Caribbean Princess Dives

[foneguy]

well my dive with princess was great. BUT,,,the @#$%^& ship was late to every port!! except princess cayes of course. 1 hr late to cozumel, which delayed the dive boat even more. but, the important part is that Dive House ( the dive operator), was just great. dove malangar gardens, dropped in to the sand bar, 25', then to the reef 80' for a 30 min dive, BEAUTIFUL this was the best dive i have ever gone on! the coral, the marine life and a very large spiny lobster were the highlights of dive 1.
Next we sailed to yucanab reef. where we dove straight down to a 50' 45 min reef dive. again, the colors, coral, and marine life was just awsome. i will post some pics asap. the thing that saved my dives was that i booked through princess, i truely believe that if i booked on my own, and the ship being late, i would have not been able to go and "play" under water .

 

[caymaniac]

I have cruised a couple of times on Princess. Do not use them to dive with. This next time I plan on setting up Dive Ops with private companies on the islands we go to. Yeah, they gave me the insurance crap too. I just think that they 1. Hire paranoid divemasters or 2. Hire lazy divemasters. But don't take my opinion, I would be willing to dive from the little docks they set up on the outside of the ship

I'm taking your advise, I booked Blue Island Divers on St. Thomas and Scuba Fun on St. Maarten. Cruise leaves April 2 to April 9.............anyone else??

 

[rje634]

Do not use them to dive with. This next time I plan on setting up Dive Ops with private companies on the islands we go to.

Newt you've hit the nail on the head!
I have found that this is the only way to dive if your on a cruise ship.
Always set up your dive trip with reputable local dive shops. Look at padi.com to search for the dive shops available in any given port. You'll have a much better dive not to mention usally saving a significant amount of money....

 

[DiveMaven]

We did all our dives by booking privately on our cruise in December. However, we elected NOT to dive St. Maarten because of not ready many good reviews of the diving there. We have heard "current" and "chop" too many times to bother with diving there, and instead spent our time on Orient Beach enjoying the sunshine.

After diving in the USVI and BVI islands though, we definitely plan to go back to Tortola for sure, and likely St. Thomas along the way.

 

[BurBunny]

I frequently dive from cruise ships, and while the logistics can be challenging at times, it's definitely worth it to arrange the dives independently. Higher quality operations, longer bottom times. Usually still follow the leader since they don't know your abilities only diving with them one day, but once down and they see I'm fine, they usually let me do what I want with my camera, not force me to stay right with them.

In addition to Blue Island in St. Thomas, I like St. Thomas Diving Club and Chris Sawyer. I skip St. Maarten. Just not enough there to make the conditions worthwhile.

-Amber

 

[PugetDiver]

I'm taking your advise, I booked Blue Island Divers on St. Thomas and Scuba Fun on St. Maarten. Cruise leaves April 2 to April 9.............anyone else??

I will be on the April 2nd Cruise to the Eastern Caribean. I am going to look into that Blue Island Divers. We have about 18 family members going on the cruise. 5 of us are divers.