St Maarten or St Thomas for diving?

[cgvmer]

So my family and I are going on a Royal Caribbean cruise Aug 3, and will be stopping in Bermuda, Phillipsburg St. Maarten and Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas then Puerto Rico.

For this trip I will be able to dive either St Maarten or St Thomas any recommendations?

Anyone know who Royal Caribbean uses in these two places?

 

[Barry Goode]

I dove St. Thomas in April and it was pretty good. I've never been to St. Maarten, but if you search around on this site you'll see that many divers consider the diving there to be poor.
St. Thomas has lots of good wrecks to dive.

Barry

 

[moon]

Barry, how deep are the wrecks at St. Thomas?

 

[Barry Goode]

Moonie,

They vary from 40 ft. to 100 ft. but most are somewhere in between from what I experienced.

Barry

 

[diversteve]

Either Admiralty or Blue Island Divers will pick you up from the cruise ship dock in Charlotte Amalie. So you don't need to go with the cruise operator - which I believe might be Coki Beach dive - which imo is more of a deep snorkel than a good dive.

 

[cgvmer]

Thanks for the input. Barry who did you dive with when you were there?

 

[The Punisher]

Someone on this site recomended Chris Sawyer dive center in St.Thomas said they have great wreck dives check out the website and all the info is there. I called and got the info you have to take a taxi from the ship just inform the personal on the ship you have to be there at 8:00 so you will be one of the first off the ship. I'am going in sept on a cruise looking to do this

 

[moon]

thanks Barry for the info!

 

[injus5]

my parents accually got to do a shark dive in St. maarten where they accually all layed on the bottom holding on to cement blocks while the dive master was in the middle feeding the sharks

 

[CFDAlden]

I asked this same exact question on a cruise board, as I'm doing the same in March.

I got this same answer from a couple others:

Either Admiralty or Blue Island Divers will pick you up from the cruise ship dock in Charlotte Amalie. So you don't need to go with the cruise operator - which I believe might be Coki Beach dive - which imo is more of a deep snorkel than a good dive.

This is on St. Thomas, by the way. We'll be booking with Admiralty Dive soon, to avoid the cattleboat thing.