ought to fix, but likely it doesn't pay for them to do it.

 

[mike_s]

I don't think it's a matter of "allow" - I don't think their system has the capacity to fill enough Nitrox tanks. Like they installed it when not as many people dove Nitrox and didn't anticipate eventually most people would? Or they didn't have the space? Or they cheaped out? They also say it's 26-29% and give IMO a lame reason for that. And it's pricy. Seems like something they ought to fix, but likely it doesn't pay for them to do it.

I think they only have the "capacity" of providing Nitrox for up to 6 divers per trip according to some co-workers who just went on the trip.

I don't know why they didn't put in a larger system than that, but for the
$250 they charge for a week, they are screwing themselves and their customers.

At $250/week, I doubt that many people would pay that much anyway, especially
when a lot of people who take these trips are dive couples (husband/wife). This
means an extra $500/week out of a couples pocket for this trip. To me,
that would make me looks towards other liveaboard boats instead.

the 26%-29% fills sound like a way that they are trying to "spread" the O2
around some.... to sell more $250/week Nitrox slots. oh well.


Back to the boat in the topic of the thread though... BlackBeards doesn't
even offer Nitrox as an option on their boats. I can only figure this is a
space issue as you cram 22 divers and 4-5 crew and a compressor system
on a 65 foot boat, you don't have room for much of anything else.

The major "pro" I can see to BlackBeards moving to Freeport though is
that you don't waste all that time doing the ocean crossing and you
can spend it diving. I've done the ocean crossing between Florida
and Bimini on a private boat before and I enjoyed it, but it was time
consuming.

 

[Torcatdog]

We just booked a boat short term through our LCD. Due to a cancelled filght to Cozumel. There was a boat not scheduled to sail but our group booking of 11 did signal the crew to the deck! We can't wait till 12/28 to get wet!
Tori