Best dive on our cruise?

[Stinkybaby]

Hello,

I am going to go scuba diving sometime on my cruise. We are stopping in Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. I am certified but my boyfriend isn't. He is wanting to go and hang out on the boat while I dive. Has anyone done anything similar? I kind of want to book with the cruise line even though its a little bit more expensive, but I'm not sure. Which site has the best dive spots? I like to see big fish like rays, sharks, etc. We will out in the first week of march with norwegian cruise line. THanks!!!

[Laurie S.]

All four have excellent diving. My preference is Costa Maya, followed by Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. I just did a B2B at all those locations. I've been to Roatan five times, Belize three times, Cozumel twice, and Costa Maya twice and will be returning to Costa Maya later this year for 10 days to two weeks to just dive and enjoy the beach.

[TreeCity]

I put Costa Maya last myself. They do tend to have smaller boats and I have not seen any non divers onboard. Try the dolphin dive with Anthony Keys, Roatan it is super and your boyfriend can get involved up-top. NCL had this one to book last year. Go through NCL for cozumel. I had time difficulties there. Ship did not dock in time to book private. Ended up missing my dive boat but was able to do a last min booking on board with NCL. All are great places to dive.

[Sally Fletcher]

Contact West End Divers (www.westenddivers@gmail.com) in Roatan. They will be able to give you a bunch of information on the diving. When we dove with them, they picked us up at the dock, took us on a couple of neat dives (in tiny groups on a private boat!!) and then took us back to the dock. It was by far the best day of our cruise, I would highly receommend Roatan and West End Divers. (www.westenddivers.info)

[jt_83]

I am diving in Roatan and Costa Maya on my cruise next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

[texancruzer]

I also recommend Roatan. I was blown away but the size and health of the reef there. We also used West End divers and they were great ! Boat is not much to "hang out" on tho..... Most of the dive boats used in the Caribbean are well, dive boats and not really for comfort but more utilitarian.

 

I have dove in many locations (including the Red Sea) and fell in love with Roatan. We plan to head there for a few days this spring and I can't wait !

[Laurie S.]

Subway Watersports in Roatan uses larger boats that a nondiver could hang out on comfortably.

[cruisingforsix]

Hello,

I am going to go scuba diving sometime on my cruise. We are stopping in Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. I am certified but my boyfriend isn't. He is wanting to go and hang out on the boat while I dive. Has anyone done anything similar? I kind of want to book with the cruise line even though its a little bit more expensive, but I'm not sure. Which site has the best dive spots? I like to see big fish like rays, sharks, etc. We will out in the first week of march with norwegian cruise line. THanks!!!

We did this itinerary over a year ago and it is by far the best snorkeling we have done so far. We don't dive but I am sure it would be wonderful.

[reelduel]

We are going to Cozumel (Aldora), Belize (Cruise ship) can't trust tenders to get us back to the boat, Roatan not sure yet maybe westend any suggestions, And Costa maya we are going to take it easy

[jt_83]

Dove with Nomad Divers in Costa Maya and it was great. The boat is small, and the waves were fairly big that day, but the diving was amazing and the outfit is very well run. Ended up not docking in Roatan due to rough seas.

[CrackersAndCheese]

Hello helpful CC scuba and snorkel enthusiasts! I just returned from a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise aboard Holland America's Ryndam and was able to dive at every port. I found each and every dive op thanks to you fine folks here and I wanted to offer my reviews in return.

 

I am a PADI OW diver with a few specialty certs. My husband is currently in PADI professional training and should have his divemaster cert in a couple weeks.

 

Warning: This review is lengthy!

 

Cozumel: We dove with Scuba with Alison. There were 5 other divers besides DH and myself, plus Alison. She was ready and waiting for us when we arrived at the marina and helped us get all set up. Alison is a bit..... brash. She kind of skipped past niceties and got straight to business. She was under the impression that I hadn't dove since my final dive for OW certification so she kind of spoke to me like I didn't have a clue what I was doing. It wasn't until we were heading back to the marina that she found out I'd earned additional certifications and had more than 5 logged dives. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her personality, but from her emails, I guess I was just expecting someone a bit more bubbly. The dives in Cozumel were beautiful. The first dive was a bit boring but the second dive more than made up for it! We saw 5 or 6 sea turtles, so many beautiful fish and lobster and even followed a nurse shark for a few minutes. It was a mild drift dive and Alison was always keeping a watchful eye on her divers. We wouldn't hesitate to rebook with her and are already discussing a dive trip back to Cozumel.

 

Belize City: Booked through Sea Sports Belize. It was just us and one other couple from another cruise ship. The owner, John and the captain (Paul), took us to two dive sites about a 30 minute boat ride away along the barrier reef. The soft corral was beautiful and John lets you dive until you are low on air. My husband used the least amount of air out of anyone, so on the last dive, he and John stayed down for awhile longer than the rest of us. Our surface interval between the dives was at a lovely pier where we ate a big lunch (which was different from all the other dive ops which usually offered a granola bar and/or some fruit). There was a clean restroom to use between dives as well. John and Paul were a delight, as were the employees back at the dive shop. After the dives, we were brought back to the shop to rinse our gear before John dropped us back off where our ship's tender would pick us up. We can't recommend Sea Sports enough. Wonderful people who care about each diver.

 

Roatan: We booked through Barefoot Divers. This is a dive resort and our dives were lead by a divemaster. There is such a difference between a dive lead by the proprietor (like Alison or John) and a young divemaster. Not to say that our DM was unprofessional, but there is just a difference. Our first morning dive was just my husband and I, our DM and a DM in-training. It was a wall dive and it wasn't terribly exciting. Surfaced with 900 psi and was disappointed that this was a dive based on time alloted and not air consumption. When we surfaced, the captain told us he had just spotted dolphins. We quickly boarded the boat, ditched our BCDs and drove around looking for them. When we saw them again, we jumped back in the water with our masks and fins. Unfortunately, they weren't very playful and swam off before we could get to them. Our second dive included 7 other cruise ship divers (plus the DM and DM in-training), so we had 11 divers total. This was a bit hectic. No one followed the DM's instructions about the order in which she wanted the divers. We were constantly getting run into by the other divers who weren't paying any attention. The corral was constantly getting kicked by a few divers and that was disappointing to see. My DH and I basically hung back at the end of the group and swam along with the DM in-training to avoid all the others. This dive was also a bit boring, except for a green moray that decided to follow our group for close to 20 minutes. After we returned to the shop, we were offered to go on a third dive at 2:00pm but since it would have been with the same group of divers, we opted to return to the ship. We heard they were taking that group to "Mary's Place," which, if I understand correctly, is for advanced OW divers. I can't imagine the damage some of those divers could do to the reef. Would we dive with Barefoot again? Possibly. It really is "full service diving." They take care of everything. Towels, setting up and taking down gear, hauling everything, etc. We were offered lunch but we declined. I'm not sure if it would have been included in the price or if we would have paid. Fresh sliced watermelon was passed around after each dive. If we returned, we would probably request a more experienced DM.

 

Costa Maya: After reading positive reviews of Dreamtime Diving, I sent an email inquiring about chartering them for a day. I received a reply that they are under contract with the cruise ships so we would have to book a dive excursion via Holland America. We decided to just do that and I booked with the ship. Given the average age of passengers on our boat was quite a bit older than us (we are 29), I wasn't too concerned about having a huge number of other divers from the cruise. As it turns out, we were the ONLY divers signed up on our cruise for this excursion. We were able to dive with just the DM and "intern" (another DM in-training). Again, there is such a difference when diving with an employee as opposed to the owner. Even though it was only my husband and I diving, we were still only allowed two 45 minute dives. Both times, we surfaced with over 1000 psi. We were disappointed that we couldn't dive longer. There weren't too many interesting things to see underwater, but we did watch two turtles for awhile. The water was warm and calm, but Costa Maya was probably our least favorite of all the dives. The general manager talked to us about coming back and staying at the resort (and it sounds VERY inexpensive), but frankly, there just wasn't anything drawing us back (and it is also a four hour drive from the Cancun airport).

 

All in all, it was a lovely trip. We lugged our own equipment with us at every port and luckily, there were never more than 10 minutes of walking at a time. The seas were so calm. Even our ship's captain noted that he'd never seen such calm seas in the Caribbean. I'm so glad I realized that CC had this scuba board or I don't think we would have even combined a cruise with a dive trip.

[Laurie S.]

You should have dived with Gypsea Divers at Costa Maya. You can dive as long as you want, and there is a LOT to see at Costa Maya. It's our favorite place and we will be going back later this year for about two weeks.

 

I've dived with Barefoot three times and don't like the control they put over the divers, either. My boyfriend is a Master Instructor and we go off on our own.

[J&KCruiser]

Thanks for the reviews of your dives. We dove with Alison in Oct 2010 and enjoyed the two dives. Its great not to be on timed based dive profiles. Good Vis 80+ ft (i am a bad judge) was better than several Caribbean dives in Jan 2012.

 

I dove in Roatan with Splash Inn (jan 2012). approx 5-7 other divers so boat was snug with all the gear. We returned to shop for SI and some dives swapped out. The dives we time based. Saw couple of turtles.

 

John

[Sailfish]

I am leading a dive cruise next year to these port of call; we made arrangements to charter the dive boat with independent dive operators in each port like we have done in the past. We do one of these dive cruises every year, but have not been back to the Western Caribbean since 2010, so we are excited to be going back. I have some suggestions for you, but not concerning specific dive operators, as there are so many good ones in each port of call.

 

My group consists of divers and non-divers. We always see several couples like you guys on our dive trips - one person is a diver, the other is not. Not all ports are going to be such that your non-diver is going to want to go out with you on the dive boat especially if the dive boat is small. There are many dive operators that do a one tank dive and return to either the dive shop or to a beach for their surface interval - your non-diver might have more fun catching up with you on shore before you head back out on your 2nd dive than sitting on the dive boat. If a dive operator does say yes in allowing non-divers on the dive boat, please exercise some caution, because sitting on a dive boat for a few hours can be really boring (and can cause sea sickness even in people not usually prone to it), unless they are okay with snorkeling and most won't be. We have had non-divers out on the dive boat with us only in Roatan and not in any of the other ports. Since we charter the dive boats in each port, we call the shots. Unlike St. Lucia, where we always take our non-divers with us, the ports you are going to dive in the Western Caribbean are simply not appropriate for non-divers.

 

Since we always include the few non-divers we have in the group as much as possible in all we do, I try to make arrangements on land for the non-divers in the group - at the resort where the dive shop is located, where they can relax while we dive. Or a rendezvous location where, like I said the non-divers can hook up with us.

 

Our group BLOG has lots of good information on the ports where you will be going - feel free to stop by. If you have any other questions, feel free to send me an email.

 

Good luck.

[w&k]

We haven't been on a Western in quite awhile, but we absolutely LOVE diving with John at Sea Sports Belize!

 

Glad to hear that you had a great trip!

 

Wendy

[Kryssa]

We just dove in Cozumel and Roatan last week. These are both not-to-be-missing dive ports. We dove with Scuba with Alison in Cozumel and West End Divers in Roatan and would recommend both. We especially liked that West End Divers will send a driver to pick you up at your cruise ship and take you back when you're done :)

 

If you're boyfriend is going to come with you and stay top side, I'd suggest doing this in Roatan and booking with West End Divers. He'd actually have way more fun just staying on the shore because the shop and the boat are both on this great little street full of shops and places to eat. You'll be back on land between dives so you can look around the stores with him and you won't be gone for long and he'll have plenty to do while you're underwater :)