Hi ... wasn't sure where to really post this but felt compelled to post something given a few experiences that perhaps others might get something useful from.
My girlfriend and I just returned from our first post-OW dives, which we did as part of a Carnival Legend cruise. We understood that cruise ship excursions are pretty much "cattle calls" and don't necesarily go to the best sites but figured, for our first "real" dives fresh out of certification, that perhaps a bit more supervision and less to see would be a good start (and a good scouting trip for future trips).
The Legend hits Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize and Roatan. There were things we both wanted to do in Cozumel and Belize so, although we knew the diving there would have been extraordinary, chose Cayman and Roatan. Also I actually tried to set up a few non-excursion dives but the names of dive ops I had read good reviews of here (like scubawithalison.com) were booked on the days we were in port.
We dove two spots in Grand Cayman with Don Foster's Dive Cayman ... I apologize as I don't recall both names and my dive log's at home, but I believe they were Eagle's Nest and Wildlife Reef. Coming into this not expecting that much from a cruise-ship organized dive I was shocked at the customer service and feeling of comfort we had diving with these guys. As an example, at the first site my girlfriend had severe under-weighting problems and couldn't descend (this was our first dive with weight belts, as we completed our OW back home with integrated weights in our BC's). By the time we had her fixed up we had trouble even with direction from the boat finding our group's bubbles to reconnect with them. After getting a lil' concerned we were getting a bit far from the boat we swam back intending to scrap the first dive only to meet one of the divemasters who wasn't leading the other two groups swimming to us to take us on our own short dive so we wouldn't miss out -- that floored me (and we tipped appropriately). Having dealt with customers over the years in my own businesses and knowing that dive shops probably look down on the cruise ship bit as you would any routine thing you do at your job, that extra effort from one of their guys was stunning to us. The DM's we dove with also exuded confidence and friendliness which, given their fairly young ages, suprised me. While we weren't blown away by the dives themselves, for our first ocean dives we were just thrilled with the whole deal, start to finish. Would definitely dive with them again and I wish I had written down the names of the individuals we dealt with personally as I cannot laud, or thank, them enough.
Our second experience, in Roatan, was 180 degrees opposite and suprised me for a few reasons. We dove with Anthony's Key Resort, who oddly enough we had a video presentation of during our PADI OW classes back home (in Colorado) and were really excited to get to go to. In talking to the AKR rep who met us on the cruise ship, apparently our LDS sends them about 200 divers a year. Given all of this I was expecting something on par with our first experience.
From the beginning, however, things started going south. As we just started our dive careers we're taking our purchases slowly ... so far we've only invested in masks, snorkels and lower-end dive computers since we're not familiar enough with different fins and BC's to take that plunge yet. So we get on the boat and as we're sorting out gear I realize that the octo I've been given is lacking a mouth-piece on the regulator. No big deal since I refuse to let people set my gear up for me and would have noticed it, but that seems like kind of a bizarre oversight for a professional dive shop to put on one of their boats for customers =/ My BC also wasn't functioning as well as I had hoped, although it worked well enough (had to do a half-barrel roll to blip air out of low-pressure inflator for some reason).
Things went a bit more south in the water. I don't recall the name of the first dive site we took the boat to, but instead of separating the 20 people into two or more groups (which they had done in Grand Cayman with the other shop I mentioned), one divemaster took 20 people in the water. To 80'. Granted I don't have the dive experience that it seems most people here do, but that seemed like a recipe for disaster to me just given what I experienced on our first dive. Sure enough, once at the bottom there are divers everywhere, divers exceeding the profile (we were diving in a spot that had a slope that led much, much deeper), running into each other, and towards the end we actually lost the divemaster =( I had been getting concerned about the depth and what was going on around me, and in monitoring my buddy who had turned to look at some coral for a moment and trying to get her attention I managed to lose sight of the DM. Keeping an eye on the computer we opted to continue following some people in front of us and eventually found him again near the surface, but he definitely was not keeping an eye on the group that we could see (at the safety stop at the end people were bobbing up to the top in the current, just heading to the boat, etc.). We also pushed the profile pretty hard, which I didn't realize until we got back to the cruise ship and I punched in the data from my computer and log into the lil' eRDP-ML calc we got in OW). Given that we had children and older divers with us that shocked me, in looking back on the dive, and it makes sense of a few things we saw. While my air consumption was pretty low as usual we actually had an older gentleman run his tank out of air (I surfaced with 1,100 PSI and my GF with 500). That's a lil' sketchy to me. I get that this is a "solo" sport in that the goal is to be self-sufficient and not need supervision, but at the same time I know that a lot of divers, especially new ones (prime candidates for cattle-call type cruise ship dive excursions) are looking for the same hand-holding they got in PADI's OW. The problem to me is that given a "tour guide" type of DM situation doing a follow-the-leader dive some sort of supervision has to be given when you don't know the experience and comfort level of the divers, I would think. Personal opinion, and I'm sure some would disagree.
Our second dive of the day in Roatan was vastly better, thankfully, and we had a new DM take us in who was amazing at spotting and pointing out all kinds of wildlife, including a few turtles who swam with us for a few minutes. All in all though I was unimpressed as a whole, which dissapoints me as we absolutely fell in love with Roatan and diving there and want to go back as soon as possible. I'm just not sure where we'd go now. We plan on talking to our LDS about all of this to get their take on things, and I'm mixed on what to take from it all. I'm reluctant to write off AKR as I've only heard and read good things prior to this and I'm not the sort to let one bad experience take that all away, but at the same time I have a really bad taste in my mouth (outside of sea-water) about the shop.
As far as we go, the immediate lessons we learned were that sooner than later we should probably invest in our gear (my gf had a few issues with the unfamiliar controls on the low-pressure inflator) -- I expected going in that things would be different from what we trained with and not in top shape, but having now gone down to 80' or so I think I'd like a bit more confidence in my gear and who's maintaining it going foward than I had that day. My GF and I talked a lot about our findings on the dive planners post-dive and decided next time we go on a dive we're definitely working out the NDL's and ABT's pre-dive for ourselves once the DM gives us the depth and sticking to them regardless of what's going on with the DM in the water, and with some more experience will start tracking our direction a bit more closely so we can get back to the boat if we feel we need to end the dive early and/or the DM's not visible and we're concerned about getting lost. We also learned a lot about ourselves diving and our dynamic in the water which we're going to work on going forward (buddy positioning, who's leading and when, and a few personal hand signals to indicate important stuff like "if that warm current I just felt came from your wetsuit, I'll cut your airhose" and "don't just look at your air gauge, INDICATE TO ME WHAT THE #$%& IT SAYS"). I found myself spending most of my dive time monitoring my GF and less sight-seeing, which we're going to try to work on a bit. In my defense, however, her mother's a CSI and specifically told me before this trip if anything happened to her daughter she had the experience and knowledge to cut me into small pieces and bury me where nobody would find me, so I had some reason for being a bit more protective than I probably needed to be =)
All in all I was happy ... actually, thrilled with the dives. The experiences with AKR in Roatan were less-than-expected and a bit nerve-wracking, but taught a few lessons that I'd rather have sooner, when everything's new, than later when I've developed my own habits. And the sheer beauty underwater that we got to see in Roatan, and confidence in our own skills that was built, turned even a slightly sour experience into a pretty amazing one. Again we had gone on this cruise knowing kind of what we would experience to scout out future trip locations, and learned a few things about some exotic locations to check out next time.
The Legend itself, btw, is a hell of a cruise ship -- been on several and they do a top-notch job, the ports were all amazing, and we'd definitely recommend it if there are divers looking to combine some mouth-breathing with a great non-scuba vacation.
My girlfriend and I just returned from our first post-OW dives, which we did as part of a Carnival Legend cruise. We understood that cruise ship excursions are pretty much "cattle calls" and don't necesarily go to the best sites but figured, for our first "real" dives fresh out of certification, that perhaps a bit more supervision and less to see would be a good start (and a good scouting trip for future trips).
The Legend hits Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize and Roatan. There were things we both wanted to do in Cozumel and Belize so, although we knew the diving there would have been extraordinary, chose Cayman and Roatan. Also I actually tried to set up a few non-excursion dives but the names of dive ops I had read good reviews of here (like scubawithalison.com) were booked on the days we were in port.
We dove two spots in Grand Cayman with Don Foster's Dive Cayman ... I apologize as I don't recall both names and my dive log's at home, but I believe they were Eagle's Nest and Wildlife Reef. Coming into this not expecting that much from a cruise-ship organized dive I was shocked at the customer service and feeling of comfort we had diving with these guys. As an example, at the first site my girlfriend had severe under-weighting problems and couldn't descend (this was our first dive with weight belts, as we completed our OW back home with integrated weights in our BC's). By the time we had her fixed up we had trouble even with direction from the boat finding our group's bubbles to reconnect with them. After getting a lil' concerned we were getting a bit far from the boat we swam back intending to scrap the first dive only to meet one of the divemasters who wasn't leading the other two groups swimming to us to take us on our own short dive so we wouldn't miss out -- that floored me (and we tipped appropriately). Having dealt with customers over the years in my own businesses and knowing that dive shops probably look down on the cruise ship bit as you would any routine thing you do at your job, that extra effort from one of their guys was stunning to us. The DM's we dove with also exuded confidence and friendliness which, given their fairly young ages, suprised me. While we weren't blown away by the dives themselves, for our first ocean dives we were just thrilled with the whole deal, start to finish. Would definitely dive with them again and I wish I had written down the names of the individuals we dealt with personally as I cannot laud, or thank, them enough.
Our second experience, in Roatan, was 180 degrees opposite and suprised me for a few reasons. We dove with Anthony's Key Resort, who oddly enough we had a video presentation of during our PADI OW classes back home (in Colorado) and were really excited to get to go to. In talking to the AKR rep who met us on the cruise ship, apparently our LDS sends them about 200 divers a year. Given all of this I was expecting something on par with our first experience.
From the beginning, however, things started going south. As we just started our dive careers we're taking our purchases slowly ... so far we've only invested in masks, snorkels and lower-end dive computers since we're not familiar enough with different fins and BC's to take that plunge yet. So we get on the boat and as we're sorting out gear I realize that the octo I've been given is lacking a mouth-piece on the regulator. No big deal since I refuse to let people set my gear up for me and would have noticed it, but that seems like kind of a bizarre oversight for a professional dive shop to put on one of their boats for customers =/ My BC also wasn't functioning as well as I had hoped, although it worked well enough (had to do a half-barrel roll to blip air out of low-pressure inflator for some reason).
Things went a bit more south in the water. I don't recall the name of the first dive site we took the boat to, but instead of separating the 20 people into two or more groups (which they had done in Grand Cayman with the other shop I mentioned), one divemaster took 20 people in the water. To 80'. Granted I don't have the dive experience that it seems most people here do, but that seemed like a recipe for disaster to me just given what I experienced on our first dive. Sure enough, once at the bottom there are divers everywhere, divers exceeding the profile (we were diving in a spot that had a slope that led much, much deeper), running into each other, and towards the end we actually lost the divemaster =( I had been getting concerned about the depth and what was going on around me, and in monitoring my buddy who had turned to look at some coral for a moment and trying to get her attention I managed to lose sight of the DM. Keeping an eye on the computer we opted to continue following some people in front of us and eventually found him again near the surface, but he definitely was not keeping an eye on the group that we could see (at the safety stop at the end people were bobbing up to the top in the current, just heading to the boat, etc.). We also pushed the profile pretty hard, which I didn't realize until we got back to the cruise ship and I punched in the data from my computer and log into the lil' eRDP-ML calc we got in OW). Given that we had children and older divers with us that shocked me, in looking back on the dive, and it makes sense of a few things we saw. While my air consumption was pretty low as usual we actually had an older gentleman run his tank out of air (I surfaced with 1,100 PSI and my GF with 500). That's a lil' sketchy to me. I get that this is a "solo" sport in that the goal is to be self-sufficient and not need supervision, but at the same time I know that a lot of divers, especially new ones (prime candidates for cattle-call type cruise ship dive excursions) are looking for the same hand-holding they got in PADI's OW. The problem to me is that given a "tour guide" type of DM situation doing a follow-the-leader dive some sort of supervision has to be given when you don't know the experience and comfort level of the divers, I would think. Personal opinion, and I'm sure some would disagree.
Our second dive of the day in Roatan was vastly better, thankfully, and we had a new DM take us in who was amazing at spotting and pointing out all kinds of wildlife, including a few turtles who swam with us for a few minutes. All in all though I was unimpressed as a whole, which dissapoints me as we absolutely fell in love with Roatan and diving there and want to go back as soon as possible. I'm just not sure where we'd go now. We plan on talking to our LDS about all of this to get their take on things, and I'm mixed on what to take from it all. I'm reluctant to write off AKR as I've only heard and read good things prior to this and I'm not the sort to let one bad experience take that all away, but at the same time I have a really bad taste in my mouth (outside of sea-water) about the shop.
As far as we go, the immediate lessons we learned were that sooner than later we should probably invest in our gear (my gf had a few issues with the unfamiliar controls on the low-pressure inflator) -- I expected going in that things would be different from what we trained with and not in top shape, but having now gone down to 80' or so I think I'd like a bit more confidence in my gear and who's maintaining it going foward than I had that day. My GF and I talked a lot about our findings on the dive planners post-dive and decided next time we go on a dive we're definitely working out the NDL's and ABT's pre-dive for ourselves once the DM gives us the depth and sticking to them regardless of what's going on with the DM in the water, and with some more experience will start tracking our direction a bit more closely so we can get back to the boat if we feel we need to end the dive early and/or the DM's not visible and we're concerned about getting lost. We also learned a lot about ourselves diving and our dynamic in the water which we're going to work on going forward (buddy positioning, who's leading and when, and a few personal hand signals to indicate important stuff like "if that warm current I just felt came from your wetsuit, I'll cut your airhose" and "don't just look at your air gauge, INDICATE TO ME WHAT THE #$%& IT SAYS"). I found myself spending most of my dive time monitoring my GF and less sight-seeing, which we're going to try to work on a bit. In my defense, however, her mother's a CSI and specifically told me before this trip if anything happened to her daughter she had the experience and knowledge to cut me into small pieces and bury me where nobody would find me, so I had some reason for being a bit more protective than I probably needed to be =)
All in all I was happy ... actually, thrilled with the dives. The experiences with AKR in Roatan were less-than-expected and a bit nerve-wracking, but taught a few lessons that I'd rather have sooner, when everything's new, than later when I've developed my own habits. And the sheer beauty underwater that we got to see in Roatan, and confidence in our own skills that was built, turned even a slightly sour experience into a pretty amazing one. Again we had gone on this cruise knowing kind of what we would experience to scout out future trip locations, and learned a few things about some exotic locations to check out next time.
The Legend itself, btw, is a hell of a cruise ship -- been on several and they do a top-notch job, the ports were all amazing, and we'd definitely recommend it if there are divers looking to combine some mouth-breathing with a great non-scuba vacation.
ver rentals- I mean flippers is flippers! You sure handled that BC issue like a Jedi Master! Missing mouthpieces are something that are absolutely part of your gear check. They quite often disappear because rental gear is dragged about- sometimes the mouthpieces get snagged on a walkway board. Good thing you caught it, but with your abilities, likely you would have overcome that like the BC issue! (Wait until you have a mouthpiece in your pie-hole and the regulator slips off. There are all sorts of golllleeee posts here about that eye-opening I-never-woulda'-thunk-it phenomenon, as well. You're just scratching the surface!)
