help! questions about LC

[donnad]

hi, husband and i have been diving for 2 1/2 yrs. now. and are in the planning stages of a vacation next summer (maybe august or september actually). we're looking for awesome diving and we don't care about topside nightlife or anything, so i thought that LC sounded like a good place. and was thinking about little cayman beach resort. however, i read a couple of trip reports (the trips were in 1999 however) that disturbed me. i realize that people can have completely opposite opinions, but here's what i want to know. what do you think of LCBR's dive op....reef divers i believe it is........how they schedule things, how they conduct the dives. are they too regimented, etc. , boat too crowded or not? do they take you to the sites you want to go to, etc. etc. are you a fan of some other resort and dive op on LC? would you say that LC has the best diving of the caymans, because of the walls? thanks for help. we will have to save up for this, ya know? and so it's very important to me that we have a great time, and choose somewhere with impressive diving. (gotta keep it fairly close to the states, as our money tree won't allow us to go globe-hopping at this point. first place we went after certification was cozumel, had a very good time) thanks!!!!!

 

[Damselfish]

I've stayed at LCBR 5-6 times so obviously I like it enough. I used to have some complaints about Reef Divers, in fact you might have seen a couple whiney posts from me in what you read. But I went back there this past December after getting the sense they'd mellowed out a bit, and indeed they had.

They have always been a good op in most ways with good facilities, service, well organized, everything safe in great shape, etc. My main complaint was that I considered the bottom times they requested for dives to be too short. It's the perfect place to do long multilevel dives and hang out in the shallows at the end, but instead you'd find yourself coming up with lots of air when you really wanted to stay down. The worse part was they sometimes had power tripping DMs with attitudes that would go on a rant if you were one minute late or one foot deeper than what they said. This really had nothing to do with safety, but with doing something because they said so. Like cripes, I'm on vacation. The whole op seemed in general a little uptight.

They still set time limits like a lot of ops, but they're more reasonable now. (I think it was 50min first/deepest dive of the day and 60min later dives, don't recall for sure, but I could live with it.) If people were late (which they usually were) they didn't seem to mind too much, at most they'd mention how they'd get worried about us if we were too late. I think one day they asked people to be up from a second morning dive by a certain time on the clock probably because we were going to be way late for lunch and muck up the afternoon schedule and all. That was fine, people were left to budget their own time between SI and the 2nd dive and there were no hysterics about it like would have occured in the past. Friendly folks, no attitudes anymore. At least not in December.

They have good boats, 42-46ft Newtons (nice when it's rough), often not very full but it really depends how full the resort is and how many boats they're running. So it's possible to have 20 people on a boat, but they do not do "follow the leader" diving so there's no crowd underwater, its fine. You can follow a DM if you want but most people do their own thing. Sites get chosen on the way based on where people want to go, where people have already been, and conditions. They try hard to get people where they want to go and get good dives.

 

[donnad]

thanks damselfish, that makes me feel better. they must have had enough complaints, or people deciding to dive with another op or something. sounds ok now. how would you say the diving is? awesome? colorful? teeming with marine life? want to see lots of fish, creatures, etc. , dramatic impressive walls loaded with lots of neat stuff? as good as cozumel? better? want to choose somewhere where the diving will be really nice, and when you read about little cayman, it sounds like it should be terrific diving. thanks so much for helping!!!!

 

[merxlin]

hi, husband and i have been diving for 2 1/2 yrs. now. and are in the planning stages of a vacation next summer (maybe august or september actually). we're looking for awesome diving and we don't care about topside nightlife or anything, so i thought that LC sounded like a good place. and was thinking about little cayman beach resort. however, i read a couple of trip reports (the trips were in 1999 however) that disturbed me. i realize that people can have completely opposite opinions, but here's what i want to know. what do you think of LCBR's dive op....reef divers i believe it is........how they schedule things, how they conduct the dives. are they too regimented, etc. , boat too crowded or not? do they take you to the sites you want to go to, etc. etc. are you a fan of some other resort and dive op on LC? would you say that LC has the best diving of the caymans, because of the walls? thanks for help. we will have to save up for this, ya know? and so it's very important to me that we have a great time, and choose somewhere with impressive diving. (gotta keep it fairly close to the states, as our money tree won't allow us to go globe-hopping at this point. first place we went after certification was cozumel, had a very good time) thanks!!!!!

I'll be there at LCBR for a week starting the 19th of this month. I'll give you a full report!

 

[jdcpa]

donnad:

The first dive of the morning is 110 feet for 50 minutes. The second dive of the morning and the afternoon dive are 60 feet for 60 minutes. I can't get to those bottom times on and al80, so that does not matter to me.

You are free to go off on your own or follow the divemaster who does about a 30 minute tour. They do show you some pretty cool swim throughts starting at about 60 feet and coming out on the wall at about 100 feet. In most places the wall is sheer, just an abyss, so that is pretty cool.

We have been five times and love the resort and ReefDivers. I think they really cater to you. Reefs, wall and fish life are in great shape there. All of the divemasters we have dove with are very friendly, wonderful people.

I think they are set up more for the mid level diver and below. They do have a plan and they do follow it. I view all of that as a safety issue and not a control issue. Having said that I can see where some advanced divers might have issues with it all, but I don't get bothered by it at all.

We are scheduled for November and December of this year and May and November of next year at this point. So you can see we do love it.

I would HIGHLY recommend ReefDivers.

The food is fine at LCBR, all buffet style meals. The little bar is nice. Most of the divers I have met there have been good people as well.

Thee is also a pretty good message board on the Cayman Islands that might be helpful if you have topside questions.

PM me and I will be happy to answer any specific questions you may have.

 

[divingjd]

We were there at Thanksgiving in 2001 and really enjoyed it. The resort is nice enough, the food is somewhere between good and pretty good, and we liked the little bar. The diving is just plain awesome. It is really better than Cozumel, which I also love and have visited 5 times, mostly because it is so cheap and easy to get to. The walls are amazing, the other reefs are very interesting and in extremely good condition, and there is a lot of marine life. You will probably see more fish than in Cozumel and there are plenty of other reef critters (crabs, lobsters, christmas tree worms, fan worms, sponges, brittle stars, shrimp, etc., etc.). The diving is better than Cayman Brac, which we did this year. I have not been to Grand Cayman, so I can't compare to that.

We had no problems with Reef Divers. I got chewed out for going too deep on one dive, but I followed my buddy when I couldn't get his attention to stay shallower, and we did not just blow it by a couple of feet. Otherwise, the time limits they gave us were reasonable. I have pretty good air consumption and I was not hitting the boat with an excessive amount of air. One of the things we really liked was that they gave really good dive briefings, drawing a map of each site on a whiteboard on the boat and giving you a suggested route. Then you were free to do what you wanted, which could include asking a DM for a tour. The one thing I did not like was that they set up our gear and always set my BC in the wrong position on the tank, even though I have a tank locator strap to show where it should be mounted. They always put the strap too high on the tank, so the tank valve was out of reach. Just make sure your gear is set up the way you like.

I would give LCBR and Reef Divers an unqualified recommendation. We will be back, just don't know when.

 

[donnad]

wow! thanks you guys! thanks for the details. i'm excited now. merxlin, will be looking forward to your report as well! thanks so much!!!!! this board is so helpful.

 

[keytofreedom]

Donnad...

I'm headed to LCBR on Monday, the 7th and will be returning on Aug. 16th. I'll give you a trip report, as well.

From what I've heard from all my friends who have been there, you won't be disappointed.

 

[donnad]

great! looking forward to it!

 

[DeputyDan]

My dive club goes to LCBR every year and always sells out. Must be something to it.