In on a cruise ship June 21st. Excursion or book separate?

[ConchyJoe]

We are taking our son and his friend on Carnival Legand for 7 days. We want to do two tanks in Mahogany Bay.

Should we book an excursion ($99) per person for two tanks through Carnival, or find someone else shore side?

$99 per person seems reasonable.

 

[laurenceh]

it'll be about $50 if you do it independently but you'll need taxi's (carnival inflates the prices of taxi's allowed in the port, for a skim off the top) and you're timing may miss the regularly scheduled morning dives, may as well go with the tour group

 

[ivakdiver]

I booked a two tank dive through an outfit called 'Shore excursions', which offered two tank dives at a more
reasonable price. I also went out with a good operation in a small group. Have been back for week stays twice. I believe there is also a newer operation that is closer to the Mahogany Bay cruise port and they may be available, without a long cab ride. It would be an East side operation.

 

[ConchyJoe]

In looking online, I see that most shops are around $99 anyway, plus cab, etc. So I might as well go with the excursion. Maybe we will meet some other divers to hang with on the ship. I haven't been to Bay Islands since the 70's when i was a kid..

 

[diversteve]

Anthony's Key is the cruise operator - they'll shuttle you to their north side location from Mahogany Bay. One of the dives is often Overheat Reef. A problem with AKR is they devote 1 dedicated boat to the cruise traffic so you'll be diving a site good for the lowest cert'd diver on the bus. Doesn't seem like that will be you...lol.

Other options if you change your mind:

Barefoot Divers - day dive packages|cruise shippers|full valet service
It will also cost you $20pp. (negotiate this) for the cab ride. If everybody has an advanced card - or 50 logged dives - they'll take you to Mary's Place - one of the best dives on Roatan - 5 mins. from their dock. We dove with them one morning - Mary's Place and the Prinz Albert off Cocoview. We were back to BFC by about 11:30 or so. Since Barefoot Caye is a small boutique beach resort, you have a higher chance of going out by yourselves - or with one or two others. The 6 of us were their business that morning - no one from the resort joined us.

Subway Watersports - Roatan Shore Excursions - scuba diving - snorkeling - kayaking - $90 includes pickup and 2 tanks.

 

[ivakdiver]

The Mary's Place Dive is excellent and it is, as mentioned, close to the docking area. I would take one of these.

 

[salth2owannabe]

When we were at AKR last December I think there was talk of them doing some of the Carnival dives directly out of Mahogany Bay instead of bussing all of them over to the north side. They have the island off the end of the airport as well and often have boats on the south side anyway. If you go to the north side with AKR they often take the cruisers right around the corner from the mouth of the bay and the dive locations are not that great.

 

[Kryssa]

We arrived in Roatan for 1 day on the Carnival Dream and dove with West End Divers last March. This was the best decision we could have made. They send someone to pick us up outside the Mahogany Bay gates and took us to the shop. The boats are right across the street and we did 2 great dives. We could have probably even squeezed in a 3rd, but I didn't want to cut it close. You get to spend the surface interval shopping or snacking the West End. Great shop!

 

[LeafyGirl]

We took the cruise a few times and Subway will pick you up at Mahogany Bay. We had great dives with Joe Brems, Dolphins Den, a cavern dive, and Rock Star, a really nice wall dive. They usually have a smaller crowd and we were brought back with time to shop a bit before re-boarding. The AKR sites are dove more. I have heard about Mary's place but haven't dove there yet. Enjoy, can't really go wrong diving in Roatan IMHO! Been 11 times, love it there.

 

[AbbyTrollop]

I was on a cruise in January, and West End Divers arranged a ride for me to get to their shop, they took me on two guided dives, and got me back to the ship with plenty of time. It only cost me $120!! I saw a lot of neat stuff, and got some awesome pictures!

www.westenddivers.info