Cruise Ship Diving

[Dave Dillehay]

AS some of you know, we at Aldora have had some problems in serving cruise ship passengers and those arriving for one day from the mainland…at least to the level expected from Aldora. Bottom line: we just can't consistently do a good job of it. We have thus modified our policies and the attachment should explain:

PS The title of the attachment may be misleading. We are just changing the terms, under which we will serve "one day divers"

 

[cicopo]

I certainly understand you'r thinking on this problem. Dive ops can't rely on cruise ship schedules nor the cruisers who expect a great experience without having demonstrated any of the necessary skills that contribute to an entire group being in sync on a dive.

 

[scubadiver888]

I don't understand the purpose of your attachment. My ex-wife loved cruising. To be fair to me, she would pick cruises which stopped at ports with good to great diving. When we first started doing this I was a new diver and went diving mostly at home. I'd say 95% of the people I went diving with on cruises weren't serious divers. Standing on the reef. Horrible buoyancy control. Wearing 20 pounds of lead with no wetsuit. Running out of air at 40 feet within 30 minutes. Swimming with their hands. These people talked like they were the greatest divers in the world. At each port there were typically 20+ of us diving.

As a side note: the cruise ships used to advertise you must have been diving in the last 12 months. When I got on the ship, they might ask, "Have you been diving recently?" I'd say, "Yes" and prepare to show my dive log. Before I could they'd ask the next guy. The guide would fill out forms with our cert card numbers and then give the list to the dive shop. Some shops which check our cards again but no one ever checked the last time I was diving.

On one cruise we stopped at St. Lucia. Just before that date, someone had mask issues, panicked, shot to the surface and got hit by a local fishing boat. After that the shop insisted everyone demonstrate a mask clearing and regulator recovery. They informed the cruise ship a few days before we arrived in St. Lucia. The day before we arrived everyone was asking each other if they were going diving in St. Lucia. I simply said, "Yes" because I heard it was great diving. Most the other divers started talking about how the dive operator was going to require us to do a mask clearing and regulator recovery. Everyone started talking about how this was insulting. They had been diving for years and didn't need to demonstrate this to anyone. I figured I practice this every year, often multiple times. No big deal.

When we arrived at St. Lucia there were only three of us. The other 19 divers didn't come. It was just me and two guys who were dive instructors from the North Sea. The demonstration took, literally, seconds and we were off for some really great diving.

My point is that the vast major of people I met on cruise ships were not great divers but they wanted everyone to believe they were. They probably bragged to their non-diving friends about how great a diver they were.

I have since found out that shops which do cater to the cruise ships tend to fill the boat with all cruise ship divers and send them off to dead reefs or 'okay' dive sites. The real divers would be taken to vibrant reefs and great dive sites. They'd never have people diving multiple days diving with cruise ship divers. They ran things like two separate businesses.

Cruise ship divers aren't going to like your 'policy' and they'll just tell each other your shop sucks and they won't go diving at that port.

If you don't want to cater to cruise ship divers (and that is entirely fair) then ask them "When does your ship leaves port?" Then and just tell them you cannot guarantee they'll make it back in time. They won't dive with you.

Darrell

P.S. after a couple of cruise ship dives I just quit diving with these yahoos and did more local diving. If I'm diving down in Mexico or the Caribbean now, I'd just go down for a week or two of diving. No more cruise ships for me.

 

[Altamira]

@scubadiver888. I call BS on your post. First, Dave does not need to lie to divers about not being able to get divers arriving by cruise ship back in time for ship departure. It is his dive op and he can set the rules and requirements as to who he wants, or does not want as a client without resorting to lying about it. Cruise ship divers or vacation divers enjoying their once or twice a year dive trip stops or stays in Coz are not going to be bent out of shape, or have their feelings hurt, because Dave prefers a different dive clientele. There are just too many other good dive ops that are happy to book the divers Dave wants to avoid. Second, the quality and abilities of a diver have absolutely nothing to do with how the diver arrived at the dive destination. Whether arriving by ship, air, car, etc., every dive boat I have been on (ship and off-ship vendors), with rare exceptions, has had a mix of divers with abilities ranging from fabulous to crappy, and generally the divers' experience level, training, frequency of diving, and currency have a lot to do with that spread. Unless you are willing to charter the dive boat, or routinely dive with the same group of divers with comparable abilities, most of us dive with whoever shows up on the boat, and I have enjoyed all of my dives regardless of the mix. Finally, I would venture to say that a very high percentage of the divers worldwide are not serious divers regardless of how they arrive on the dive boat. They never were, and will never be serious divers, any more than most skiers are not serious about their hobby compared to a highly skilled downhill racer.

 

[deepsea21]

Am I the only one who just doesn't get this? We all experienced and managed to live through the prior thread about Aldora and the solo cruise ship diver and now the dive community has this blast of an official Aldora change-of-policy response that states:

"With Cruise Ship divers we have little or no opportunity for direct face-to-face communication before they show up. Instead we have to rely on e mail, or at the best a phone call. Both of which leave us open for missed communication. Try spam filters, language differences, or even mistakes on the part of some of our staff. Sometimes the cruise ship divers don’t pay attention to our instructions, have difficulty getting off the ships, show up at the wrong dock instead of our office—or we have no idea what time they will really show up".

OK, I get it. Cruise ship divers cause Aldora problems. 'Nuf said and be done with them but you go on to state:

"So, from now on we will only take cruise ship reservations from April 1 thru December 15 in each year and only if made for 5 or more divers. Those who are familiar with Aldora and our procedures may call us to make exceptions."

How does that make any sense? They are still cruise ship divers but now it is a group of 5 or more. You are still going to have the same lack of communication problems you previously stated that caused the problem with the solo diver but now you'll have a group of 5+ angry divers instead of just one but 5 paying divers is worth the risk or something?

Just be done with cruise ship divers and forget about them! You have a highly successful dive operation but this ongoing commentary and your latest statement of new Aldora policy is downright contradictory and bizarre.

Am I the only one who sees this? This is just weird.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

My guess is that with 5 divers, they would have their own boat. Thats what we did when we were brand new, cruise divers. We chartered our boat (with Dive With Martin) and it was a short walk from the cruise pier. No other divers had to wait on us. There was no chance of us negatively affecting anyone else's dives. (And sweet Jesus...we would have!) We did not have to meet the boat at a set time, in fact they expected us to be late. We were upfront about our diving skill, or lack thereof, and despite everything that could have gone wrong, we had 2 great dives. In fact, it merely solidified the new found addiction.

Requiring cruisers to have their own boat protects the other non-cruise divers from the risks cruisers present to a scheduled boat departure. Not necessarily related to diving skill, but just the scheduling constraints presented by trying to get 4000 people through one door, then The cruise divers having to find transportation to the pier, sign releases, verify cards, gear up, and get on a boat. Everyone meeting and having time to go through Aldora's pre dive meeting, gear up, Do the paperwork, discuss the dives and potential sites, and get on the boat works for everyone.

Now...diving skill.... me, my wife, and 2 daughters would have destroyed anyone else's dives that day. My daughters scattered as soon as we dropped in, I blew through my air trying to wrangle them, and I'm pretty sure our DM was considering just turning off all our air and calling it a day. After a reminder about staying together, the buddy system, and diving the dive plan....the second dive went EXACTLY the same. I'm sure most cruise divers are perfectly good divers and the few train wrecks (like us) ruin it for the rest of them.

The Aldora dive plan makes sense to me. I'm just grateful that DWM didn't put us on the island wide black list because we definately deserved it. It allows options for cruisers, just not single cruisers that they have never met, and protects the rest of their customers from the inherent risks scheduling wise.

Jay