Hey all, I just booked our dives for our upcoming Thanksgiving cruise. We are diving St. Thomas and Grand Turk. Thanks for all the info. on here. I contacted three operators on both islands and it came down to one clear choice on each island.
St. Thomas I emailed Admiralty, Blue Island and Coki Beach. Coki Beach only had shore dives and they suggested we tag along with the beginners coming out from our ship. Uh, no thanks. Admiralty sounded O.K., but a little canned in their emailed response back to us. Their Nitrox cost was lower than Blue Island but everything else was the same and Blue Island has so many positive reviews on cruise critic and on Trip Advisor that we decided to pay the extra $9 per tank and go with them. They are also right next to where our ship is going to dock so we don't have to go far and can get our gear at their shop. At this point, we are the first ones booked with them that day (it's actually Thanksgiving that day!) so we get to choose where we go!
Grand Turk I emailed GTdiving, Blue Water and Oasis. Since our ship doesn't get in until 1:00 Blue Water will only do a single tank dive and since we're still fairly novice divers (around 20 post cert dives) they were insistant that we do their really small group dive for around $130 each!!!!! And that's not Nitrox! Wow! Oasis is the ship's operator and said we had to book through Princess (which was more expensive and they were booking 20 folks vs. 10). So we are going with GTdiving. The guy I spoke with was really nice and funny and we can do a two tank with them no problem. They don't offer Nitrox though, bummer.
So, I'll report back how it all goes but if anybody is researching, this is what I've found for these places.
