I just got back from our cruise! It was terrific. I actually didn't dive in Belize... Instead I took the ships excursion to shark ray alley. Got to pet the sharks there. It was great. It is like an aquarium. There were a TON of fish! Sharks, rays, etc... We went to lunch on land after the excursion. It was ok. Then we walked around, bought souveniers, and home made Belizian ice cream which was awesome. I had many recommendations to take the ships excursion in Belize and I am glad I did...
Bring bug spray - sunscreen - mayeb a rashguard or dive skin - the sun is brutal.
As for Cozumel.. We used Dive Paradise... They are ranked #1 in Cozumel. Our giude was Nacho Costeau - I would request him...He dove with us. He makes 900 dives per year and really was excellent. We did 2 dives with him.... A day time one through Palancar Caves and a night dive. They call this the Twilight special I think. Reasonably priced. They operate just down the street from the port at Puerto Langosta. They run a terrific operation. Don't be fooled by their crappy looking office. It is first class. You should absolutely without a doubt hire them. They will keep you safe and keep a close eye on you in the current. They will show you lots of cool things too. It was a BLAST!I linede this one up all over e-mail contact with Apple.
In Grand Caymen we hired Ebanks Divers - a guy named James.. Met him at the public beach. He was a really nice guy. Did 2 dives. One was on his brothers boat - about a 30+ ft long pontoon boat. Very nice - all set up. 3 crew members on board.... to take care of US - 4 divers! Yeah baby. We dove the aquarium just off of 7 mile beach - it was terrific. Had a divemaster in the water with us - James... He pointed out a lot of things that we would have overlooked. IT was great. Then we walked across the beach, jumped in James truck and headed for another boat about 5 minutes away..... We went with him to sting ray city - a 12 foot dive which was the highlight of the trip for me. It was just us again and James dove with us. He cut up squid and we used that to feed the large numbers of rays that were ready to greet us.... A big green moray eel - known as Psycho - greeted us as soon as our fins hit the water. He was very friendly. I wouldn't trust him though as his teeth were BIG and shiney! He would basically climb all over you! I did watch him grab a container of squid from another dive master and shake it around like a rag doll until all the contents were spilled. He is plenty agressive. Push him away if he gets too close. He will likely get the picture. Our divemaster was not too happy that he was swimming freely all over the place and hot holed up somewhere. We, however got some awesome eel pictures.... I mean really great! Watch out for the plain looking Snapper - two of us were bitten and bleeding from the nice little fishey who was trying to get a snack of squid from the unsuspecting hand.
The pictures we took are incredible. We stayed down with the rays for about 65 minutes. I would highly recommend Ebanks if you want personalized attention - it was pretty reasonable too.
www.ebanksdivers.com
Line your excursions up ahead of time. Get e-mail address contacts for each place that you will dive with. Sometimes the local time doesn't match the boat time. We had a little trouble with this but were able to e-mail from the ship to correct the times. It was confusing. You need to know what time your ship is operating on at each port vs. the time on land at your ports.
I am willing to help you more if you are interested.... you can e-mail me at
boren@starnetdial.net directly if you want to. We paid after the dives in all cases except Dive Paradise....
James takes CASH, Dive Paradise takes credit cards, cash, travelers checks....
You are going to have a GREAT time! I wish I was going with you!
P.S. are you bringing your gear? You are going to want your gear bag to have wheels on it without a doubt.
If I have't made it clear... Do not use the ships excursions as you will pay more - be on a cattle boat and will be a lot less happy.
There were a lot of people that complained about the ships excursions in a couple locations.
In Grand Cayman - the Mission restaraunt has a nice lobster dinner... and you can walk there.
Lucky
