Carnival diving excursions for newbie-St. Thomas, St. Kitts, or St. Marteen?

[gypsy mom]

My adult daughter (I am posting this for her) has dived 3 times, and wants to dive again on our Southern Caribbean cruise in Feb. No one else in the family dives, so she is interested in a Carnival excursion, as she doesn't want to get to/from the dive boats on her own.

 

She is looking at St. Thomas, St. Kitts, and St. Marteen as her choices to dive at. Anyone done the ship excursions from these ports, and what do you recommend? She is more interested in the sea life/reef than wrecks.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give her.

 

Sharon

[Colorado Kat]

St Maarten is supposed to have good diving, but I have not gone there yet.

 

Yes, this board is for scuba/snorkeling, but you can also find good advice if you look under the Ports of Call threads for each stop. You can choose an island, and do a search on "diving", and you should get a lot more thoughts.

 

Have you tried doing a search on this section yet?

 

Have a great cruise!

[J&KCruiser]

I just dove (dec 2011) with CDC in St. Maarten. 2 good boat dives.

 

The Dive shop is with-in walking distance down main road to town. They dropped me off at ship pier (water Taxi).

 

The walk is safe.

 

I am above middle age male and always look for dive shop close to the ship. Even with transportation from shop/taxi, I will only go so far.

 

Enjoy

 

John

[gypsy mom]

Hi Colorado Kat,

 

I did read the ports of call threads before posting this, but almost all of them are talking about independent excursions, not the Carnival ones. She really does not want to go off on her own, so is only interested in Carnival excursions.

 

We are hoping to get more responses soon, as she really needs to book something before they all fill up.

 

Sharon

[NitrogenJunkie]

Just so your daughter knows, in most cases she will get a much more personal experience with a smaller, private operator then she will with the cruise ship excursion. The cruise ships take such a large percentage from their tour operators that the only way they can make money is by putting larger number of divers onboard. Operators working with larger groups tend to be more rigid with their bottom times and with a lot of divers in the water, your daughter may not get the attention she feels she needs as a new diver.

 

For example, from my experience with Blue Island Divers in St Thomas, they picked up guests right from the one set of cruise ship docks, they were located no more then 100yds from the other set of docks, and they won't take more then ten divers at a time. I honestly don't see how it could be any easier to dive independently from a cruise ship. There were new divers with us on one of our trips and the crew did a great job working with them and made them really comfortable in the water. Their initial look of fear turned to giant smiles by the end of the trip.

 

No matter who you choose on what island, your daughter should strongly consider the diving experience over what might seem to be a small inconvenience of booking with or getting to a private operator. No one likes to feel like a number, especially a new diver.

[superrupe]

I agree with the previous comment. With an independent operator, your daughter will get a lot more attention. Not to mention, she can contact the operator beforehand and explain she is a new diver; they can tailor the dive plan to this. For the most part, a Carnival sponsored excursion will not do this. On my last cruise, I did a two-tank with the Carnival sponsored excursion. The second dive, we maxed at 90 ft., with some open water divers with us. The operator didn't care.

 

Also, most private operators are located by the dock. If not, every operator I have looked at (doing the same cruise 2/19), will pick up and drop off divers at the dock.

[gypsy mom]

Thanks everyone for their advice. Nitrogen Junkie, my daughter ended up booking with Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas after learning from you that she would be picked up on the same dock we arrive on. As a young woman without much experience traveling on her own, she did not want to make her way alone to an off site diving business. So this company is perfect for her! We would not have known about them without your advice, so thanks so much!

 

Sharon