Western or Southern Caribbean

[kleven]

We are looking at cruises for next March. Have considered Princess out of Galveston and also out of San Juan. Would like to dive as much as possible. Problem is we have gone diving a lot in W Caribbean and always had a great time, S Caribbean only once -- different cruise line, dive trips were not well organized and not much good. Looking for opinions on Princess, especially out of San Juan as we have always had good luck with their trips. What do you think? Thanks,

 

kleven

[Jerry_G]

I think you better research your islands. San Juan diving is terrible. Barbados is terrible. St Lucia and the US Virgin Islands are very good. I don't think the problem is with the dive operators, but with what they have available to dive.

[bruce-r]

We are looking at cruises for next March. Have considered Princess out of Galveston and also out of San Juan.

The ports of call for the Grand Princess out of Galveston are good for diving. Unfortunately, the times they are in port suck if you are trying to arrange your own diving, and I definitely prefer to make my own arrangements.

 

Would like to dive as much as possible.

Then I would suggest that a cruise isn't what you should be looking at for a vacation. For "as much diving as possible" vacations you need to look into doing a liveaboard dive trip, or at least stay at a dedicated dive resort is some place like Cozumel.

 

Looking for opinions on Princess, especially out of San Juan as we have always had good luck with their trips. What do you think?

Princess has a very good product with regards to their cruises, but they do not run any excursions on their own. They contract with local companies at each port of call to provide the excursions. Generally, cruise ship diving is geared to the lowest common denominator, once a year cruise diver. The contract operators usually use large boats to accommodate larger groups and conduct follow the leader style dives of limited bottom time and short surface interval so they can keep on schedule. These kinds of dive trips is just fine for the once a year cruise diver they are aimed at, but for the more advanced diver, they are less than ideal. To that end, I make my own arrangements for diving and recommend other more advanced divers do the same.

 

As for sailing out of San Juan, it cost more for the airfare, and you really should arrive the day before the cruise, especially when flying from the West coast. The benefit of a San Juan departure is that you can visit more islands. If I was cruising the Southern Caribbean, I'd want to visit Curacao and St. Lucia for the diving. I wouldn't look at St. Maarten as a dive stop, but St. Thomas can be good for diving.

[eguiney]

Princess does a 10 day cruise out of Ft Lauderdale and stops at St. Thomas, Curacao, Dominica, and Barbadous plus 2 other non diving stops. Have been on it twice and 4 dive stops makes for a very nice trip.