First trip coming up....simple question....Price

[Bow Hunter]

Scuba newbie....spending 5 weeks coming up...Hopkins and farther south....have dived Fla Keys, Mexico and Roatan....why are Belize dive shops so much more expensive per dive?

 

[Bubblesong]

Has anyone done a spreadsheet analysis of dive locations? Obviously travel costs would be per individual's home base. But some locations have cheap travel costs and expensive diving, food and hotel, and others have really cheap accommodations, food and diving and cost a lot to get there, so that it makes more sense for your long trip. I am also looking for a low cost, but safe, scuba location. Although Belize is great, (went there on honeymoon), for now I would rather find out where I can get the most diving with lowest cost for the trip. This seems to be an all inclusive with boat and beach diving to get variety. Anthony's key and CocoView and others of that type.

 

[Bow Hunter]

I've done $85.00 - $119.00 for a 2 tank dive just about everywhere...I see the Belize shops at $150 - $180.00 US for their 2 tank dives....What gives?

 

[Hank49]

I've done $85.00 - $119.00 for a 2 tank dive just about everywhere...I see the Belize shops at $150 - $180.00 US for their 2 tank dives....What gives?

Besides the cost of fuel etc etc, the shops in the south have at least 10 miles to travel out to the barrier reef. Placencia is even farther.

 

[Scubagolf]

Ambergris Caye (San Pedro) looks more like $80 for two tank dive + $10 park fee.

 

[drrich2]

Belize diving differs by location; show us a specific location, dive op. & package.

The cheapest 'Cost/tank' diving I've done was either Key Largo (by buying a 10 2-tank, 20 dive trip package with Rainbow Reef Dive Center), or Bonaire (shore diving, no tipping guides on shore dives), or live-aboard diving (e.g.: California, Belize, the Cayman Islands).

Bonaire nails me on expensive airfare. The live-aboard spare me the cost of renting a vehicle for the week, but lack the option to pack people into a hotel room cheaply so they're great for solo trips.

If you'd like to do some number crunching, check out this thread: Total Cost Mid-range Budget Florida & Caribbean Trips.

Ways to get your cost/dive down:

1.) If solo, do a live-aboard; no car rental.
2.) Regardless, shore dive - Bonaire, Curacao, maybe Grand Cayman or St. Croix.
3.) Do more dives per day! Bonaire, destinations with boat diving supplemented by shore diving, live-aboards.
4.) If airfare's a big part of your expense, stay 2 weeks so the airfare remains the same & averages down.
5.) Yes, some destinations are cheaper than others. Those package deals for Turquoise Bay in Roatan do sound sweet, and it got a good review at Undercurrent.

Of course, live-aboards sometimes don't offer much in the way of non-diving excursions or topside attractions, shore diving is more work & some find Bonaire's iron shore entry/exits a bit daunting, so there are other 'costs' besides the money.

Where do you want to dive in Belize? Ambergris Caye?

Richard.

 

[diversteve]

I am also looking for a low cost, but safe, scuba location.

Arguably the cheapest regional diving (not counting expensive flights to the far east) is South Florida. Find a Motel 6 or similar a few blocks inland and shore dive with a few boat dives included. Blue Heron Bridge is supposed to be one of - if not the best shallow muck/macro dive in the continental US.
Cheap flights on Southwest into FLL - or Spirit/Jet Bliue from the East Coast.

I've dove a lot of the Caribbean - much of the "10 best" lists.

Roatan can be pretty reasonable - esp. with the Anthony's Key BOGO this year but flights for us were always almost $800 and there's virtually no good shore diving (except at Cocoview) to offset the boat dive costs. Which can be pretty cheap - in the West End, 10 dives is $300/350 - Chillies is a hostel there if you want to go low budget - Native Sons Diving is owned by the same family and you walk to food and everything else. The only other fixed cost is a $25 taxi from the airport. There's also multiple water taxis that run along the north side - West Bay is 2 miles west for a much better beach.

I think the cheapest we've ever done is Curacao. Flights were like $550 - we only did one boat dive and 20+ shore dives. A full week of unlimited tanks is like $150, our first apt out west (full kitchen but no stove) was $60/nt. (mountain view) or $80 to look down on the bay - 60' below. 2 mins. away Playa Lagun is one of the better shore dives on the island - and thhere's 40+ more. We rented an SUV for about $400 but a small car would be able to manage most of the dive site roads also. Many of the US food chains are there, Denny's, McDonalds etc. Normal restaurants were pretty reasonable also. Later on we moved closer to town into the Piscadera Resort area. My own condo (2br) cost me $450 for the week plus $90 mandatory cleaning.

Plus a major food store was a mile north. It costs a little more but probably 2/3rds of the shore dive sites also have an operator on-site with tanks/weights. So if you rent a small car, you don't need to haul them. A lot more driving between sites than Bonaire though and gas wasn't cheap - even though there's an old Shell refinery north of downtown. Some of this may be colored by it being a small group trip so we shared all the costs.

The other cheap per dive option is Blackbeards. It's $995 per week to dive around the Bahamas. It's been called"camping at sea" - just bunks with curtains, a 30 sec. freshwater shower per day and 2 shared marine heads. Non-dive time is spent on your bunk or on-deck. You even unload (onto a shelf) and leave your suitcases on the dock. But I think they do 19? dives and visit 2-3 islands. Flight to Nassau not included but I've seen some pretty cheap flights thru Ft. Lauderdale on Bahamas Air or Silver.

 

[diversteve]

Ambergris Caye (San Pedro) looks more like $80 for two tank dive + $10 park fee.

Because it's North. The reef is close there in some areas. I believe it's even closer to Caye Caulker.

 

[Bow Hunter]

I'm just looking at the shops in Placencia and their regular 2 tank dive prices

 

[Hank49]

The barrier reef is 20 miles from Placencia. Add a couple more miles if the dive boat is moored in the lagoon. Lot of fuel.
As mentioned, the barrier reef is only about half mile from most of Ambergris and Caulker.