Looking for Kona Dive operation & hotel recommendations

[SandyUT]

WOW! thats bad news... Narrows down the search tho.

thanks for the quick info - much appreciated.

 

[oahu_diver]

If your'e just here on vacation, I wouldn't really worry about who is 5 star or gold palm or whatever else they call themselves. Just go with who will give you the best dive experience.

 

[SandyUT]

With multi-day discounts, JDL was the best fit for my trip. Their bigger boat can sometimes be a cattle boat, but when I did the "advanced" trip, we took a mid-sized boat with two groups of 4/5+guide. If you're renting, their BCs/Regs are in good condition, and of the integrated alternate air variety (i.e. no dangling octo). All the guides and captains were really friendly and helpful.

I wanted to do some dives with Wannadive, but being low-season, they didn't have enough customers to go out the days I wanted (which is understandable).

What would you say was the biggest difference between the classic dives and the advanced dives? Is it worth the extra money to skip the snorklers and students?

We are looking at +$250/pp for a week of "advanced diving". My wife and I have dove allot in all kinds of conditions and all that - we are up for a challenge and some fun excitement. We have been stuck with very rookie divers before and the dive masters even told us " they wished they could have....but soandso cant handle it". We don't want a repeat of that nonsense.

 

[Pliny]

What would you say was the biggest difference between the classic dives and the advanced dives? Is it worth the extra money to skip the snorklers and students?

We are looking at +$250/pp for a week of "advanced diving". My wife and I have dove allot in all kinds of conditions and all that - we are up for a challenge and some fun excitement. We have been stuck with very rookie divers before and the dive masters even told us " they wished they could have....but soandso cant handle it". We don't want a repeat of that nonsense.

The BI is a geologically young shield volcano so the underwater slope is similar to what you see above water. It falls off really fast, and there is no fringing reef shelf. So its possible for a big boat to pick a site with nice dives at DSD, OW, and deep depths just by swimming different directions from the mooring line.

 

[Lopaka]

What would you say was the biggest difference between the classic dives and the advanced dives? Is it worth the extra money to skip the snorklers and students?

Worth it? Maybe, maybe not if you have not been diving in Kona before. Some of my favorite sites are definitely not "advanced": Hoovers, Golden Arches, etc. Lots of fish.

In my limited experience, the advanced dive take you to less visited spots. A few were memorable, like Touch of Grey, Wreck of the Naked Lady (could dive that every week), Black Castle. Biggest difference, if they do not travel an extended distance to get to it, is deeper depth. Touch of Grey is not deep, just a good ways beyond most sites. Wreck of the NL is right outside the harbor, but deep.

IMHO, having not been to Kona before, just do the regular dives, maybe ask for non-snorkeler, classroom boats. Dunno how that would work. You do get divied up into groups based on their estimate of experience and air consumption, so unlikely to be stuck with a bunch of 20 min. and surface types.

Be aware the cost of advance 2-tank dive trips has shot up. 7-8 years ago at my favorite shop, it was maybe $20-30 more than a standard 2-tank trip. You should ask, may be a much larger increase now. Believe most of the websites have that info so you do not suffer sticker shock.

The advanced 3-tank is another animal. Will have you out all day, but can go places few dive, other than the Kona Aggressor. Many years ago, that was a $175 ride, no idea what it is now. They do not do many of those.

 

[riftvalley84]

We dove with Wanna Dive in Dec '09 for 2 weeks and were very impressed. We choose them primarily because they have a small boat and that's what we like. Steve, Bob & Cathy were great to dive with and we really appreciated the long bottom time we got. We will definitely use them next time we are in Kona.

 

[BSOD]

What would you say was the biggest difference between the classic dives and the advanced dives? Is it worth the extra money to skip the snorklers and students?

We are looking at +$250/pp for a week of "advanced diving". My wife and I have dove allot in all kinds of conditions and all that - we are up for a challenge and some fun excitement. We have been stuck with very rookie divers before and the dive masters even told us " they wished they could have....but soandso cant handle it". We don't want a repeat of that nonsense.

I only did one 2-tank advanced day, and a few days of uh, non-advanced dives, so I can only comment on my limited experience. The advanced dives were deeper, and as others mentioned, at less frequented locations. Nothing particularly challenging otherwise like currents/etc (at least for my two tanks/sites). Worth the extra $50? Sort of on the edge IMO, but I enjoyed them after a number of the shallower dive sites. Fewer people in the water is usually nicer as well. Plus I was able to check off seeing another Atlantis sub (seen the one on Maui previously - need to go back to Oahu for the trifecta ).

On the bigger boats (here and elsewhere in my limited <100 dive experience) they'll generally split the groups by experience, so if you have over/under x number of dives, they'll put you in the experienced/less-experienced group respectively. The students and/or snorkellers (if there are any) were off in their own group(s). If after the first day you're not digging your group, you could probably ask if you could change groups once they see how you handle yourself. They do pretty much let you dive your air/computer, but I did get a friendly nudge a few times at the 80-90min mark.

 

[SlowAndEasy]

Don't know where you plan on staying, but I did six dives with Kohala Divers further up the coast in Oct 2010. Cheerful, professional crew. I did my OW cert with them, so I don't have any comparisons of other charters, but I found them to be a terrific outfit. My fellow divers stated that they've tried many Big Island charters and keep coming back to Kohala Divers because they live up to their PADI 5-star rating.

Their boat is spacious, includes two different fresh water rinses with pressurized hoses, a head, shaded and sunny padded seats, and a really nice ladder and platform. They had 10 or less divers on each two-tank trip, with three or four divemasters in the water with us. As an newbie, I felt really, really safe and well taken care of. They kept us newbies off on our own, so we didn't hamper the enjoyment of the more-experienced divers on the trips.

If I go back to the Big Island, I'd definitely go back to Kohala Divers again.

 

[Jack'sDivingLocker]

Aloha! Thank you for considering Jack's Diving Locker. Here are some differences between our classic 2-tank dives and our advanced 2 and 3-tank dives...

On our classic 2-tank morning dive we take a wide range of experience levels. It's a great trip for everyone. There are a ton of dives sites from which to choose, so if you haven't done a lot of diving in Kona, this is an excellent option. We do our best to group people according to experience. We wouldn't put you in a group with students who are doing their open water training or an intro dive (unless you request it...which people sometimes do!). So on a typical day we might have a group of students, a group of divers who have done 20-50 dives, and a group of divers who have done hundreds or even thousands of dives. We tie up to a mooring and do our first dive to 60-ish, then relocate and do another dive in 30-50-ish. We offer this trip every day.

On our advanced trips we ask that divers be comfortable and have been diving fairly recently. We have more details on the prerequisites on our website. We extend the range of sites to further north or south, though we may also dive local sites. 130 is the max depth...but usually we only go to around 115 or so. We can sometimes do a drift or live boat dive. We would not have intros or open water students. We have more flexibility in where we go and what we do. We offer these trips by request with a minimum of four divers.

The advanced trips are not necessarily better than the classic trips...they are a different style of trip.

My advice...If you haven't done a lot of diving in Kona, I would recommend a day or two of classic dives, a 2-tank sunset/night manta dive, and if you fit within the prerequisites, an advancecd 3-tank and a-tank pelagic magic.

As a side note...we are so lucky here in Kona to have a great group of dive shops. The competition is friendly and there is a shop to suit everyone's needs. You'll find that most shops are happy to call around and find availablity at another facility if they are full, etc.

Mahalo, Angela and the staff of Jack's Diving Locker

 

[PAShark]

We've dived with Steve at Sandwich Island Divers several times and they're small but a great operation. I recommend them highly. You'll get a lot of individual attention and Steve's great. We did a manta ray dive with Big Island Divers several years ago and were so upset with the way the dive master treated us I wrote a letter to the owner. He said he talked to the dive master and agreed we'd been treated rudely. He offered us a free dive the next time we're there. We have no intention of accepting the offer.