Dive Review- Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Thomas

[caymantiga]

My husband and I just got back from an RCL cruise to Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. Here is our experience diving in those locations. All of these dives were arranged over the internet on our own. We prefer this over the ships for smaller groups.

Aruba- Dive Aruba

Clive picked us up at the pier and we went to his house to sign waivers and get fitted with gear. There were 2 others diving with us who were staying on the island. The gear was very nice and new. We then drove to the boat and headed out to the first dive site the Jance C Wreck. This was a nice dive, quite a bit of sealife and Clive lead us through several parts fo the wreck. The second dive was Skalahein, a reef drift dive. Both dives Clive lead the divers for the first 2/3 of the dive and then allowed us to continue exploring until we needed to surface because of air. On the boat there was a lot of water and capri suns to keep us hydrated and there is a little shade. Dive with Dive Aruba if you want an efficient, good quality, max dive time experience. Clive isn’t the type of guide who will point out different sealife, he lets the divers be pretty independent.

 

Curacao- Atlantis Diving

Atlantis Diving picked us up at the pier and we went to the dive shop to pay and get fitted with gear. (This is a very nice shop and study area if anyone is considering staying on Curacao for diving or training). We then drove with 1 other diver to the first site Vaerssen Baai. We did a short surface float/swim out to the reef and then decended. The dive was very nice out and back on the reef. Vaerssen Baai is a really neat secluded/local beach area and we got sandwiches at the restaurant there for our surface interval. After lunch we drove to our second dive at Snake Bay (no worries though, there aren’t snakes). Again we did a short surface float/swim out to the reef and decended for one of the most beautiful dives I have ever done. After the second dive our guide dropped us off by the floating market in Curacao, so that we had time to look around town before the ship departed. We got dropped off about 3:00 and had plenty of time to look around before the all aboard at 4:30. We would definetly dive with Atlantis Diving again.

St. Maarten- Dive Safaries

We planned to do the shark awareness dive with Dive Safaries. We set everything up ahead of time with them including a pick up at the cruise ship pier at 1:00. Since we weren’t diving until the afternoon we spent the morning exploring St. Maarten and stopped by the dive shop (it is right next to one of the water taxi piers) to confirm our pick up at 1. Everything was all set according to the shop, so we went back to the ship for lunch and then out to the pier by 1.

When we got to the pier a dive safaries employee got of the boat to meet us and said he had some bad news. Once we realized he wasn’t joking we found out that they canceled the dive due to the weather. Even though it was a beautiful day on the island and in the bay where the ships dock, apparently there were bad currents near the shark dive site due to a storm that went through the previous day. We were very disappointed and upset that we hadn’t been informed of this when we stopped by the shop or by email so we went back to the dive shop to find out more information. There seemed to be no good explanation for why we weren’t not informed of at least the possibility of the cancellation when we had stopped by late that morning. We asked if we could dive a different site or do something given that our opportunity to schedule something with a different tour company had now passed. They told us that there was no where else they would dive, that all there boats were in. Finally they offered to take us to a snorkeling area. I guess this was better than nothing, but snorkeling is St. Maarten is not very good compared to other islands. To make it worse while we were snorkeling we saw dive boats from other companies out diving which seems to make Dive Safaries statement that there were no sites with divable conditions quite false.

If we would have gone diving, we may have had a very different impression of the company, but given the way they handeled their cancellation we don’t plan to dive with them again in the future.

St. Thomas- Admiralty Diving

Dwayne and Paul from Admiralty Diving picked us up at the pier about 20 minutes later than the scheduled 8:30. While we were waiting we saw the cruise ship scuba tour setting up for about 40 divers and we were very happy when we got on our boat with only a few divers.

They had asked for our bcd and wetsuit sizes ahead of time and they had all the gear on board and set up for us when they picked us up. They gave a thoughough safety briefing on our way out to the first dive site. We dove with another couple and the dive leader Paul. There were 3 other teenage girls on the boat doing an AOW course with a seperate instructor. The first site we dove was a reef dive and we saw a lot including a nurse shark and 3 lobsters. The second site we dove was navy barges which was a reef covered in corals with a lot of fish. Very fun to explore and Paul lead us through different parts of the wreck.

The only downsides to these dives were that we came up with a lot of air both times. The group comes up when the dive leader wants to, not when people are low on air. We would recommend them though as these were our 2 favorite dives, after Curacao of couse.

[szubieta]

Sounds like Dive Safaries pulled the "Weather" bit because they couldn't get a full boat. Guess it will happen more and more. Anyway thanks for the info and hope your trip was still a good one.

[scubamargie]

Thanks for the review. We will be diving with both Admiralty and Clive in November. We have dove with Dive Safari (through the ship's excursion) and yes, they usually take a large group, so I suspect they just didn't have enough divers to justify the trip. Sorry for the loss, but St. Martin isn't that great of a dive location anyway. Still, a day of diving is a tough thing to sacrifice :(

[ellenh]

Thanks for the great review--I'm sure your comments will come in handy the next time I'm in any of those ports (hopefully soon!!!!)

 

--Ellen