Runaway Bay, Jamaica in March

[Cliffy31]

Going to Runaway Bay, Jamaica in March. Can anyone recommend a good dive shop? We are very safety conscience and don't want to just pick a dive shop out of the phone book.
Thanks,

 

[idratherbedivin]

I went to Runaway bay at the end of december and dove for my first time. Where are you staying? If you are staying at an all-inclusive resort most have small dive shops employed right on site. The hotels usually give you one free one tank dive per day(or at least the hotels we looked at did).You have to be careful and talk to the dive shop right away. We emailed our resort ahead of time and planned to dive the day after we arrived to do our OW check out dives. When we got there our resort had already booked that day and couldn't take us. This made us a little upset so we decided to go to the resort next door and while we had to dodge security to walk up on the beach to get to the dive shop we got great service from them. After we did our checkout dive the last day before our flying day we did our free dive with out hotel and the service was fine. I don't know your experience level but we never went lower then 50 feet because we were just doing our OW dives. We stayed at Franklyn D. Resort and the resort that we dove at was Sandals Breezes. If you have kids then it will be hard to go over to Breezes because it is an all adult resort. We did it but had security guards watching us and when we brought my 8 year old brother up the beach they told us he had to leave. I have heard Jamaica isn't good diving but my sister, mother, and I loved it and are now obsessed with diving. Have a great time.

 

[laserdoc]

Pick anothr island to go to. Jamaica has been over fished and most of the coral is dead. At least it was in the late and early 90's. I have been twice and both times I was not impressed with the island. I only went diving on on trip and was not impressed at all. I won't go back. To many other islands that are way better.
But live your own life

 

[aprils0909]

Laser, good call. I was planning a trip to Jamaica specifically for diving. Will save that $ and go elsewhere.

 

[wmspdi]

I have been to Jamaica 5 times (our last visit was 2 years ago). We go because we like the resort (Couples Ocho Rios), not for the scuba diving. Laserdoc is right about the poor reef conditions. The all inclusive resort included the diving, as part of their package, so I went on the wreck dives. I took my PADI AOW while on one of our vacations there to make the diving more interesting. I love Jamaica for the "surface intervals", but I wouldn't call JA a "dive destination".