Norwegien Sea Feb 19th???

[carldarl]

Five more days! YIPPEE!!! We are sailing on Saturday the 19th on the Norwegian Sea out of Houston. Cozumel, Roatan, Belize and Cancun. Anyone else going?

We're booked privately at Roatan and undecided on the other ports. Any suggestions?

Thanks

'P'

 

[scuba jeff]

Just back from this cruise a few weeks ago.
Cozumel - Eagle Ray Divers
Roatan - Subway Watersports
Belize - Hugh Parkey's

Belize, use the ship's excursion, it is the only way that I know of to get out to the Turneffe Atoll. Those dives were my favorites, same with many people I spoke to on the ship.

Subway Watersports was good. We had one dive with a bad DM there, brought us up with 1200 psi because he didn't know what else to do. Second dive with Mark was much better

Eagle Ray was good but not great. Great diving but I didn't think the DM was that great.

 

[chuck e]

Just back from this cruise a few weeks ago.
Cozumel - Eagle Ray Divers
Roatan - Subway Watersports
Belize - Hugh Parkey's

Belize, use the ship's excursion, it is the only way that I know of to get out to the Turneffe Atoll. Those dives were my favorites, same with many people I spoke to on the ship.

Subway Watersports was good. We had one dive with a bad DM there, brought us up with 1200 psi because he didn't know what else to do. Second dive with Mark was much better

Eagle Ray was good but not great. Great diving but I didn't think the DM was that great.

Jeff

can you provide more details on this trip. We are planning on doing this in June, but the posts here run the gamut. How many divers? dive time allotted? any trouble getting back to the ship?

Chuck

 

[carldarl]

Just back from this cruise a few weeks ago.
Cozumel - Eagle Ray Divers
Roatan - Subway Watersports
Belize - Hugh Parkey's

Belize, use the ship's excursion, it is the only way that I know of to get out to the Turneffe Atoll. Those dives were my favorites, same with many people I spoke to on the ship.

Subway Watersports was good. We had one dive with a bad DM there, brought us up with 1200 psi because he didn't know what else to do. Second dive with Mark was much better

Eagle Ray was good but not great. Great diving but I didn't think the DM was that great.

Thanks for the info. I'm already booked with Subway and had planned to use the cruise trip in Belize due to the time constraints. Was the Coz trip with the cruise or private?

I'll post our results when we get back. (Only one more kid to raise then maybe we'll go and stay)

 

[scuba jeff]

Carldarl,

The Cozumel trip was private. There were only three of us on the boat. The NCL dive excursion was actually cancelled in Cozumel but I have no idea why. We had booked with Eagle ray divers well in advance due to how populare they are on cruisecritic.com
If you haven't checked out that web site, I rec that you do. There is a seperate boards for diving while cruising. Here it is:
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=40
I know some other people used Blue Angel and said they were good. Also, I dove with someone who had used Paradise Divers, he loved them, but everyone else says they run a cattle operation.
Have fun with Subway Watersports, they are very friendly and customer service oriented. Mark was a really good DM, hope that you get him.

 

[scuba jeff]

Jeff

can you provide more details on this trip. We are planning on doing this in June, but the posts here run the gamut. How many divers? dive time allotted? any trouble getting back to the ship?

Chuck

Do you only want to know about Belize or the other ports?
Well, in Belize, you have two options. Go with the ship's excursion to the Turneffe Atoll or go with a company (I think called Seaport Belize???) that only takes you to the Belize Reef which from what I hear is only average, but way cheaper. The boat excursion through Hugh Parkey is going to run $135 with tanks and weights. It actually was well worth it. Belize is a tender port so you have to take tenders into Belize City if you want to go into town. You have 10 hours in Belize, but in truth it is more like 8 because of the tendering. If you go through the ship's excursion, the dive boat comes and picks you up directly from the ship. When I went, there were 18 of us on the boat. It is not a problem because it is a nice and large boat. They will have a small rinse tank for cameras and a fresh water shower on the mid section of the boat. The pick you up and then it is off to their shop on a small island where people can rent their gear if they need it. After that, it is about 45 minutes out to the Turneffe Atoll. What great dives, by far the best from my cruise (Belize, Coz, and Roatan). The coral there is in perfect condition and the vis was easily over 100 feet and temp was 79 degrees. Pefect conditions. You basically get grouped into your skill level, they talk to you on the ride out to the Atoll to see how long you have been diving and such. Our first dive bottomed at 80 feet and my computer said we were down for 40 minutes. You go down and then slowly rise up over the reef. It was amazing, great coral and great sea life. The DM (Rosco) monitors everyone's psi and we people get below 1000 we started to head back to the ship where we explored around that area. We did not all have to ascend together, It was once you hit 500 psi, you had to start coming up to your safety stop. Second dive was the same way and my second dive was 43 minutes. DM pointed out everything and carries a slate to write down what you see. Oh, on the surface interval, they serve watermelon, some kind of home made rasin bread that was soooooo good, and they also server chips and salsa, with an assortment of drinks. Then it is back to the ship about an hour ride. The dock back with the site and let you off there.
One great thing, they have a videographer go with you and he films your dive. At $65, it was a bit steep, but we figured, why not, we are on vacation and when will we be back in Belize, so we bought it. I am really happy we bought it. It came a week after we returned and it is amazing. The person who filmed it did a wonderful job.
When we got back to the ship, we had about 2 and a half hours left so we headed into town, went shopping and ate at a great little restaurant right off the pier.
Any questions?

 

[chuck e]

Do you only want to know about Belize or the other ports?

Jeff
I am interested in the other ports too. I had already decided to do the ship excursion in Belize and your experience certainly confirmed this. I was in Ambergris in 2003 and did a 3 tank dive to the outer atolls with Amigos del Mar. I agree with your dive assessment, the diving was great. In addition Amigos provided cerveza for the long return trip. Ole! Thanks for the report

Chuck

 

[scuba jeff]

For our other dives in Cozumel and Roatan we used dive ops outside the ship's excursions. Positives of this are smaller dive groups and less expensive, but if you don't make it back to the ship in time, they leave. If you are on a ship's excursion, they wait for you if you are late.
Our first stop was Cozumel where we used Eagle Ray Divers. Chellie was great with corresponding through email until we arrived. The water was about 78 and vis was about 80-90 feet. The water was great and the drift diving was a cool new thing for us. Drift diving is great, except for taking pictures, because you have to fight the current if you want to take a shot of something. I was not too impressed with the marine life or lack there of. My only other previous experience in the Ocean was in Kauai, HI and we saw much more there. The corral looked nice which we did not see in HI. I told the DM to keep an eye out for splendid toad fish, baracudas, and spotted eagle rays. Those were the three things I really wanted to see. Got to see a nice set of about 5 baracudas that came in around us while on a safety stop of the first dive. They were just checking us out and then took off. They were pretty big too. Also, got to see 2 splendid toad fish, but no spotted eagle rays. The diving was good, but we were not overly impressed with our DM, he was just average. This could be because he was really pissed off at another diver on our boat that kept touching everything and didn't make a safety stop after the first dive. I think after that the DM was mad at the whole group, like it was our fault. Also, the boats they use are so slow. I would maybe use Eagle Ray again. After speaking to some other divers who used Dive Paradise and Blue Angel, I would probably try one of those in the future, but I hear Dive Paradise can be a cattle boat. There were only three of us on the boat which was nice. Splendid Toad fish are some of the most interesting looking fish I have ever seen and I hear they are only found on Cozumel.
Roatan: We used subway watersports here. they were very friendly and helped us a ton. My wife bit through her reg (we brought all our own equipment) and they fixed it right away at our surface interval. Our first dive was to Mary's Place. The vis was terrible, about 30 feet, but the dive was great until the DM made us come up. I have no clue why he made us come up, we were only under for 23 minutes. I had 1200 psi, my DW had 1100 and the two other divers had 1200 and 800. He was a new DM and he looked like he was about 10 years old. Not too much sea life, but it is still a beautiful cavern dive. The coral structures are amazing on this dive. I spoke to another DM, Mark, and he said "Fish Soup" is the best dive location and that you see everything at this dive spot. I wish we would have gone there. Mary's Place is known for sea horses but we didn't see any.It was almost like we got through the cavern and the DM didn't know what else to do so he had us surface. The second dive was with Mark and he was an excellent DM, we did a wreck dive and although the vis was still terrible, it was a nice dive. Got to see some great sea life and some great corral. I would like to dive Roatan again, because I know there is so much more to offer there.

Any questions?

 

[carldarl]

Rats, it had to end.

Diving was great and we had a fantastic time. Just too short. It was a hassle not having a balcony to dry our gear daily. The term wetsuit took on new meaning one morning though they warmed up quickly. A balcony would have been nice.

Cozumel... Used the cruise tour as Eagle Ray failed to answer my emails till it was too late. Only 6 divers and the did a good job. Also had a videographer filming the dive. Will let you know if it was worth the $50 when the DVD arrives next week. Would probably still try to book Eagle Ray next time.

Roatan... Subway did a fine job. Only 4 divers so had a lot of attention from the DM. (She is stranded on Roatan after a lightning strike to her 45' sailboat fried all electronics) Made a shallow dive to an area called Fish Soup with a tremendous amount of fish life. My wife loved it then on to a wreck dive. It wa ok but nothing special.

Belize... Cruise dive with Hugh Parkey. Great operation. Picked us up at ship and had 17 divers on board but split us into groups of 6 to a DM. ALEX is a great DM and I would ask for him again. Good pre-dive planning and when a lady ran short way early he shared air with her so everyone could stay down. WHile a little spendythe operation, facilities and quality of DM's made it worth it.

Cancun... chose to shop and should have dived one more time. God help them when spring breaks starts happening soon.

Our next trip will be a short liveaboard to take our kids diving with us this summer. Thinking of the Pugeut Sound area this spring. BRRRR!!! Anyone familiar with the area or any operators up there?

 

[Seahunt100%]

Rats, it had to end.

Diving was great and we had a fantastic time. Just too short. It was a hassle not having a balcony to dry our gear daily. The term wetsuit took on new meaning one morning though they warmed up quickly. A balcony would have been nice.

Cozumel... Used the cruise tour as Eagle Ray failed to answer my emails till it was too late. Only 6 divers and the did a good job. Also had a videographer filming the dive. Will let you know if it was worth the $50 when the DVD arrives next week. Would probably still try to book Eagle Ray next time.

Roatan... Subway did a fine job. Only 4 divers so had a lot of attention from the DM. (She is stranded on Roatan after a lightning strike to her 45' sailboat fried all electronics) Made a shallow dive to an area called Fish Soup with a tremendous amount of fish life. My wife loved it then on to a wreck dive. It wa ok but nothing special.

Belize... Cruise dive with Hugh Parkey. Great operation. Picked us up at ship and had 17 divers on board but split us into groups of 6 to a DM. ALEX is a great DM and I would ask for him again. Good pre-dive planning and when a lady ran short way early he shared air with her so everyone could stay down. WHile a little spendythe operation, facilities and quality of DM's made it worth it.

Cancun... chose to shop and should have dived one more time. God help them when spring breaks starts happening soon.

Our next trip will be a short liveaboard to take our kids diving with us this summer. Thinking of the Pugeut Sound area this spring. BRRRR!!! Anyone familiar with the area or any operators up there?

Hey Carldarl (or anyone else),

We are thinking of going on the Norwegian Sea in April. I've read very mixed reviews of the ship and the food service, etc. Was it as bad as some say?

Thanks much!
Seahunt100%