Some questions about Punta Cana

[hambleto]

I am sorry to bring up Punta Cana thread again. But after reading all the posts I could find on it I still have some more questions. Bear in mind as of right now I am not a certified diver, but I plan on being one prior to arriving in Punta Cana. I will only have an OW cert. I am going in April of 2004 and will be staying at the Riu Tiano resort. I know that Apple Vacations say there is diving on site, but I can not get any more details. I have a few questions about the diving and the area.

1) I have read that the diving there is bad at the resorts. But for someone with not too many dives under his belt, would it be a good place to dive and get some bottom time?

2) Is the gear safe to use or should I buy my own before I go? I have all of my personal gear (mask, snorkel, fins, boots, and such)

3) Is the water/soda safe to drink? I am very bad when it comes to drinking local water. Even here in the US drinking tap water from another state tends to make me buy Imodium AD by the case.

4) Do a lot of the hotels have bottled/purified water that can be purchased to drink?

5) Are the depths of the dives from the resorts shallow or deep?

Well, I will not bother you anymore about this. Please feel free to tell me any and all information that you have or suggest. I thank you for your time and energy.
Sincerely,
Ben

 

[merricksmom]

I did my Discover dives in PC and just loved them. The reefs aren't the greatest compared to photos I've seen of (for example) Cozumel, but you can't beat it for the price, and when you've never SEEN Cozumel, this is just fine. We stayed at the Barcelo Bavaro Beach and dove with two different outfits......Red Coral Scuba at our hotel (great pool training but terrible dive site....20 feet at the deepest with a horrible surge....later some real diver friends said that if you enjoyed that (and we did...first time on scuba equipment, and it was so cool!) we'd enjoy anything. Then we did another discovery dive with Neptuno Dive shop ( www.neptunodive.com ) and had clear water at 40 feet, a happy live reef with lots of fish and the best instructors on the island. Maybe it wasn't Belize, but it's the best I know and I loved it. It is a bit primitive (backroll off the boat....scary! and no ladder, just kick up and hop back in) but the gear is fine to rent and the instructors make it great. I felt very safe the whole time and enjoyed every second of the dive. We have since become advanced certified in our local quarries and are counting the moments until we return to PC and Neptuno in October.

For the rest of the trip....we loved it. We're not partyers, just like to lay on the beach and eat and drink like walruses...and the resorts are all-inclusive so that's what you do. Bottled water is free everywhere (take bottles back to your room to rinse your toothbrush...don't get NEAR the tap) but all the food is done with purified...salads are fine, fruit is fine, ice drinks are fine. I ate and drank everything I saw whether or not I knew what it was and didn't have a moment's distress (but I do have an iron stomach). Take Immodium just in case, take dramamine for the boat ride (they gave me a pill of it there when I signed up for my dive...they take care of EVERYTHING!), and have a GREAT time. For more info, visit our personal website at www.drewvogel.com for 200+ photos and our blow-by-blow account. And feel free to email me at wendy@drewvogel.com or personal message here...don't let these old jaded divers scare you. Maybe if you've dove the Great Barrier Reef you'd hate it, but compared to my local rock quarries (where they sink cars just so we can pretend we're wreck divers) it's nothing short of paradise.