Royal Caribbean Dive Excursions or arrange on our own?

[Tracy1]

My husband and I are going on a cruise Aug. 29 on Royal Caribbean's ship Adventure of the Seas. Has anyone taken their dive excursions? Should we plan them with the ship or arrange them on our own. The ports are St. Thomas, St. Maartin, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Barbados.

[Woodsmaster]

If you are not jammed for time by the cruise ships arrival and departure schedules...yo can usually obtain a better dive experience on your own. You need to be diving conversant...or let the operator know your experience.....

 

Most we have dealt with have been very happy to have divers from cruise ships and they want to put on a great dive to get word of mouth advertising....

 

Cruise ships operators have run cattleboat operations..... limit bottom time and push the divers to run someone out of air and thus cut the dive short....

 

Our experience has been that the cruise line operators are a little pricer in general...but not always.

 

A dive is supposed to be 1. safe, 2. enjoyable, 3. fun, 4. entertaining, 5 relaxing, and 6. interesting......IMHO.

[bruce-r]

My husband and I are going on a cruise Aug. 29 on Royal Caribbean's ship Adventure of the Seas. Has anyone taken their dive excursions? Should we plan them with the ship or arrange them on our own. The ports are St. Thomas, St. Maartin, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Barbados.

 

I agree with Woodmaster. Cruiselines contract with local dive operators who generally use larger boats to take bigger groups of once a year cruise divers out to do follow the leader type dives with limited bottom times. This is of course a generalization. A few of the dive ops used by the cruise lines are decent small boat operations, but that is the exception rather than the rule. If you are a newbie, or the once a year type, you might be OK with the cruise ship's excursion.

 

I prefer to make my own arrangements. They usually cost a bit less and I have more control over when and with who I dive with.

 

I have been to St Thomas and St. Maarten, so I'll limit my comments to dive OPs on those islands.

 

St. Thomas: I went with Cokik Beach Dive Club which I recommend for a couple of inexpensive shore dives. If you are traveling with a mixed group of divers/non-divers, Coki beach is a great choice. You can dive while they snorkel and hang at the beach. If boat diving is what you are looking for, Chris Sawyer has an excellent reputation and will usually be able to accommodate your cruise schedule, but not always, so contact them as soon as possible. Admiralty dive is a small operator with a 6 pack boat. Being small, they are more flexible. They will pick you up at the pier and also will do a 3 tank dive, if you have time.

 

St. Maarten: The diving here is marginal at best. I wouldn't dive here again unless the ocean was dead flat calm, and even then I wouldn't expect much. A better choice is to take a taxi over to the French side and visit Orient Beach. Be aware that one end is clothing optional, but DW took the kids there and said it wasn't a big deal and easy to avoid if you want. They had a great time.

 

Not having dived at the other islands, I would definitely try to just to experience them.

[Nitrogen Junkie]

In Feb. '04 we stopped in St. Thomas and dove with Blue Island Divers and can recommend them highly. Picked up and dropped off at a small dock right in front of our ship, and only 3 divers!! Great dive master and captain. The following day we dove in St.Maarten with Scuba Fun and would advise you to avoid them. LONG hike to boat especially since we travel with our own gear, boat so crowded we had to set up gear at the dock and leave our bags on the dock as there was not enough room. And it got worse!! When we surfaced from our second dive, we were rushed on board because the boat was taking on water and was nearly a foot deep on the deck. The crew bailed out the boat the entire way back to the dock. Unpleasant at best.

Hope this helps, enjoy your trip.

[eeg0323]

I concur with the other replies. If your schedule allows it, you are almost always better arranging your own to avoid the cattle boat experience.

 

In ST. Thomas I have dove COki Beach which Bruce gave you a link to above. I also have used Blue Island Divers and can also recommend them. There Web site is: http://blueislanddivers.com.

 

On Barbados I used the Dive Shop - http://divebds.com and was pleased with the dive operation.

 

Good trip

[bcurran2003]

agree with dive shop in barbados - good operation. i have taken rcls excursion in st thomas they are run by underwater safaris - its a good outfit. have dove twice with divemaster ryan who is excellent. suggest if you go thru rcl on st thomas take the afternoon dive - both times there were only four of us on the boat with a captain and two divemasters. st marteen dont wast your time diving. st lucia i hear good things a bout st lucia scuba i beleive they go off the beach by the pitons.

 

generally we will make our own arrangements but make sure of your timing when setting up outside of rcl

[bcurran2003]

best tour we ever took was eli's eco tour. you arrange outside of rcl it is a blast. if you look at antigua under ports on cruise critic you will see alot of info on it

enjoy

[Hilary]

I agree 100% that you're almost always better off booking your own diving to have a higher quality experience. However, bear in mind that you are risking losing the money you paid for your dive if your ship either cancels the port or comes in late. Except for our AK cruise, every cruise we've been on has had at least one port delayed due to a medical problem with a passenger. We've been lucky enough not to have any ports canceled (knock wood), but delays are as bad on privately arranged excursions as cancelations sometimes.

 

On our holiday cruise this year, we're booking privately with Chris Sawyer in St. Thomas, but taking the ship's excursion in the Bahamas. Why? Because we have a sea day prior to our port call in Nassau and if something happens to cause us to be late, we'll either get a refund on our dive through the cruiseline, or the dive operator will hold the boat for us. Our St. Thomas day is right after St. Martin, and considering the islands are so close, there's almost no risk that we won't make it to the port. Also, we're scheduled to dock in St. Thomas at 7am and Chris Sawyer goes out at 9:30, so we should be okay.

 

Consider the risks and benefits and make your best decision.

[kruzintime]

Tracy1, we did your same cruise/itinenary last fall. We took a sail n snorkel on St. Thomas, shopped in St. Maarten and went to a private beach in St. Johns so I cannot comment on diving those islands.

 

We dove on Castries and Barbados. Barbados - used the ship's excursion. Tour operator transported us in bus, traffic was very congested and they drive on the left. Dives were ok, 1st -lots of coral but not much life, 2nd tank much prettier. The dive shop was right on the beach 5 min. from the dive sites. Smooth & prompt operation.

 

Make sure you dive St. Lucia, absolutely beautiful!!! We booked with Dive Fair Helen over the internet. They picked us up at the pier (car) returned us via the boat right to the dock. At first glance I thought I had made a huge mistake. The shop nor the boat impressed me. The boat was faded and looked well used but the engines ran fantastic, brand new diesel volvos & the dive boat was very smooth and comfortable. We did 2 dives and were served a delicious lunch between. BUT what I liked the most was our ability to have input into the dive sites and boy were they beautiful. Some of the most beautiful diving we have done. The divemaster was great too. Check out their web at www.divefairhelen.com then email Sam St. Omer at sam@divefairhelen.com.

I also found www.scubastlucia.com. I did not book with them, but their site provided additional information on the dive sites. Just enter the site and click on "the diving" button on the left side of your screen.

 

BTW we only took our own masks and snorkels, rest was provided. Best of luck, it was a great cruise for us.