Most boats have a cooler on board for your lunch and drinks. That is about it for pampering as it is not caribbean pretty fish touristy type boat diving.
I have seen trips where it is as flat as a Millpond and I have gotten beat up in 5-6 ft seas, so it varies. Take Bonine or Triptone even if you never get seasick anywhere else. In my limited experience June-July is very nice with lots of sand tigers, decent viz and decent odds for good weather while August - November is even less predictable.
When NC is great, it is absolutely stunning with world class viz, 72 degree water, beautiful, cerulean blue water, loads of sand tigers, a wide variety of tropical reef fish, large schools of atlantic spadefish, enormous balls of bait fish and the occasional dolphin. When NC is bad, you get beat up in 6 ft seas end up dropped on an inshore wreck like the Indra in 60-65 degree colder brownish water with 10' viz, surge and no fish to speak of. It just depends. Or in other words, a bad day off NC is like a good day off Delaware or New Jersey.
Operator wise, Olympus runs nice trips as does Discovery, but my favorite is Bobby Cox and the Diver Down located on the causeway to Atlantic Beach. He will go out in marginal conditions (nice when you travel a long way and spend $300 on gas and motels whether the boat leaves the dock or not) but plans the destination based on wind and waves so that the boat ride is not as bad as it could be. Bobby also does an excellent job of finding good visibility and the Diver Down usually carries about 12 divers plus crew so the wrecks do not get overloaded as can be the case with some other operators with up to 20-25 divers plus crew per boat. I have never had a bad trip with Bobby and highly recommend him. The Diver Down is docked about a block from the Fishermen's Inn and they are good people with a clean if not fancy motel. it makes a very convenient place to stay with facilties to wash and hang your gear after the day's diving and is short walk from the Beach and several good restaurants.
The U-352 is a must do if you have never done it and after that you'll probably never need to do it again - but will get drug there on a regular basis. The Spar is a former buoy tender that is often dove on the same trip as the U-352 and it is a nice artifical reefed wreck. It is fairly clean and safe to penetrate and tends to have lots of fish on it as well as sand tigers and the occasional ray. The Caribbesea and Atlas are also great wrecks for fish and sand tigers in the summer. In the case of the Caribsea it is shallower at about 85' and the Atlas in 110' but has a lot of verical relief like the Spar so they tend to provide the option of more bottom time.
The Captains Lady (with Discovery) and the Atlantis IV are 6 packs and may offer a better chance to get to some of the smaller less traveled wrecks like the Bedordshire - but expect a slightly rougher ride.
Average depth is 100-120 ft for the wrecks farther off shore in the gulfstream while the inshore wrecks run 65-85 ft in what is often cooler in shore water with less viz. The regular charters are recreational in nature and decompression is not encouraged. I have found however that longer dives with short deco are well tolerated if you get off the boat first so that you can get back on with the last of the divers coming aboard. The idea is not to tie up boat and delay the other divers with in water deco. So if you plan and execute the dive so that you do neither, 5-10 minutes of deco will work.
I normally dive one set of doubles for both dives as it is enough gas for what are from a techncial perspective fairly shallow dives. Again, long deco is not really an option and there is no need to hog space on the boat with multiple sets of doubles, deco bottles, etc.
The seas can be rough so set your gear up before you leave the dock and keep it organized and compact so that it stays out of everyone else's way.
