Diving on a budget

[Bryan Cunningham]

DIVING VACATIONS ON A BUDGET
Every diver wants the best deal he can get for his diving vacation. You have a budget and want to get the most bang (or marine life) for your buck. Well in order to do this you need to first establish exactly what your budget is, and what constitutes a good deal. This is a very different approach that merely searching for what is the CHEAPEST option out there. Once you have found the vacation option that can fit your budget you can then look at viable means of reducing the overall cost.

The cost of a diving vacation increases in an almost direct proportion to the quality of the diving. Unfortunately marine reefs and marine life are adversely effected by the economic development of an area. The more hotels and cities along the coastline, the more pollution, sediment runoff, boat traffic, sewage etc etc ends up on the reef. When a great dive destination gets popular, more hotels are developed, cheaper flights are available, more dive operators compete for your business. All this greatly reduces the cost, and depletes the marine life. Some classic examples include Turks and Caicos, Cozumel, Eilat, Phuket, and many other destinations. Although many are still great dive destinations, they are nothing like they were 20 years ago. Do a little comparison of dive vacation costs from Toronto. Start with cost of diving Lake Ontario, going up the scale to places like Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Hunduras, Belize. Next up are the Eastern Islands Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire, Curacao. Then you get more costly but start getting to the good stuff: Galapagos, Le Rouques, Cocos Islands, Jardines De La Reina, South Africa, Southern Red Sea, Maldives. Finally you get to the blow your mind diving. Papua New Guinea, Papau Pef, Boro Boro, Taihiti etc. See what I mean. Your cost will esculate from $1500 for an all inclusive dive vacation to the $5000 mark.

The more remote and off the beaten track you go, the more pristine the reef and the more marine life you will find. But this means flights are scarcer so will be more expensive and involve connections, lay-overs and island hops. Accommodation will be either way more rustic, or an excessively expensive boutique type resort. You are going to have fewer dive operations, charging more and using smaller boats, (so do not expect a toilet onboard). But the diving will have that WOW factor. The trick is to find those rare gems that break the mould, or choose the destination you want, and find other ways to fit it into your budget without compromising your trip. So we have stretched our budget, found the destination we have set our hearts on. Now how do we reduce the costs?

REDUCING THE COST OF YOUR VACATION.
There are many ways of reducing the cost of your vacation. And I will cover this topic mor in further blogs. But here are a few ideas.
1) Buying your own equipment. Most dive quotes only include tanks and weights. Prices for rental equipment range from $30 to $60 per day. If you have non divers who wish to snorkel, expect to pay at least $10 per day for simple used mask snorkel fin sets. A new set will only cost your around $40 and they are yours for your next vacation. Renting will cost you $60+ each vacation. A wetsuit rental than has worn thin, have other peoples bodily fluids in them (yes most divers pee in their suits) and are stretched, will cost $10 upwards. As I said, I will devote an entire blog to this. Moving on.
2) TRAINING. If you or your partner/friends are new to diving, or learning to dive, there are factors to consider. Learn the basics at home (pool and academics). You can complete the open water dives on vacation. This way you are not paying for a hotel while you are studying. Do not try the BEST most expensive destination for your training dives. You will not get to see the best reefs while training, so are wasting your money. Rather choose a warm nice destination to learn, and save the good stuff for later. More on this in future blogs.
3) USE YOUR TRAVEL AGENT AND LOCAL DIVE SHOP: You think you can find a better “deal” yourself online? Sit down and think. You travel agent and local dive shop work in the industry, they know the dive destinations, dive operators, resorts etc etc. If you choose the right one they can help find the best deal for you, give advice on destinations that will suite your diving needs, level of training, budget, interests etc. And save you a the little extras that add up. We can find options with unlimited free shore diving, or unlimited diving, free pool training, free nitrox, free equipment rental (rare), free kids accomadation, honeymoon bonuses, repeat business reductions, group specials etc etcetc. Again, mor on this in another blog.

Well I hope you have a slightly revised perception on what it means to DIVE ON A BUDGET. Like and share this blog if you agree. What more of my opinions/advice? Email me at bryan@scubadestinationdeals.com
Happy diving
Bryan

 

[nimoh]

Owning your own equipment will save you money in the long run, but it is a significant initial investment. Also, as you dive more, your equipment needs may change. For example, Scubaboard is littered with posts where divers initially bought an jacket BC, and then tried a backplate, and switched. Personally, I think it is best that for your first few dives after OW training, divers are generally better off renting (or better yet, borrowing) equipment until a more informed decision can be made (I would have saved money doing that).

I completely agree with the point on training. Training dives tend to be more about performing skills rather than looking around at pretty fish, so doing it in a quarry with 30' visibility is not much different that doing it on vacation.

For travel, I think it is best to use your travel agent, dive shop and plan thing yourself online. There is nothing wrong with getting a quote from a travel agent or a dive shop and then shopping online for a better deal. One thing that can affect things is that dive shops commonly price trips so that the person leading the trip goes for free, spreading out the cost of the trip among divers going on the trip. However, there is something to be said about going diving with a group of people that you know are at about the same level as yourself, and having a large group of people to hang out with after diving.

 

[Tigerman]

When I plan my dive trips, I never use the old fashioned travel agents, I buy flights, hotel and diving individually.
Leftover seats on charter flights is one of my favourites. They are not exactly buisness class, but they tend to be very cheap.
For hotel bookings you have sites like travel republic, hotels.com and booking.com that in most cases give you fairly good prices.

What I avoid like a plague is "all inclusive". It might SEEM like a good idea, but really, its not. The premium to go all inclusive generally is far more than its worth, unless youre planning to spend your days at the hotel with your wife and 2 children..

Of course, all the money I save on flights and hotels goes straight back into the diving in the form of extra dives, night dives, special trips and so on so it doesnt keep my total cost down, it just makes sure most of it is diving

 

[jameseg]

The cost of a diving vacation increases in an almost direct proportion to the quality of the diving.

While I understand generally the point you're trying to make, I disagree with this as a blanket statement. I think there are other variables that have much more impact on vacation cost than quality of the diving. For example, quality of hotel, availability/cost of flights, etc. By way of example, my trip to St. Lucia was about double the cost of my trip to Bonaire, and the diving wasn't even close to as good. And my trip to Catalina Island, which has fantastic (albeit not warm water) diving was only about half the cost of the Bonaire trip.

As for travel agents & dive shops, I think that's a personal call. I think part of the fun of any trip is the research. I spend a significant amount of time before each trip deciding where I want to go, exactly what area I want to stay in, finding the best value hotel/liveaboard in that area (not the cheapest, but the best value), finding cost-effective ways to get from one place to another, etc. As a result of this work (which I enjoy), I have never been disappointed in a vacation. With all the information that's available online these days, it's quite easy to make educated decisions about hotels, flights, dive shops, and restaurants. But I also understand that some people don't want the hassle of what can be fairly complicated logisitcs, and just want to travel.

Agree that, over the long run, owning your own equipment is cost effective. But even more important to me is the increase in safety and comfort that comes with using my own gear.

That's my two cents.

James

 

[chillyinCanada]

I don't agree that it is fine to take up a travel agents time and offerings and then go and do your own booking. Just as I don't agree that it is fine to use up the time and expertice offered at a dive shop and then ordering equipment/gear online. If you want to do your research and book online that's fine but sucking expertise from a travel agent and then circumventing them seems almost like stealing to me.

 

[Tigerman]

So if I get price quotes from 3 different shops and end up buying something from only one of them, Im stealing?
Im still taking up time and expertise from all three of them..

 

[Mantra]

So if I get price quotes from 3 different shops and end up buying something from only one of them, Im stealing?
Im still taking up time and expertise from all three of them..

I think that's different because you are still legitimately looking to purchase from one of them.

Amazon.com recently did an offer where if you went into a book store, scanned a bar code of a book on your smart phone and sent it to them with the retail price they would beat the price online. What they were really doing of course was building a very comprehensive live data map of what goods were selling for what prices including physical locations for their own competitive advantage. Clever, but ethically questionable. Shoe stores, LDSs etc are all being impacted by people going in, trying stuff on, with the sole intention of then shopping online based on price alone.

Bricks and mortar retailers are being really impacted by this. I don't think it is ethical consumerism. Travel agents often work on commission, and stealing consultancy services is taking money in the form of time from their pockets.

I really enjoy planning my own trips, but I don't ask a professional to help for nothing. Rather I look at places like tripadvisor or here for crowd sourced information that I can then contribute back to in kind. That or I am happy to pay a small premium to compensate someone who has been helpful.

This reminds me of the kid who posted here recently who had gotten a bunch of free training from their LDS and then wasn't going to buy gear from them when it came time because they could get a cheap deal online. SB thankfully helped them see the light.

 

[nimoh]

I don't agree that it is fine to take up a travel agents time and offerings and then go and do your own booking. Just as I don't agree that it is fine to use up the time and expertice offered at a dive shop and then ordering equipment/gear online. If you want to do your research and book online that's fine but sucking expertise from a travel agent and then circumventing them seems almost like stealing to me.

I don't see anything wrong with getting a quote from different places, and then making an informed decision. Although, I do have a problem with using a travel agent to plan your trip, with the intent of booking the trip yourself after it is planned for you, much like I would never consider trying on equipment in a dive shop to find the right size knowing full well that I am going to buy it online. For me, it usually works the other way, I find things I want online first.

As an analogy, completely unrelated to diving, when I was looking for a new vehicle, I went to several dealerships (Ford, GMC, Dodge and Toyota) and took up a significant amount of time from the salespeople at each place, but ultimately bought a Ford.

I realize I am drawing a fuzzy line on morality, but I can sleep at night

 

[Tigerman]

Yeah, its definetly a fuzzy line when you end up with a FORD!!

 

[nimoh]

Yeah, its definetly a fuzzy line when you end up with a FORD!!

ouch, I sense I may have hijacked this thread into a non-scuba related discussion