Wheeler925
Contributor
Just a quick 'trip' report. My family was cruising on Symphony of the Seas and we ended up in Nassau instead of the planned San Juan and St. Maarten. Pretty crappy change, but made the most of it.
I booked an excursion through the ship for 2 dives with Stuart Cove's. Price for me was $215, which is bonkers for two dives - but that was even 'on sale' via the ship excursion with the normal price topping $300. I suspect some of the price gauging was due to the somewhat last minute cruise itinerary change, so they had to incentivize tour operators to add slots.
After a bus ride of about 45 minutes (hour?) to the shop, we were told to go get our rental gear. I only had to rent a BCD, fins and weights, which was all included in my price. Everything that I saw was in good operable shape, and didn't see anyone else having problems. The boat was what I would call half full with less than 10 divers. There was a 14 year old 'junior' open water diver with his mother, and a student with an instructor(the PADI shop instructor from the ship) doing his check out dives. I was insta-buddied with a pretty competent lady who worked on the cruise ship.
Dive 1:
This was at what they called the Pumpkin patch. There wasn't a lot of dive briefing, just the guide telling us to stay around 60' and not venture too far off the wall. Immediately on descent I got to see my first shark! That was unexpected but welcome. Later on in the dive we saw another shark. I'd say the reef was somewhat disappointing, certainly some life, but not a ton for sure. The dive was 49 minutes. Certainly not my favorite location, but still a fun dive.
Dive 2:
After a short 30ish minute SI, the boat moved over to the second site. We were told this would be the 'Shark Arena.' Apparently they do feedings there, which we did NOT do. There's a few (3?) sunken ships there for reefs, an a pretty barren sandy bottom. We were informed to keep our gopros and arms sort of tucked in when sharks were around. This whole dive was sharks sharks and more sharks. Possibly my favorite dive I've done (Not that I've done many so far). I thought that I'd probably never want to dive with sharks, but damn was it fun. The wrecks had plenty of life on them. Lots of sharks everywhere we looked. Total time was 49 minutes.
After the dives we gathered our gear and headed back to the dock. Short ride, weather was nice. I will say, the staff at the dive operators were very hands off. I'm sure if you needed assistance they would have assisted. The dive guide (I didn't catch his name, but he has a reg with a pink moustache) was quite a nice guy and kept everyone from floating away. I guess I can't ask for much more than that.
Overall, I had a great time. I don't think I'd do it again, just because the value isn't there, but that is probably because I got cruise ship pricing.
I booked an excursion through the ship for 2 dives with Stuart Cove's. Price for me was $215, which is bonkers for two dives - but that was even 'on sale' via the ship excursion with the normal price topping $300. I suspect some of the price gauging was due to the somewhat last minute cruise itinerary change, so they had to incentivize tour operators to add slots.
After a bus ride of about 45 minutes (hour?) to the shop, we were told to go get our rental gear. I only had to rent a BCD, fins and weights, which was all included in my price. Everything that I saw was in good operable shape, and didn't see anyone else having problems. The boat was what I would call half full with less than 10 divers. There was a 14 year old 'junior' open water diver with his mother, and a student with an instructor(the PADI shop instructor from the ship) doing his check out dives. I was insta-buddied with a pretty competent lady who worked on the cruise ship.
Dive 1:
This was at what they called the Pumpkin patch. There wasn't a lot of dive briefing, just the guide telling us to stay around 60' and not venture too far off the wall. Immediately on descent I got to see my first shark! That was unexpected but welcome. Later on in the dive we saw another shark. I'd say the reef was somewhat disappointing, certainly some life, but not a ton for sure. The dive was 49 minutes. Certainly not my favorite location, but still a fun dive.
Dive 2:
After a short 30ish minute SI, the boat moved over to the second site. We were told this would be the 'Shark Arena.' Apparently they do feedings there, which we did NOT do. There's a few (3?) sunken ships there for reefs, an a pretty barren sandy bottom. We were informed to keep our gopros and arms sort of tucked in when sharks were around. This whole dive was sharks sharks and more sharks. Possibly my favorite dive I've done (Not that I've done many so far). I thought that I'd probably never want to dive with sharks, but damn was it fun. The wrecks had plenty of life on them. Lots of sharks everywhere we looked. Total time was 49 minutes.
After the dives we gathered our gear and headed back to the dock. Short ride, weather was nice. I will say, the staff at the dive operators were very hands off. I'm sure if you needed assistance they would have assisted. The dive guide (I didn't catch his name, but he has a reg with a pink moustache) was quite a nice guy and kept everyone from floating away. I guess I can't ask for much more than that.
Overall, I had a great time. I don't think I'd do it again, just because the value isn't there, but that is probably because I got cruise ship pricing.
