Cairns or Port Douglas

[Aquapro Dive Services]

Have to disagree with KY here about Reef getting better further south you go. The more ancient reef (platetectonic shifts) show the oldest part of teh Reed is around New Guinea and Far North of Queensland, and the youngest is south. Arguably the start of the Reef is around Bundaberg, but traditionally the Whitsundays are asumed the start (close enough).

Thats why everyone raves about the live aboard trips that go to the Ribbon Reef areas which are the best.

There are great sites out of all towns accesing the Reef. If there wasnt they wouldnt last long as tourist centres.

I guess you have to decide on the choice of town (port or Cairns) for entertainment and relaxation rather than Reef access as both have great trips and great sites available.

Also Alumm555 no surf up here due to the Barrier Reef. All low wavce action in the coastline behind the Reef. The youngest you can try scuba is 8 years old and that is in a pool only. From 10 they can try in confined water (which can be sheltered coastline. Queensland has different rules to PADI thats why cant actually even try a intro dive until 14.

 

[bracko]

umm Port Douglas hands down...

Cairns is a sh'yte town that unless you are a backpacker with pheremons, has absolutly no appeal at all...

At least Port douglas has nice rain forest close by!!!!

agreed... I stay in Cairns because i like a drink and hitting on back packers and the end of a hard day's diving

for a young family PD is far better. Just remember it is stinger season though.

 

[KY]

okay, fair enough i can only go by my experience which is that the reefs accessible from Port Douglas and Cairns are not even worth paying for... they are that bad...

The only reefs on the barrier i'd actualy start paying for are from Bundanberg down... the rest you can keep.. its just too sh'yte to waste gas on...

 

[Cnz Diver]

I live in Cairns, sure Cairns has backpackers but the majority of tourists are staying in 4-5 star hotels.

I find Port Douglas an even more of a tourist town, the township itself looks great but you can become bored very quickly as there is nothing to do in the town.

If you are looking for a nice seaside destination try Palm Cove it's great, fantastic hotels no backpackers and great dining. Most or all of the reef cruises pick up from Palm Cove and as Palm cove is half way between Cairns and Port Douglas you can choose to travel to the reef from Cairns or Port Douglas.

 

[Jeffro_TBS]

I'd choose PD over Cairns, but it probably is a bit more touristy and $$ than Cairns. That said, plenty of nice restaurants and things to do in the evening IMHO. Haven't stayed in Palm Cove, but it was a nice place for a relaxing lunch. It seems like it would be pretty quiet compared to PD, so I suppose it depends on what you're after.

 

[Darnold9999]

Visited this area for three weeks a few years ago - my impressions:

Loved Palm Cove. Nice quiet little town with a great beach. Significant portion of the beach is behind a stinger net, have no idea how effective it really is. The only thing going on for small children is the beach, but for kids the beach is great. If you stay at Cairns go to Palm Cove for a day at the beach. You will end up visiting both PD and Cairns, but as a place to stay I would choose Palm Cove. Many of the activities you will want to do are outside of Cairns so where you start from is pretty much irrelevant.

Cairns is a small city, lots of tourist activities going on. A destination for tourists. Didn't see much to recommend it. A place to visit for a day trip.

Port Douglas is a small town, similar tourist activities, but much smaller. Also not much to recommend. Also a place to visit for a day trip.

If I had to choose I would stay at PD over Cairns, but I have no kids and a party town is something I tend to avoid. I would stay at PC over the other two no contest.

The reef from both places is nowhere near as good as it is further north. However you are looking at a liveaboard to get further north. I did do both when I was there. The liveaboard was MUCH better than the day trips.

The reef was well worth the trip out. I did day trips with both Posieden and Habba out of PD - would pass on Quicksilver. Yes it is a little bit like Thunderball with snorkelers everywhere and divers grouped into bunches of 8 to 12 - not what I would want but there are not a lot of other choices for a day trip. These are all cattle boats with the two I did a little less so than Quicksilver. Both Posieden and Habba take 40 or so passengers, Quicksilver many more I believe; most of them snorkelers. With small kids Quicksilver may be better as they take you to a floating platform as I understand it. Having said all of that it is still worth going out, just be aware that the reef you are going to gets hundreds of divers a month with minimal skills.

 

[tracy_from_oz]

Quicksilver runs a huge catamaran out to the reef, with perhaps a hundred passengers or more, most of them snorkelers. The divers are organized into one or two teams of perhaps a dozen or more. The whole reef looks like the set of Thunderball, with so many divers in the water, snorkelers on the surface, and a glass-bottomed boat puttering around. At least that's the dive day I had with them, quite some time ago. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, if that's what you want. It seems to be a well-run operation and would probably be a good way to get a mixed group of snorkelers and diver onto the reef at the same time. For me, though, it is the antithesis of what I look for in a dive day, the quintessential cattle boat, and I would look for other, smaller operations.

I dive with the Quickies everytime im in Cairns unless I go to the Coral Sea. I take either one of the Swift boats and ask for a private dive guide. I asked and booked well in advance for a private guide and had no problems with them getting me one.
These are the dedicated dive boats. Never had a bad experience or found it over crowded.

Yes they have a day boat out to the outer reef which caters more to families and snorkelers.
I think it comes down going through their web site and finding the boat that suits you and your needs.

I am sorry Vlad you had a bad experience with them and im guessing you went to the outer reef and did the diving off either Quickie 5 or 8, which are the big silver boats.
They have expanded dramatically and I really like the Swift boats that they now have for diving. Basically one leaves from Cairns for the day and the other Port Douglas.
I want to hopefully be up there in the near future and see the whales.

I've lived in Both Cairns and Port and Port was just to boring to be honest. Dont get me wrong its a lovely town but for me I couldnt do much which bothered me. I dont party, I dont even drink but if I want to go out to the movies or something simple I couldnt do it in Port.
I like going for a walk at night along the water front or heading out early morning renting a boat from the wharf and go crab fishing. I can do these in Cairns.
Yes Port has some nice resturants but I think I just liked Cairns better for the variety as well as the ability to do more in the evening.