Caring for gear on a cruise ship

[aLittletank]

I am taking a cruise this summer with Royal Caribbean on the "Freedom of the Seas". My brother and I plan to dive at Grand Cayman and Cozumel. I plan to take all my gear with me however I worry about stinking up our small cabin that I will share with my wife and son (silly non divers).

Are there areas on board ships these days to care for and hang dry gear?

any tips?

 

[fisherdvm]

It does get a little damp and humid with the dive gears. The problem is that the ventilation system is linked with the AC. You want ventilation to dry your gears, then better bring some sweat shirt or jackets along. If you don't mind being damp and humid, then dry your gear in the comfort of a warm cabin. It is kinda a pain to drag your geat in and out of the boat ... My biggest concern is the disclaimer that Carnival has: They are responsible for only $50 per lost luggage, unless you declare the value before you embark. I called them before we left home, they wouldn't let me declare the value of my dive equipment, said to do it on arrival. On arrival, none of the staff claim they knew anything about "declaring value" of your luggage. Then they said we should have gotten their insurance policy - yeh, right, for them losing my luggage??

They, like the airliner, don't handle your baggage well. So you better be sure to take apart your BC hose so it doesn't kink to much on compression, and pack your regulator in a hard case that protect against compression. I used my fins to increase the rigiditiy of my semisoft luggage, and my mask case as additional protector. Hard case would be ideal to protect your dive gear. But I always do a very complete predive check on my gears before I dive.

Check with Royal Caribbean on their lost luggage policy before deciding to bring gears along.

 

[Zenshift]

When you say 'small cabin' I'm assuming you have an inside cabin. My wife and I dove Aca and P.V. on a Mexican west coast cruise and Coz on a W. Carr. cruise. In prep for the cruises, I visited www.cruisecritic.com often. I never saw or heard of an area on the ship to dry your gear. The best we could do was rinse at one of the diveshops before coming back to the ship. Our room on the first cruise did in fact smell like a locker room after the second day of diving.

My advice: Woollite or wetsuit cleaner for lycra & wetsuits; take hangers for your BC/wetsuits; if someone you know has a balcony, beg them to borrow some space the evenings after your dives.

My real advice: If you can, leave your wetsuits at home. Perhaps take just the lycra bodysuits. It is the neoprene that will take forever to dry and will end up stinking up your room. Lysol & air freshener for your water shoes or boots if you have a chance to stop by a wal-greens on the way to the ship (btw, we took soda and water on the ship (Carnival & NCL) we bought while transfering to the ship.

Cruise advice: Buy a $6.00 clear plastic over-the-door 'shoe organizer', similar to this one, but all clear plastic and costs $6.00.

The shoe organizer goes in your bathroom, hung probably from the towel rack, and you can put your shaving cream, hair brushes, hair spray, deoderant, etc. etc. in the pockets freeing up the limited sink space. Trust me, your travel companions will think you are a genius.

Also, we bought a duffle bag at Wal-Mart for $28 that has a seperate zipped compartment *for fins*. The bag doesn't look like anything special so it is less likely to get boosted if it has all your gear in it.

Enjoy!

 

[fisherdvm]

I brought my own wet suit with me, as I am hard to fit. My suggestion would be to rinse of the wet suit at the dive shop, dry it well with a towel on both sides, then hang it in your cabin to dry. I would turn the inside out if you are going to dive the next day. Bring a large garbage bag to pack it, as it might still be a little damp by the time you disembark from the cruise ship.

 

[aLittletank]

thanks for all the good advice. I was hoping that because they teach PADI lessons on board in the pool that they might have a system set up to accomidate divers gear. I will use your ideas to try to keep the stink down in the room.

the shoe organizer is genius!

 

[OceanObsessed]

The service on the cruise ships is outstanding. The people that take care of your room will do anything for you. They will bring you wine glasses even though you are not supposed to have wine in your room, etc. They work for tips and most of them really don't care what you do as long as you give them a good tip. If you express your concerns to them I would be willing ot bet that they would accomodate your needs. They may store your wet wetsuit for you in their storage rooms, etc. It is worth asking.

Another tip: you can sneak clear alcohol (vodka, rum, etc) on the ship by puting it in a plastic water bottle with a label. Just carry it in your hand when boarding and it looks just like you are sipping water. I have talked to several people that have done this and it worked for me too. Once onboard I found a 24 hour lemonade dispenser on the pool deck and you can figure the rest

 

[DiveMaven]

You can also plan on taking your gear up on deck and sit around having a couple of drinks while it dries outside for a couple of hours. If you're in a tropical climate, it should be pretty warm in the summer, so won't take long for most of your stuff to dry out.

 

[drl]

If you have a balcony it's easy (but bring bungee cords to tie stuff down!). Last time we didn't, and we did what DiveMaven suggested. After rinsing the gear at the dock, we took it up to the pool deck (which usually wasn't crowded at that time of day), finished rinsing it under the showers there, then laid it out to dry on a couple of deck chairs while we relaxed. We asked the cabin steward for some plastic sheets (she found giant garbage bags) so we didn't have to leave everything in the bathroom. It wasn't ideal but it worked OK.

 

[Trwmodela]

I did dives on Carnival Cruises before without any problems. I used the open showers on Lido Deck-9 to rinse my gear. Then layed my equipment out to dry but never left it unattended. Also, did some from Princess but had a large handicap bathroom to hang my gear for drying. No more Cruise Ship diving for me. Oh, no items allowed on any balconies anymore because of the Fire concerns. The crew will remove the items if found. But, I really love the live-aboard diving Cruises like Nekton.

Tim

 

[DiveMaven]

Yeah, I agree....one cruise where we dove, now if we want to dive from a ship, we take a Nekton boat!!