bcline76
Registered
My first trip report on this board and it's a little delayed but here we go.
Booked our trip (Feb 12-16) directly with Lesley at Compass Point, having one point of contact was awesome. She arranged our rental car (Avis) as well as our dives with the onsite operator, Ocean Frontiers.
Arrived at GCM, breezed through immigration and customs! Collected our luggage and walked the 200yds to the Avis car rental building. I was out the door in 5 minutes, what a great surprise.
Lesley provided great written instructions on how to get to a the grocery store and to Compass Point. After a 40 minute drive we arrived at our home for the next few days. Checking in was a breeze. The front desk girls briefed us on additional dives we could sign up for and gave us a general overview of the area. We even had some one walk us up to our room, no pointing and saying 'it's over there.' No room keys here, they give you a code for the lock so you don't have to worry about carrying around or losing a key. There was a bin outside our door and we were instructed to put our dive gear in there and it would show up on the boat in the morning (it did!)
The room (1bd, oceanfront) was amazing, by far the biggest and nicest room I've stay at in the Caribbean. Full kitchen with every appliance you could ask for. Huge living/dining room with a sliding glass door that overlooked the ocean and boat dock. Bedroom has a comfortable queen with another sliding door, with another view of the ocean. We were VERY happy with the room and location. Also had a great balcony that we ate breakfast and drank our morning coffee from.
We dove three consecutive days (2-tank AM) with Ocean Frontiers. This operation is first class all the way. We didn't touch or lift a piece of equipment the entire trip. The boat captains and dive masters took awesome care of us the entire time. Same routine every day, arrive on boat and our gear was all set up, weights set out and everything was DRY and clean. Motor to the dive site (10-30 minutes) and we received our safety briefing and dive profiles. The DM draws a map of the dive site and asks who is going non-guided and who would like to follow a guide. Dive groups were typically 6 per DM and a few people would go off on their own (with a buddy of course.) No limits on bottom time except for your air consumption on non-decompression times. We would then have about an hour surface interval w/ some snacks and move to the second dive site...same routine as the morning dive. Arrive back at the dock around noon and simply walk off the boat and leave the gear there. I would recommend Ocean Frontiers to ANYONE, seasoned divers to new divers. Great boats, great rental equipment, great dive masters and great diving.
Always hard to leave a place like this. We departed on a Wednesday and it was a easy drive back to the airport to return the car. Checking in and security was a breeze again, probably since we left in the middle of the week. Probably took us 15 minutes to get checked in and all the way into the terminal.
If anyone is looking for a great dive vacation away from the hustle & craziness of SMB/West End then look no further than Compass Point and Ocean Frontiers. We are already looking forward to our next trip back!
Booked our trip (Feb 12-16) directly with Lesley at Compass Point, having one point of contact was awesome. She arranged our rental car (Avis) as well as our dives with the onsite operator, Ocean Frontiers.
Arrived at GCM, breezed through immigration and customs! Collected our luggage and walked the 200yds to the Avis car rental building. I was out the door in 5 minutes, what a great surprise.
Lesley provided great written instructions on how to get to a the grocery store and to Compass Point. After a 40 minute drive we arrived at our home for the next few days. Checking in was a breeze. The front desk girls briefed us on additional dives we could sign up for and gave us a general overview of the area. We even had some one walk us up to our room, no pointing and saying 'it's over there.' No room keys here, they give you a code for the lock so you don't have to worry about carrying around or losing a key. There was a bin outside our door and we were instructed to put our dive gear in there and it would show up on the boat in the morning (it did!)
The room (1bd, oceanfront) was amazing, by far the biggest and nicest room I've stay at in the Caribbean. Full kitchen with every appliance you could ask for. Huge living/dining room with a sliding glass door that overlooked the ocean and boat dock. Bedroom has a comfortable queen with another sliding door, with another view of the ocean. We were VERY happy with the room and location. Also had a great balcony that we ate breakfast and drank our morning coffee from.
We dove three consecutive days (2-tank AM) with Ocean Frontiers. This operation is first class all the way. We didn't touch or lift a piece of equipment the entire trip. The boat captains and dive masters took awesome care of us the entire time. Same routine every day, arrive on boat and our gear was all set up, weights set out and everything was DRY and clean. Motor to the dive site (10-30 minutes) and we received our safety briefing and dive profiles. The DM draws a map of the dive site and asks who is going non-guided and who would like to follow a guide. Dive groups were typically 6 per DM and a few people would go off on their own (with a buddy of course.) No limits on bottom time except for your air consumption on non-decompression times. We would then have about an hour surface interval w/ some snacks and move to the second dive site...same routine as the morning dive. Arrive back at the dock around noon and simply walk off the boat and leave the gear there. I would recommend Ocean Frontiers to ANYONE, seasoned divers to new divers. Great boats, great rental equipment, great dive masters and great diving.
Always hard to leave a place like this. We departed on a Wednesday and it was a easy drive back to the airport to return the car. Checking in and security was a breeze again, probably since we left in the middle of the week. Probably took us 15 minutes to get checked in and all the way into the terminal.
If anyone is looking for a great dive vacation away from the hustle & craziness of SMB/West End then look no further than Compass Point and Ocean Frontiers. We are already looking forward to our next trip back!
