Dive time help - RCI/St. Kitts!

[2Ports]

I realized a couple weeks ago when we were in St. Maarten that many of the stops on our upcoming Empress of the Seas Southern trip next week are on Atlantic time (GMT -4). On the Valor the ship maintained Eastern time (GMT -5) the whole trip, which made for a couple tight connections with dive boats, but it all worked out. Tried to find out if the Empress maintains Eastern time or changes to match whatever island we're at - no luck contacting RCI or posting on the RCI board. Anyone here know the answer? The only dive that is still up in the air is with Kenneth's on St. Kitt's - the dive is set for 9a, and the ship docks at 8a, ship time, whatever that is. If it's Atlantic, we're fine; if it's Eastern, it won't work. I also emailed Kenneth's about this a bit over a week ago - they didn't know either, and said they'd get back to me at the begining of this week - haven't heard anything yet. :eek:

 

Help!

 

Cool - 900!

[gmcrow]

We were on Empress in December and the ship stayed on San Juan time for the duration of the cruise.

[w&k]

Just received it from the tourism minister - I couldn't find an updated one on-line anywhere.

 

What's your date at St. Kitts, and I'll look it up for you.

 

Wendy

[2Ports]

Some days I'm too stupid to live. I was looking up something else a couple of days ago, and ran across a map of Caribbean time zones. Seems that PR is on Atlantic Standard time (UTC/GMT -4), not Eastern Standard time (UTC/GMT -5), so the Empress is on AST. Got it all straightened out.

 

DUH! :o :o :o :o

 

btw - we're in St. Kitts on Feb. 13th - we're booked with Kenneth's.

[w&k]

2ports-

 

I have the Empress off their spreadsheet as being 7am local to 6pm local.

 

GALAXY WED 13 0700-1600'

EMPRESS OF THE SEAS WED 13 0700- 1800'

 

You are really going to enjoy diving with Kenneth's - they are great folks!

 

We did the Empress the last 2 years, and dove our brains out. This year, we are doing almost the same trip in reverse on the Galaxy, with the crappy diving ports left out (St. Maarten, Antigua, Margarita Island).

 

If you do the River Taw wreck as the 2nd dive, keep an eye out for stonefish hanging out on the inside of the wreck. I found several last time, and got some fairly decent pix of one.

 

Just walk straight off the ship, down the dock, through the arches, then turn left and walk past the parking lot to the side of the pier. Their boat will be just a few feet to the left.

 

If you haven't set up dives for other places yet, you might want to check out some of our spots on the little website I put together for the Galaxy trip.

 

Have a great time!

 

Wendy

 

Galaxy trip website

http://www.freewebs.com/galaxy-02-25-08

 

dive pix

http://community.webshots.com/user/wendyandkeith

 

website

http://www.freewebs.com/wendyandkeith

[2Ports]

Our itin shows us at St Kitts from 8a - 6p - you can see why I panicked when I thought the Empress was on EST!

 

Yeah, we're already booked - heck, we leave in 3 days! :D

 

St. Maarten: Blue Bubbles - we checked out shops while we were there a couple weeks ago, they seemed pretty good. Had a good experience with divemaster's nephew on the Lord Sheffield.

 

St. Kitts - Kenneth's (CC recommend)

 

St. Lucia - Dive Fair Helen (CC recommend)

 

Barbados - The Dive Shop (recommended by our local dive shop)

 

Curacao - Unfortunatley, the time is so tight that we are booking through RCI. I checked the company out via email & their website, and it looks ok. Really wanted to book with the Dive Bus, but after almost missing the ship in Roatan last month (CoCo View) ... :eek:

 

I think you'll enjoy that Jolley Roger trip - heard a lot of good things. We're doing the Mi Dushi ourselves. Too bad you're a week behind us - love to dive with you guys sometime. Heard a lot about you from the folks at the Dive Bus & Kenneth's. (also the Coast Guard, PADI, etc... :p )

[gmcrow]

Be sure to take phone numbers with you for Curacao. In December, RCCL's operator cancelled ALL diving and snorkeling tours because Empress reported 4 cases of Norovirus onboard. We scrambled and dove one shore dive and one boat dive with Hook's. http://www.hooksdiving.com/ No problem making it back to the ship on time. Complete review and pics at http://www.cruisediver.blogspot.com

[w&k]

We enjoyed the Galaxy, but the Empress was still better. However, I sure liked our cabin on the Galaxy - we could actually move around a bit!

 

Unfortunately, we didn't get our pix from Curacao as we had a camera card problem, then by the time I discovered it, Suzy had had a laptop/coffee problem, but our buddies graciously shared theirs. I'm sure that the camera card problem had NOTHING to do with the stack of empties all over the table.

 

Speaking of, don't believe ANYTHING bad that the folks at KDC or Dive Bus told you. Really. We weren't there, don't know anything about it, and wouldn't tell, even if we could remember ;)

 

We're stuck going to St. Maarten on our next trip - how was Blue Bubbles, and how was your dive? Was it better than crappy, which is the typical response from St. Maarten? I'm trying to decide if or what at this point. We may just end up going over to Orient Beach and watching the scenery (not) stroll by.

 

Wendy