Cruise ship stop in Cozumel

[Bazooka Joe]

I thought I would ask the question here. I am on a Cruise ship that stops in Cozumel at the end of the month and have dove there several times off the cruise ships.

The ship arrives at 11 AM and I was wondering instead of taking the ships offering of a 2 tank dive through Sand Dollar if there are any other recomendations out there for diving?


Thanks

Joe

 

[ggunn]

I thought I would ask the question here. I am on a Cruise ship that stops in Cozumel at the end of the month and have dove there several times off the cruise ships.

The ship arrives at 11 AM and I was wondering instead of taking the ships offering of a 2 tank dive through Sand Dollar if there are any other recomendations out there for diving?


Thanks

Joe

Arriving at 11 AM puts you at a bit of a disadvantage. Many shops run afternoon dives sometimes, but make the decision that day based on demand. How many of you are there? If there are 4 or 5 of you, you may be able to get an op to commit a boat to you for the time you have, but if you are alone, then taking the ship's excursion may be your only option. You also have to consider what time the ship leaves as well; a ship sponsored excursion will be scheduled to fit.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Yeah, Ship docks at 11AM sails at 8 PM. There are 3 of us and although Sand Dollar has been excellent before, I am not oppsoied to trying something new. I was kinda hoping the some OP had something that started later in day after the morning dives.

I'll give it another couple hours before I book!

Thanks for your input.

Joe

 

[ggunn]

Yeah, Ship docks at 11AM sails at 8 PM. There are 3 of us and although Sand Dollar has been excellent before, I am not opposed to trying something new. I was kinda hoping the some OP had something that started later in day after the morning dives.

I'll give it another couple hours before I book!

Thanks for your input.

Joe

Leaving at 8PM gives you a pretty wide window; that's good. If you email around to dive ops you may find one who will commit in advance to an afternoon dive for three of you. But I have to ask - if you were happy with SD before, why are you looking to change? It's the reef, not the dive op, that you are going there to see. Once you are in the water, why do you care whose boat brought you there?

If you are looking for more advanced diving, it's not likely that any dive op will take someone from a cruise ship whom they've never seen before to a site that's very challenging.

You might could save some money, I guess; ship sponsored excursions are generally (or so I've heard) quite a bit more expensive than self booking.

 

[jeancmo]

I thought I would ask the question here. I am on a Cruise ship that stops in Cozumel at the end of the month and have dove there several times off the cruise ships.

The ship arrives at 11 AM and I was wondering instead of taking the ships offering of a 2 tank dive through Sand Dollar if there are any other recomendations out there for diving?


Thanks

Joe

Is 11:00 am ship time? IF ship left from Florida then you would be on eastern time- local Cozumel time would be 10:00 am. Blue Angel has boat going out at 11:00- you may make that. However, for ease of mind I would probably just go out with Sand Dollar- they are OK for a day dive.

Jean in MO

 

[pinotscubajack]

Give Joyce at Blue Magic Scuba a call - joyce@bluemagicscuba.com. She might have a boat that is going out in the afternoon on the day you want to dive. Excellent Op. I dove with them twice already this year and will be back to dive with them again in July.

 

[Pearldiver07]

You might also consider arranging an aftenoon pick up with Diver Martin.

They run smaller boats and many I've talked to in the past have had a good experience with them.

 

[deepstops]

You might also consider arranging an aftenoon pick up with Diver Martin.

They run smaller boats and many I've talked to in the past have had a good experience with them.

Ditto on the good experiences with Dive With Martin, they always run a good trip

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Leaving at 8PM gives you a pretty wide window; that's good. If you email around to dive ops you may find one who will commit in advance to an afternoon dive for three of you. But I have to ask - if you were happy with SD before, why are you looking to change? It's the reef, not the dive op, that you are going there to see. Once you are in the water, why do you care whose boat brought you there?

If you are looking for more advanced diving, it's not likely that any dive op will take someone from a cruise ship whom they've never seen before to a site that's very challenging.

You might could save some money, I guess; ship sponsored excursions are generally (or so I've heard) quite a bit more expensive than self booking.

Well, yes and no...having taking several shore excursions off the ships in cozumel the dive ops tend to lean toward one or two of the same sites, so it comes down to the reef and the dive op. We are always open to diving different areas and doing diffrent things, and as someone else pointed out you tend to carry a little bit of a bad rep coming off the ship. Having stood back and watched the heard stomp all over the reef and try and pretty much kill themselves, my family and I tend to hang to the back of the group out of the way.

I was hoping to find something out of the ordinary and out of the way, the safe bet is to go with the ship excursion and with a little under 100 dives this year in a various places around Florida, Cozumel, Roatan we know what we like and dislike. SD runs a great operation, don't get me wrong....and we thought about flying to COZ and diving with them but you never know whats there unless you get off the beaten path.

I used to think the cattle boat of south Florida was the best, but now I tend to lean more toward 6 packs (Underwater Explorers).

As I implied, not looking to say any OP in COz is bad...just looking for something new to do.

Joe

 

[deepstops]

I used to think the cattle boat of south Florida was the best, but now I tend to lean more toward 6 packs (Underwater Explorers).

Joe

If you like diving with Kevin, you'll like DWM's boats and DMs (they are eight packs instead of six-packs).