March Cruise Dive Recommendations

[KungFuGod]

We cruising Southern Caribbean on Carnival Victory. Departing Puerto Rico for St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts.

My daughter will be performing her open water cert dives in Puerto Rico and St. Thomas.

Please recommend, in your opinion, the best 1 or 2 dives from the remaining islands (Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts).

Thanx in advance.

 

[STDC.Doug]

I would advise you to avoid the diveshops that service the cruiseship as a general rule. They are cattleboats for the most part, and the ship fills their boats and takes a healthy cut of the money, so the shops have little incentive to provide great service.

On St. Thomas contact St Thomas Diving Club or Admiralty. You wont regret it.

 

[Dive Shop Barbados]

We offer some of the best diving in Barbados. Pick up from Cruise Terminal at 9am, dive shop 2 miles away.
Drop us an email.
The Dive Shop Ltd. - SCUBA DIVING IN BARBADOS!

 

[dneisch]

I can't say anything about Dominica, but we dove in all your other stops. Of these, I would recommend St. Lucia (Dive Op Fair Helen) and St Kitts (Pro Divers). St. Lucia is by far our favorite of these.

 

[oddswiz]

IMHO I would go for St. Kitts you will find smaller operations and more personable service. A little extra attention from the staff will not be a bad thing with your daughter's launch of her new found passion/hobby (I hope).

I would be happy to recommend someone I have worked with in the past.

Jason
www.StMaartendivers.com

 

[Torontonian]

We cruising Southern Caribbean on Carnival Victory. Departing Puerto Rico for St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts.

My daughter will be performing her open water cert dives in Puerto Rico and St. Thomas.

Please recommend, in your opinion, the best 1 or 2 dives from the remaining islands (Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts).

Thanx in advance.

We also did the S Caribbean cruise 1.5 yr ago. It was great. I dove in all 5 ports that are the same as yours, but you got St. Kitts which we didn't go.

We really liked St. Lucia. We booked with Dive Fair Helen, and went to Superman's Flight, by the petit piton. The topside scenery was beautiful. That's the real way to see the pitons, from the sea. In a land only excursion you won't see the pitons as well. The cruise ships also don't sail by the pitons. However, Superman's Flight is a drift dive, and deeper than what a beginner should do. They may be able to take beginners to another shallower site.

Dominica also has good diving. We went to Scott's Head (at the south). The topside scenery again is very good. Too bad the water was rough the day we went and we dove/snorkeled elsewhere. For the second site we were at Champagne reef. It is an excellent shallow dive. You won't see much reef growth, but it's the bubbles that are interesting there. I had a long shallow dive there. Others really enjoyed the snorkeling. We encountered a line of squid that were lined up perfectly. It was a rare sight.

Barbados had so so diving. I dove the Stavronikita wreck. It was good. We then went to near the Sandy Lane beach resort for SI. We snorkeled there and saw several large turtles. The next site was good, but not as nice as St. Lucia or Dominica.

In Antigua, the good diving is in the south. We booked a van to take us (30min) to English Harbour, for diving/snorkeling there. Then followed with land tour of the island. Actually, at all the islands, we dove/snorkeled first, then went for land tour for the rest of the afternoon. It was very good arrangement. But you and daughter might want to relax a bit in some ports.

 

[schu1842]

I cruised in January. The ship used Dive Dominica and they did a great job. My son contacted Andrew at Eco Divers in Barbados. Eco Divers uses a small boat and Andrew is an incredible guide. He will pick you up at the terminal and get you back to the ship.
I have no doubt that Eco Divers would give you an A+++++ experience. I went with
the cruise ship operator several years ago in St. Thomas. The boat was pretty crowded and there were several boats at a site with what was left of WWII barges. At one point there were so many divers you could easily get mixed into the wrong group if your attention was fixed on the barges. Even with the crowd however, it was a great dive.
Have a great time - dive safe.

 

[BTravlin]

We cruising Southern Caribbean on Carnival Victory. Departing Puerto Rico for St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts.

My daughter will be performing her open water cert dives in Puerto Rico and St. Thomas.

Please recommend, in your opinion, the best 1 or 2 dives from the remaining islands (Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts).

Thanx in advance.

I just booked my family for this cruise sailing 3/22. What are your dates?

 

[Ronin Diver]

We took the same cruise in February 2009 and dove in Dominica and St Kitts, and had a great time.
In Dominica, we used Nature Island Dive in Soufriere and dove at "The Abyss" which is a wall that drops to 1500 ft just a yards off shore (the boat ride took about 15 seconds). The second site, "The Pinnacle" I believe is its name was just as fun and impressive, a garden of corals and plenty of marine life, and it is only 2 to 3 minutes from shore
The pick up was in Roseau, and the drive to Soufriere takes 20-30 minutes, and much of the drive was mountainous so you should take that into consideration. We got back to the ship about 3:00 PM.
In St Kitts we dove with Pro Island divers and Auston (the owner & divemaster) picked us up with his diveboat docked near the Victory, and that of course was very convenient. We dove at a wreck, "The River Taw", which was cool and we had several beginners (ie not yet certified, including a junior diver boy age 12) dove it with no problems. The next site was "The Coconut Tree Rock", which is a large coral reef with a wall. Again the marine life and the corals were abundant, healthy and colorful. We got back to the ship about 1:00 PM.
The viz in Dominica was about 80 ft, and at St Kitts was about 50 ft for us.
I wish I could have dived in St Lucia, but the dive shops I contacted never reply, and I didn't want to use the ship dive packages, oh well :blinking:

Have fun on your cruise, take plenty of photos, and dive safely

Richard

 

[Caleb Brown]

We just finished a cruise to the BVI. We dove at St Thomas and Tortola (the RMS Rhone). Both were wreck dives and they were a lot of fun. I expected to be bored in Antigua, because we planned to hang out on the beach and snorkle instead scuba dive.
A nest of sea Turtles started to hatch right next to our beach chair. In a few minutes these guys were all free and headed for the water. The people on the beach formed 2 lines down to the water, so we could keep all the sea birds away. Check out the pics.