scuba diver sailor

The sports platform did not work the whole trip, the zodiacs launch from the gangways from either side of the ship.  (they mainly use the port side)  They used the tenders once where there was a dock for a dry landing.  The zodiacs were not in good shape and one of them had engine problems.  The welding was to fix HOLES in the side of the ship from forward to aft below the water line.  Agree that the wait staff, the room stewards, and bar tenders did an amazing job and always had a smile on their faces and greeted everyone by name after the 1st day.

Have found that peppermint candies will also help those who tend to get sea sick, the peppermint oil opens up the stomach. but should use them before sailing to allow the peppermint oil to work. (one can also use peppermint oil by rubbing it into your wrist do this before sailing) as stated above, ginger is also a good herb to help, can also drink ginger ale. Usually bring both for people we meet on cruises as so far we have never been sea sick even with a storm crashing waves (15 - 20 foot waves) over the bow on a sailing trip in the ABC islands

The wreck of the Bianca C is pretty nice dive at about 100', the sculpture park is more hype than it should be although there are some great sea creatures living on them. Shark reef was a pleasant dive in the Atlantic side of Grenada. Hopefully by the time you get back to Grenada the water will have cleared out also and the diving will have returned back to Wow. I do have to admit the reefs were in great shape and the colors when i used my light on them were fantastic. Water was pretty warm 86 at the surface and 85 at 70' only needed a 3mm shorty

I just came back from a dive vacation in Grenada. Which was pretty far south from the hurricanes that blew through. Visibility was bad at its best and well not so pretty good for the whole time diving. about 10' both horizontal and vertical on the good days, we had to stay tight in groups to keep from being separated and let me tell you with divers that do not know how to keep buoyancy stable I had my mask kicked off a number of times even hanging back as far as I could. Having said that not sure how the diving will be in the reefs and seas that had the hurricanes move right on top of them. This will depend on how the particulate settles back to the sea floor and if the sun is out and not behind clouds. I wish you the best in your scuba diving. As always "a bad day underwater is better than a good day in the sunshine"

looking at the deck plan for Windsurf room 155 is directly across the hall from the elevator you shouldn't have an issues with the doors keeping you from the lift. hope this helps

We did the 11 Day cruise last year and yep the BBQ is on the 1st night there starts around 5ish they bring in different boats to take everyone to the Motu. the fire dancers were not bad and the food was excellent. I would do this tour again.... but then there are so many other places to go see

just received notice yesterday for the 3 Mar 2018 wind surf cruise port changes. they haven't updated the island tours but the ship is basically sailing around the spice islands. St Lucia is still on the menu but now sailing south to Grenada. Jet blue is filling up fast it is one of the few air lines that goes down there. We called the Air Line direct and explained what happened it was actually cheaper to fly to Barbados than St. Maarten. Just about the same time getting there as before

I did this cruise 2016 and I did some dives booking with the ship and some dives with Topdive where Windspirit did not offer any scuba dives. in retrospect Windspirit used Topdive and it could have been cheaper to get their golden pass not sure how this works with the "cruise ship control" of excursions where you can't book directly with the vendor. I'm not sure how this is doesn't seem to go against freedom of choice laws but maybe outside the USA but if you wanted to have 10 dives there should be some price break even using the ship as the middle man. That being said the dives were fantastic and I enjoyed each and every one and would do them all over again, I did a total of 11 dives over all the islands and snorkeled where I there wasn't any option to dive either with the ship or outside vendors. The one must do excursion my wife enjoyed was going out with the professional photographer learning more about how to take pictures with our Cannon SLR need to sign up very early for this one as there are only limited openings, and the diving for your own oyster and seeing what pearl was inside, hers was an amazing pearl with wonderful color, luster and over 12 mm. Some of the island tours tended to be basically the same even though they were on different islands, there is only so many pearl farms and so many vanilla / coconut plantations explanations. I hope this helps

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2516653

On a side note: bring water proof boots, thermal underwear, wool socks, wool cap if you plan on doing glacier walks (you will need boots for the crampons), water fall walks and even general hiking in and around the mountains. We also brought snow pants and should have brought water proof gloves. you have to dress for wind, rain and temps from 40 F to 60 F. When the wind and rain blow it can easily get to below 40F with the wind chill. When we did the glacier walk with the wind and rain we were chilled even though we had 5 layers of clothes and wind and water proof jackets, sweaters. You have to be prepared for all types of weather. but all in all we had so much fun the memories will last us for a life time.

I have just posted a review of my Cruise on Iceland Pro Cruises for Jun 12 - 21, 2017 if anybody is interested

Those who like smaller cruises of less than 200ish people the Pro Iceland Cruises have a ship called the Ocean Diamond which does either a circumnavigation around Iceland or an Iceland to Greenland trip. This report is on a circumnavigation with nine stops around Iceland that starts and finishes in Reykjavik.

For the most part the cruise was great the rooms are in good shape and in the cabin we were in there was plenty of room to hang up our clothing and some drawers to put socks and thing in. There is a TV / DVR that we never used and the bathroom is a typical ship convenience one person at a time unless you like squeezing real close together. My one suggestion is to bring night shades for your eyes as in the summer the sun never really relinquishes it's light and even with the blackout curtains the room is still very light. The hotel staff keeps the rooms very clean and we did not have any issue with missing things that we left out. There is a key lock drawer that one can put in small phones, iPad, laptop and a point and shoot camera but not much so take that in to consideration on what valuables you want to bring with you. For those of you from America you will need Adaptor pugs for the outlets they are typical deep 220 dual round prong that are keyed for both top and bottom. If you have a CPAP machine, you will want to bring an extension cord with you there are no outlets near the bed. (At least in the 600 rooms) Make sure your electronics can handle 100 – 240 VAC, they will not need a separate transformer, most phone chargers, laptops and CPAPs can be plugged in without any issues. Again always, look at the AC to DC converter before plugging them in so you do not let out the magic smoke.

Breakfast times change with what time of day tours are scheduled for the morning, but they give a daily brief sheet every night so you will know. Breakfast is typical European but they will cook eggs to order for you just ask. As a side note at breakfast you can ask for some condiments if you are taking a sack lunch on a long tour and make your sandwiches taste better. I would ask for lettuce, mayonnaise, tomatoes and I would take some extra cheese from the buffet to give my sandwich more taste to my liking. (The sack lunches come with yogurt, some kind of fruit, a snack pack that changes daily, spoon, and napkin. There will be a choice of 3 different types of sandwiches, one vegetarian and the other two some type of meat.)

Lunch I only had twice on the ship because of the tours was never back to the ship until later but there were different choices that were ok, and if you don’t like the choices you can order a hamburger which is cooked nicely and served with French fires.

Afternoon snack, not sure what to say about the food it was more of a teatime and if you are hungry not much there to help. The offerings were some finger sandwiches, rolls and something sweet (sometimes it was a mystery dish at least to me, but then again I am a barbarian). This is where I do find fault with the service, most of the tours would get back after 4pm and there wouldn’t be any snack food left or it would have been cleaned up I really feel they should have had some food for the tour people coming in after 4PM. And after riding a bus all day and eating usually around 11am would like something for the corner of the stomach until 7Pm when diner was served, in the bar they would have some pretzels or peanuts so that helped.

Dinner is served promptly at 7PM and had three choices one fish, one vegetarian, and one that would change mutton, beef, chicken and more fish. There were choices of soups, salads, and different deserts and an ala cart menu of burgers, chicken (the chicken is about ¼” thick fillet) the servers and kitchen staff work extra hard and try to make sure, if you have any food allergies that you don’t get sick. However, I would add if you have a seafood allergy, they do not have other choices and the burgers do get old after a while. (Not complaining just putting out information did not like lamb so that is not the chef’s fault) Just remember if you are American they are mainly serving German and English appetites and their tastes are quite different and not very much spices…. Well hot spices anyway, found the food to be more on the bland side.

Pro Iceland Cruises also has their own tour company and so the tours you chose to go on are mostly theirs. These tours are not bad, but the bus rides are very long and then to wear on you after a few days. The guides do give out good information and will answer all your questions, but be aware they stop at gas stations, and coffee houses along the way for a bathroom break, but the main reason is the tour guides get free food at these places. It would have been nicer to spend more time at the waterfalls some of them are quite impressive but only having one hour is not long enough to walk up to them and get the full enjoyment. We spent a hour and half at one coffee house while our ships tour guide talked with a girlfriend where most of us on the bus would have rather spent extra time at the water fall. Their tours are expensive and I do not understand why the cruise passengers do not get a price break for taking the cruise and booking tours along the way. Nevertheless, having said that the views were tremendous, breath taking and worth the time and effort to get to them and we are glad we did and have wonderful memories and pictures of each place we visited. The one stand out tour was a super jeep trip to the Mid-Atlantic Rift lava fields and steam mud pots we actually ate lunch on “two continents” American plate and the European plate. That day was a warm sunny day, everyone in our jeep had so much fun, and our guide driver really had a wonderful since of humor.

The cons we noted on our trip: This is cruise line mainly targets Germans and Europeans so you will be treated noticeably different; the Germans had better buses and guides. I got on the German bus on time because I wanted to hear the difference in the guide’s talk (I do understand German although not as good as I once did) and their talk was much more informative and the bus was more comfortable. You can tell the difference between a Mercedes tour bus and the one the English-speaking people were on. There was also a group called the “Road Scholars” they had their own guides and somehow managed to have permission to hold talks in the forward observation lounge always at prime viewing times and yet they were having a “talk and learn” not even looking out the windows. As a whole, that group of people was probably the most petulant rude group I have ever run across in all my years of traveling. They also took over one of the other dining areas that had the best views to the outside even thought that was a first come first serve available for anybody. After talking with the hotel manager was informed that their wishes were part of their contract, but he also told me I was not the first to complain about them. That group of 20 to 30 people thought they were the cat’s meow during the whole cruise, but almost every English-speaking person on the boat did not like their attitudes.

Final con: When first going to the boat the directions was to meet, the ship at the old harbor but the cruise ship was not there and it was a $30 taxi ride to find the ships docking place. Apparently, there was some sailor holiday and the ship berth at the new harbor, which would have been nice to know in advance.

The Pro’s: The Crew really went above and beyond to provide an excellent vacation and the places we visited will long live in our memories. The ship is very clean, bright and well maintained and the daily briefings were fun and exciting to hear. The food on the whole was tasty and the fellow travelers on the cruise were fun to be with, and we met some people that we will further communicate with which is always nice. If you are looking for a small cruise line that circumnavigates Iceland you might give Pro Iceland Cruises a look and see if it fits what you are looking for. One last note average age of travelers is probably 60+ with a few younger people around 40ish and a few older than 80+

The Good: had a wonderful time and saw parts of Iceland that most people do not

The Bad: There were some things that irritated us but we did not let that spoil our fun or enjoyment of this cruise.

The Ugly: No ugly just a wonderful time

On the scuba bubble scale of 1 to 10 bubbles I give Pro Iceland Cruises 6+ bubbles

I'll be the guy with t-shirt, board shorts and sandals. I understand the dry suit country, I'm now in mountain crater, & lake diving area...

Scooky,

which date in May will you be cruising? We will be on the 23 may cruise, as an avid diver I will be bringing my own equipment. There are some very nice travel BC's out there, but as others have said the rental equipment is probably ok. I would suggest however to have your own personal computer, so you can understand how it works and be confident in the settings you chose. You may also want to consider bringing your own 3mm wetsuit, the rentals are usually worn thin and remember if it is a rental someone has probably done #1 in it, not to be crude or anything.:D Just my 2 cents worth

Check with your local Scuba dive shop, they should be selling what you are looking for, if not go on line. I can't remember the name of what I have but it worked well for me in Hawai'i.

when you pack in your checked luggage put the bottle in a zip lock bag so it will not leak out. you could do the same with your deet insect repellent 3 oz will not go very far depending on how many days you will be traveling on the islands.

Very good advice from omeinv on diving. my wife does not dive but I do so we make plans for doing things together that we both want to do, and the days that I dive she does adventures and then we share. I would love to dive more but I have learned to balance what we do while on vacation.

She does enjoy snorkeling so we do that together and I am able to point out the different animal life to her from what I see while diving and knowing different underwater animal behaviors.

I would just add do your pre-dive classes first so you can enjoy the cruise whether it is a discover scuba or your open water cert so you can be comfortable with the gear and not worry about how everything works and just enjoy the dive.

Fair warning though scuba diving is addictive

We are sailing 23 May, have a great trip!

when in May are you sailing? we have booked on the Wind Spirit in May also and received pre and post lodging as part of our passage.