Did a Cruise Ship Dive w/Sand Dollar in Cozumel . . .

[CoasterFreak]

I dove with Sand Dollar back in September, and even though I am certain some of this is based on my newbie-ness, I had a blast. I had no problem keeping up with the DM, even after my buddy had to surface shortly after starting to fix a badly flooding mask. I had such a great time, I bought the t-shirt AND the video! I even sat down and watched it again just the other day.

 

[tahqa]

I've had 1 very good dive with Sand Dollar and 3 very bad dives with Sand Dollar. I tired of trying to figure out which Sand Dollar experience I was going to get so I just refuse to dive with them now. I've made written complaints with the ship's on board staff but the decision to use them is made at the corporate level so I guess I'm just making noise.

My plan is to use Dive With Martin for my cruise ship diving needs from now on.

 

[koozemani]

Is Martin the one seen in the video floating around harassing animals on a night dive?

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/un...445811-tug-war-octopus-night.html#post6632186

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/445837-octopus-eating-lionfish.html#post6632019

 

[Elite Travel]

We dove with Sea Sports Belize while on our cruise over New Years. Very nice operation!! We did not book this thru the cruise line, I did it on my own. I would recommend them to anyone.

Thanks for the review!

Me and the wife are going on a cruise in April to Costa Maya, Honduras, Belize and Cozumel. We actually have been looking at excursions some this evening.

What cruise line?

We are going on Norwegian out of New Orleans.

We could not find any for Belize , other than beginner scuba. So looking at the others for diving!

We also very new to diving and want to be safe and have a great time.

 

[donhealy]

I heard also that Sea Sports is pretty good. Several of the divers on Aggressor had used them in the past. By the way, the Hugh Parkey boats are located at the Radisson, about 2 minutes from the tender dock. Enjoy your cruise.

 

[CT Sean]

... After about a half hour we surfaced for pickup, although I don't know if someone was low on air or the DM just decided to end the dive.

The next dive was a shallow reef (Paradise), and was quite nice although also very short (maybe 40 minutes). I came back with more than half a tank....

No idea if it's "cruise ship" standard but my wife and I did a couple dives through Royal Caribbean a few years ago and I recall the DM in St Thomas saying the cruise line required that dives be limited to 35 minutes bottom time. He certainly could have been making things up but the dives in Dominica were the same 35ish minute bottom time.

 

[Mike]

It's air hog standard and cattle diving operation standard.

Basically if you're running a turn and burn dive operation with the cruise ships as your main source of customers you run your dive operation differently. It's more along the lines of a factory assembly line rather than a custom built product.

You're going to get lots of vacation divers with vacation diver skills and air usage, newer divers, divers with low expectations. It's an easy demographic to please, if they see some fish, got to listen to some regae music on the boat and have a relatively safe and fun experience most cruise ship divers would consider it a successful excursion.

You run herd over your divers which can be similar to herding cats, lots of divers without the ability to gear themselves up, putting wet suits on inside out, masks fogging and leaking on dives, divers with horrible buoyancy skills and burning through their air supply quickly. You run your boats on a schedule, getting the divers assembled, out to the dive site, in and out of the water, on to the next dive site with the surface interval being the time it takes to get to the 2nd dive site and everybody herded back up and into the water for the 2nd dive, you get them in and out of the water and back to the dock. Shallow, quick dives help with short surface intervals between dives speeding up the entire process and reduce the chances for problems and accidents in the water as well as decompression injury.

It's just the nature of the beast.

 

[DEEPLOU]

Have done several of these "cruise ship" dives with Sand Dollar. While I can't say they were earth shaking dives, I never had the issues Flots describes. On almost all these excursion dives, I come up with about half a tank, but most of the others on the dive are lucky they had any air left. Unfortunately, those operators don't have the liberty of separating newbies from hard core. All that said, next cruise I will be using Aldora in Cozumel, Nomad in Costa Maya, and Off the Wall in Grand Cayman. (in Roatan still using the ship because other operator said they were full).

 

[joerabbi]

In Coz, we have used Eagle Ray for years. They have always been great. A couple of years, it was just the wife and I snorkeling and they treated us great.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Hugh Parkey (Belize) is great. They come to the ship and pick you up. Typically they dive on Turnifee Atoll. I will be using them again in May when I'm on Carnival. On Roatan, Carnival uses Anthony Keys. They are good but also tailor the dives to the cruise line. I will be using one of the local shops when I'm there again in May.

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Encouraging to hear the name Hugh Parkey. He was also known as Captain Ho Ho. He was a former student . He departed from Santa Ana, California many years ago with new wife in tow to settle in Belize and establish a dive/hotel operation.

Unfortunately Hugh suffered a massive heart attack and passed away about 15 perhaps more years ago.

Is his wife Teresa running the operation or has it been sold and his name retained?

SDM