cruise diving

[ghosty_old]

My girlfriend and i are going on a cruise on jan 18 with royal carribean cruise lines. We want to dive in grand caymans and cozumel. The cruise offers dive trips as part of there shore excursion packages. Just wondering if anyone who has done these trips has any info for us. We are both new divers, just passed our OW class, and would like to here others opinions on these trips that the cruise lines offer. Are they reputable diving charters or are we going to end up with some 70 year old captain with an old fishing boat and no DM. Also are these trips ussully pretty crowded.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Haven't done the trip, but live on one of the islands.

Cruise lines always select reputable operators, and are able to provide enough customers so that the dive operators run trips to suit the schedule of the cruise ship.

The primary advantage to going with the cruise lines' choosen operator is that scheduling is easy. Scheduling your own boat trip often is a problem since morning boats will have departed by the time you are ashore. Diving is good for beginners, but advanced divers may prefer more technically demanding sites.

The downside is that the dive boats that the cruise line fills will usually be crowded. If you are on Explorer of the Seas it will be a particularly busy day in Grand Cayman. Six ships are due in that Wednesday. Nordic Empress (Monday) or Voyager of the Seas (Thursday) arrival dates are a bit quieter with only three ships each day.

 

[scorpionfish]

Hi, Ghosty!

Without exception, every single dive trip that I have seen arranged by a cruise ship has been overcrowded. The very worst has been on St. Thomas where there were 40 souls per dive boat and three dive boats all at the same site!

On Coz, it was more like 20 divers with extremely limited bottom times--much less than dive tables would allow.

I cannot comment on Drew's experience, but my observation on GC was a "conga line" of divers with one DM at the front and one at the rear.

In the Bahamas it was much the same.

Your best chance for a great dive is to see if you can escape the ship whilst in port and arrange for a dive privately. I hope I have not rained on your parade!

Scorpionfish

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

I dove with Norwegian in Cozumel and Grand Cayman. In Grand Cayman we used the ship chosen dive operator (Red Sail Watersports). The boat was crowded and the dive was short. We only went about a half mile from the cruise ship to do the dive. It was to diving as McDonalds is to fine dining (and you thought you would only use that stuff on your SATs). If you want to get wet you will but it won;t be the most memorable experience of your trip. In Cozumel we made arrangements to charter our own dive boat with Aldora. We snagged a third diver away from the cruise ship sponsored dive and the three of us had two of the best dives ever. We split the cost of the charter three ways and it ended up costing us $30.00 extra apiece. Well worth it. Aldora was waiting for us when the ship docked. Their shop is right near the cruise dock for Norwegian. I am not sure about your line. Good luck!

 

[Asta1227]

I was on a cruise w/ RCCL in October. In Belize, we used the cruise ship's excursion. It was mediocre at best. We had 16 divers in a small boat w/ limited seating. I think we were taken to a mediocre area of the reef as well. There was not much marine life, coral was in ok shape. The DM's were great though.

In Cozumel, I arranged diving with Living Underwater. Words cannot begin to explain how pleased I was with this operation. And the diving was phenomenal!

If you make your own diving arrangements, make sure the dive op knows that and is willing to wait for you if the ship gets in a little later. Also, make sure you'll be back in time to board the ship. Surely you dont' want to be left anywhere!!!

Good luck and have fun!!

 

[scorpionfish]

Well, gang, it looks like the word is out: cruises and diving do not really mix well. There are reasons for that and I will share them with you. According to some pals who work in dive businesses and need to remain unnamed:

(1) When cruise ships arrange for dives, they want to make it as painless on themselves as possible. So they arrange for as many folks to go at the same time as possible: hence, crowded dives.

(2) Dive shops feel no allegiance to cruise ship divers because they do not look on them as repeat customers. The cruise line is the customer and it gets the loyalty.

(3) The cruise line negotiates a price and it is lower per diver than the "normal" price. You can guess what that means.

(4) Since the customer/divers are not seen as repeaters, and the groups are big, they are normally taken to sites that are (a) not very good and (b) out of eyesight, if possible, of other dive sites.

Don't say you read this here!

Scorpionfish

 

[richhagelin]

I have dived on four different cruise lines in Caribbean and Mexico. Hard to generalize since each location and cruise ship is a little different.

One advantage to booking through the cruise line is that you can be very confident that it will be a reputable dive operator (the cruise lines have been doing this for quite a while and any operator who is really bad won't get their business). The dives probably won't be "spectacular" and could be crowded (in my experience about half are "crowded" the best were very nice.

But, the biggest advantage of booking through the cruise line is that you don't have to worry about arriving too late in port to catch your trip, don't have to worry about getting stranded in the middle of a cruise when the dive boat had problems and didn';t make it back on time. That is not a small issue.

If you are still a relative "newbe" then the diving that the cruise line sets up will probably be very good for you.

Rich

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

I think that is probably pretty good advice unless your cruise ship is in Cozumel from early morning to late at night. In that sort of long-term parking situation I would say you would be silly to dive with the cruise ship sponsored operator. It is just too easy and so much better to use someone like Aldora or another small fast-boat operator who will cater to you and give you a much better dive experience. We did two dives of over 70 minutes with Aldora. When we got back on board and compared notes with those who dove the cruise ship operator they reported a crowded, crappy dive with 25 minute bottom time. Yuck!

 

[Norda]

The family and I just did a 7 day Southern Carib cruise in October and did all our own arrangements. It worked just fine, but follow a few key steps:

(1) Make sure you know your arrival and departure times for each day in port.

(2) Use the search feature on this board to find the best operators at each port.

(3) Contact them either by email or many have toll free numbers and let them know your schedule.

My experience is most the smaller ops are flexible, in fact we even had one dive boat bring us directly back to the ship!

On most the dives it was the three of us or just one other person. It is a lot more work scheduling yourself, but well worth it.

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

You may be able to arrange/attract divers ahead of time. Try posting on cruisecritic.com and see if you can get a group together ahead of time. I had some luck in this regard.