Orlando area diving?? Manatees?

[THRASH]

The wife and I will be in Orlando for business in October. If we took an extra day to dive is there any good diving within a reasonable driving distance?

Also, keep hearing about diving with manatees. Where is this? Certain dive shop? Is it diving or mainly snorkeling? Is this going on in October?

And since I have a thread going, where should we catch some good meals while we are in the Orlando area? We like good steak and seafood.

Thanks ahead of time for the responses.

 

[00wabbit]

Crystal River for Manatees. They are only there in large numbers at certain times of the year. I believe it's in the colder months when they come in to the river for the warmer water and food.

Epcot aquarium dive is a fun experience.

 

[sportxlh]

Like 00wabbit said, the Epcot aquarium dive is a fun bucket list type of dive. You don't have to be a park attendee to make the dive. The experience is similar to a scaled back version of the dive in the Georgia aquarium in your home town.

If you want ocean diving, Jupiter is about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour drive and has some great diving: it's worth the drive. I dive with Jupiter Dive Center very often but a lot of people like Captain Sl8er too.

In Crystal River there are a couple of operations: I used American Pro a few years ago and I've heard good things about Birds. The water is still pretty warm in October so I'm not sure too many manatees will be seeking shelter at the springs and rivers that early.

 

[00wabbit]

Like 00wabbit said, the Epcot aquarium dive is a fun bucket list type of dive. You don't have to be a park attendee to make the dive. The experience is similar to a scaled back version of the dive in the Georgia aquarium in your home town.

If you want ocean diving, Jupiter is about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour drive and has some great diving: it's worth the drive. I dive with Jupiter Dive Center very often but a lot of people like Captain Sl8er too.

In Crystal River there are a couple of operations: I used American Pro a few years ago and I've heard good things about Birds. The water is still pretty warm in October so I'm not sure too many manatees will be seeking shelter at the springs and rivers that early.

Birds was real cool with me. I called to book a crystal river dive with him in April and he was very honest and told me we probably wouldn't see many manatees because they are moving out. I thought that was nice. Rather than just taking my money and giving me a bad dive.

I didn't epcot was scaled back at all. Yes the aquarium is smaller and there aren't whale sharks, but its nearly half the price and nearly twice as long a dive. You are only led around for the first 10-15 minutes then you and your buddy are free to explore the aquarium on your own. The ATL dive is guided the whole time and short. On the Epcot dive if you happen to run out of air and there is more than 5mins left they will give you a new tank and let you go back down.

 

[Steve_C]

Manatees are snorkel only. They are also in the homosassa river next to it.

Rainbow river is an easy drift dive nearby.

 

[Torontonian]

That's right, no diving with the manatees. They are afraid of bubbles. It's snorkel only with manatees.

Last time diving at Crystal River, there is a (small) King's cave dive.

The Rainbow river is a very easy shallow drift dive. People can also snorkel too. It's 72 F spring water fed river, and excellent viz. But there has to be enough people going to the trip before an OP will drive out there with their truck towing the dive boat. The boat will be let in the water near the entrance of the park. They "drive" the boat up, then let the divers down to slowly drift to near the park entrance.

 

[PatW]

The bBlue Heron Bridge is just a bit south of Jupiter. You have to dive it at high tide. It is a shallow dive. The macro life is superb and it is considered world class.

 

[sportxlh]

That's right, no diving with the manatees........

Last time diving at Crystal River, there is a (small) King's cave dive....

American Pro does the snorkel with the manatees followed by a guided scuba dive into the cavern. If you exit the cavern really slowly, you can briefly get the feeling of actually diving with manatees. When I was there, the manatees swam over and around the cave entrance and didn't seem alarmed by the exiting divers

---------- Post added August 17th, 2014 at 04:32 PM ----------

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I didn't epcot was scaled back at all. Yes the aquarium is smaller and there aren't whale sharks, but its nearly half the price and nearly twice as long a dive. You are only led around for the first 10-15 minutes then you and your buddy are free to explore the aquarium on your own. The ATL dive is guided the whole time and short. On the Epcot dive if you happen to run out of air and there is more than 5mins left they will give you a new tank and let you go back down.

That's interesting, when I did the Georgia Aquarium dive three or four years ago, they took us on a tour but then let us roam around about half the tank on our own. Maybe they've changed things over the years. The dive time in Atlanta was similar to my two experiences in the Epcot Aquarium: 30-40 minutes or so. If Disney had let me dive until my air ran out, I would have had a two hour dive!..... I only used 800 psi of air on my last Disney dive!

By scaled back, I meant the size of the tank and number of marine creatures: but you're right about the price, the Disney price is about half the Georgia Aquarium (still not cheap though!).

 

[THRASH]

Thanks for all the recommendations. I'm going to look into it now.