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Has anyone ever done the shoretrips fly and dive to ambergris caye?


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I usually let my pictures tell the story so each can person can draw their own conclusions as to what they see in the photos. It is a little trouble to look through the albums but each picture tells an undeniable story.

 

 

Laura, I have a lot of trouble flying on jets, so I've been really nervous about this flight. But it also sounds so great that I don't want the fear to stop me.

 

This is the plane (or one just like it) you will fly in if you take a Tropic Air flight, a very nice prop plane.

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If you don't mind, I do have some questions for you. First, about how deep were the dives?

 

Seldom will you ever get over 65 - 70 feet on the reefs of Ambergris Caye, most of the shark diving will be about 45 feet.

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Secondly, can you tell us a little bit about San Pedro (did you have much time to sightsee or shop during your SI or after the dives?).

 

The first pic is of the San Pedro, Ambergris Caye Airport the second is through the windshield of our taxi, the third is immediately from the rear of the vehicle. This is most of the small town just a few blocks in each direction. There are quite a few small shops to buy gifts or something to eat. The dive shop is only about a five minute walk from the airport.

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Finally, we will be on the Carnival Legend and our time in port will be from 7:00 a.m -4:00 p.m. (Belize time). We're trying to decide whether to schedule the 7:45 a.m. tour which would get us back to the pier at 1:20 or the 8:45 a.m. tour which would get us back to the pier at 2:20. On the one hand, the 7:45 time seems like we might have trouble getting there by that time even if we do push our way onto the first tender. But on the other hand, the tour that gets back to pier at 2:20 seems like it could be cutting things close if we have any delays. Just a half hour delay would get us back to the pier around 3:00 and we would still need to tender out to the ship and I'm thinking we would have to be on the ship by 3:30 if we depart at 4:00.

 

A ships time will be changed as needed to reflect local time (every port).

 

The SIT will be at a pier by the dive shop, a short distance from all the dive sights.

 

As long as 1 person or a thousand is standing at the tender station to return to the ship you will be tendered to the ship. If you run up after all the people waiting have departed you will miss the boat. We have made this dive many times without incident but I would not push it if time was running tight. I would call the second dive and return to the tender station. You will have plenty of time if you tender early. It only takes about 15 minutes to reach any sight you will dive from San Pedro on this trip.

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I love your pictures. They really give a good view of what to expect on the tour. The ones of the sharks up close and personal are very cool. That little plane (and equally little runway) will just top off the whole excursion. I'm really okay with just doing dives that average around 45-50 feet. We don't have much experience yet, especially with deeper dives. I'm really just looking forward to the excursion as a whole (plane ride, dives, shopping & sightseeing in San Pedro). Thank again to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's obviously been a big help to many of us.

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I love your pictures. They really give a good view of what to expect on the tour. The ones of the sharks up close and personal are very cool. That little plane (and equally little runway) will just top off the whole excursion. I'm really okay with just doing dives that average around 45-50 feet. We don't have much experience yet, especially with deeper dives. I'm really just looking forward to the excursion as a whole (plane ride, dives, shopping & sightseeing in San Pedro). Thank again to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's obviously been a big help to many of us.

 

If you are going to do the Ambrigis Caye trip, definitely try to do the dives in the marine park if there is any wind. The conditions getting on and off the boat the week we were at AC out on the main reef was brutal. 4-8 foot swells makes things a bit interesting to say the least. Inside the reef is much more protected. the diving is very shallow, and you have to watch for current during the tidal changes, but there is plenty to see. I hung with a turtle for a while in there who really didn't seem to care me hanging out with him.

 

The DMs treat the sharks & rays as dogs (I believe the dive sit is called shark ray alley if I remember correctly) and they will let you pet them while you were there. When the DM handed me the ray and we were face to face, that was a different experience.

 

I really prefer the Atolls to AC, but San Pedro is a real town vs the resorts out on Turneffe. And remember to be patient as we found that the planes, boats, etc ran on island time.

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We just booked the FLY and Dive with Eco Tours! I am excited but really nervous. What would you consider the experience level for these dives and does anyone know which dive shop they use?

 

We have been wondering the same thing about the experience level because even though we have our Advanced Open Water Certification, we don't have much experience. When you look at the tour description on Shoretrips.com it says "With over 50 dive sites available, you may visit a wreck, swim through tunnels or simply glide over the spur and groove canyons that run perpendicular to the barrier reef." We've been wondering how they choose the dive site for each tour. Is it by them evaluating the experience level of the group, is it by popular vote, etc.?

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We have been wondering the same thing about the experience level because even though we have our Advanced Open Water Certification, we don't have much experience. When you look at the tour description on Shoretrips.com it says "With over 50 dive sites available, you may visit a wreck, swim through tunnels or simply glide over the spur and groove canyons that run perpendicular to the barrier reef." We've been wondering how they choose the dive site for each tour. Is it by them evaluating the experience level of the group, is it by popular vote, etc.?

 

From my experience with indy tours they will question you about your dive experience and pick a dive site accordingly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK everyone, here goes... we are back from our cruise on the Triumph and as requested thought I'd share our experiences with diving non-Carnival in Belize! I want to get my thoughts out while they are fresh... but I am posting from work, where they seem to think I should catch up on the stuff on my desk, so if I don't make sense or leave things out, please ask questions and I will try to respond! This will definitely be a "stream of consciousness" summary of the experience! Scroll up to Diverearl's photos - they pretty accurately represent what we saw as well.

After lengthy debate, we went ahead with independent arrangments in Belize, rather than the ship dive to Turneffe Atoll. I did not meet anyone on this trip who took the ship excursion, so I cannot compare the two choices.

Because we wanted to fly to San Pedro on the same flight with our friends who booked a snorkel tour with "Happy and Grumpy", we ended up going totally independent since Shore Trips could not confirm whether they would use Maya Air or Tropic Air or a "private" charter (a possibility about which I was not comfortable). By the way, our friends were VERY happy with "Happy and Grumpy" who helped with flight arrangements, met them at the airport, and provided the opportunity to snorkel 3 sites... before getting them back to the airport on time for the return flight.

Carnival Triumph was scheduled to arrive in Belize at 8:00am. Since we left out of New Orleans, Central Standard Time, we were on the same time zone as Belize so "ship time" and "shore time" happened to be the same for us. With much advice, we booked the 9:30am Tropic Air flight from Belize Municipal.

It was VERY difficult to secure spots on the earliest tenders. We spoke to a variety of people at the Pursers Desk on Sunday & Monday, and got nothing better than "tickets will be issued Tuesday morning for non-Carnival excursions". They didn't care that we had booked flights or anything else.

The Carnival Capers indicated that tender passes would be handed out starting at 8:30am... so we showed up at 7:20 and were about 30 people back in line. We got #3 stickers, and were told to wait for our number to be called to proceed to Deck 0 forward to boarding the tender. We went ahead and moved as close as we could, the stairs to Deck 0 were closely guarded by staff members and Carnival excursions were sent off starting before 8:00. With our #3 stickers, we were in the first group of non-Carnival excursion passengers allowed to board a tender, and left at around 8:30. With a 15-minute tender ride, then finding a cab, then a 10 or 15 minute cab ride, we got to the municipal airport a little after 9:00. It all worked out, but this was a rather stressful way to start the day on our first excursion. As it turned out, the Tropic Air flight didn't leave until after 9:45 (the incoming flight was late) and then we stopped to drop off cargo at Caye Caulker, and so we didn't arrive in San Pedro until about 10:15.

The flight itself was GREAT! You can see all sorts of things in the beautiful water. The airplane was tiny but comfortable and held about 14 passengers.

We went to Ecologic Divers, with whom we had booked 1 dive + snorkeling in Shark Ray Alley package. We didn't book 2 dives due to the time constraints, and that turned out to be a good call. We were VERY happy with Ecologic Divers in San Pedro (I don't know whether they are connected to the tour company that other people have mentioned or not). Their equipment was good; their staff was friendly, helpful, and attentive.

We dove Hol Chan, which is shallow and interesting - especially for the large fish (Barracuda, Tarpon, Rays, etc.) and very large schools of smaller fish. Our dive guide was knowledgeable and we felt comfortable and safe with him. He took the 4 of us across a shallow area, down into the "cut" along a wall, across the sandy bottom and back along the opposite wall, with one small swim through. It was a very shallow dive (28') but we knew that in advance. There are quite a lot of snorkelers in the area, but we only saw a few other divers. While we were diving, the boat captain took my son's girlfriend (who doesn't dive) on a guided snorkel tour. Both guides made certain to point out interesting things along the way.

Because we wanted to take the 2:00 flight back (there is also a 3:00 flight, but we didn't want to cut it too close for the last tender to our ship at 4pm) we didn't do a second dive, but instead went to "Shark Ray Alley" to snorkel. This isn't my favorite activity since they "chum" the water with sardines to attract the nurse sharks & rays, and it is basically a tourist attraction. It was quite busy with boats coming & going to this area. But we did enjoy it and it is certainly dramatic to be in the water with lots of rays & sharks & other fish swimming all around you. Our dive shop is enforcing the apparently new rule that you are not to touch or pet the sharks or rays, which we actually appreciated since all of the information we've had is that it really isn't good for them (although it does look like fun). Now, that didn't prevent them from coming right up and bumping into to us!

It was probably 10-15 minutes from the dive shop to Hol Chan, 10 more to Shark Ray alley, and 15 back to the "downtown" area of San Pedro where then dropped us off. We walked 5 minutes with gear to the airport and arrived at 1:20, checked our dive bags, then walked down the street to grab a quick rice, chicken & beans lunch (which was very local and very good). We arrived back at the airport at 1:55, which put us in time for our 2pm flight back with our friends, a return cab to the Tourist Village, and time for a little shopping and a Belikan beer before we caught a tender back to the ship (and the aft jacuzzi!) around 3:30.

All in all a great day, and a good value ($5 per person each way for cab to /from airport, $67pp round trip flight, $70pp dive + snorkel combo including equipment = $147 + tips & lunch). We are glad we did it... and might do the same again if we ever return to Belize.

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Excellent info. Just what we needed. We go Jan 10-17. We're doing the snorkel only with ecotours so we'd have more time on island. We're hoping to have an hour or so to rent a golf cart like we did on Caulker before.

Anyway I'll post our review of the flight over when we get back.

 

Carnivals regard to indy tour groups is one reason I go out of my way not to book tours with Carnival. We did not book one shore excursion with them for our upcoming cruise. All indys.

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OK everyone, here goes... we are back from our cruise on the Triumph and as requested thought I'd share our experiences with diving non-Carnival in Belize! I want to get my thoughts out while they are fresh... but I am posting from work, where they seem to think I should catch up on the stuff on my desk, so if I don't make sense or leave things out, please ask questions and I will try to respond! This will definitely be a "stream of consciousness" summary of the experience! Scroll up to Diverearl's photos - they pretty accurately represent what we saw as well.

 

After lengthy debate, we went ahead with independent arrangments in Belize, rather than the ship dive to Turneffe Atoll. I did not meet anyone on this trip who took the ship excursion, so I cannot compare the two choices.

 

Because we wanted to fly to San Pedro on the same flight with our friends who booked a snorkel tour with "Happy and Grumpy", we ended up going totally independent since Shore Trips could not confirm whether they would use Maya Air or Tropic Air or a "private" charter (a possibility about which I was not comfortable). By the way, our friends were VERY happy with "Happy and Grumpy" who helped with flight arrangements, met them at the airport, and provided the opportunity to snorkel 3 sites... before getting them back to the airport on time for the return flight.

 

Carnival Triumph was scheduled to arrive in Belize at 8:00am. Since we left out of New Orleans, Central Standard Time, we were on the same time zone as Belize so "ship time" and "shore time" happened to be the same for us. With much advice, we booked the 9:30am Tropic Air flight from Belize Municipal.

 

It was VERY difficult to secure spots on the earliest tenders. We spoke to a variety of people at the Pursers Desk on Sunday & Monday, and got nothing better than "tickets will be issued Tuesday morning for non-Carnival excursions". They didn't care that we had booked flights or anything else.

 

The Carnival Capers indicated that tender passes would be handed out starting at 8:30am... so we showed up at 7:20 and were about 30 people back in line. We got #3 stickers, and were told to wait for our number to be called to proceed to Deck 0 forward to boarding the tender. We went ahead and moved as close as we could, the stairs to Deck 0 were closely guarded by staff members and Carnival excursions were sent off starting before 8:00. With our #3 stickers, we were in the first group of non-Carnival excursion passengers allowed to board a tender, and left at around 8:30. With a 15-minute tender ride, then finding a cab, then a 10 or 15 minute cab ride, we got to the municipal airport a little after 9:00. It all worked out, but this was a rather stressful way to start the day on our first excursion. As it turned out, the Tropic Air flight didn't leave until after 9:45 (the incoming flight was late) and then we stopped to drop off cargo at Caye Caulker, and so we didn't arrive in San Pedro until about 10:15.

 

The flight itself was GREAT! You can see all sorts of things in the beautiful water. The airplane was tiny but comfortable and held about 14 passengers.

 

We went to Ecologic Divers, with whom we had booked 1 dive + snorkeling in Shark Ray Alley package. We didn't book 2 dives due to the time constraints, and that turned out to be a good call. We were VERY happy with Ecologic Divers in San Pedro (I don't know whether they are connected to the tour company that other people have mentioned or not). Their equipment was good; their staff was friendly, helpful, and attentive.

 

We dove Hol Chan, which is shallow and interesting - especially for the large fish (Barracuda, Tarpon, Rays, etc.) and very large schools of smaller fish. Our dive guide was knowledgeable and we felt comfortable and safe with him. He took the 4 of us across a shallow area, down into the "cut" along a wall, across the sandy bottom and back along the opposite wall, with one small swim through. It was a very shallow dive (28') but we knew that in advance. There are quite a lot of snorkelers in the area, but we only saw a few other divers. While we were diving, the boat captain took my son's girlfriend (who doesn't dive) on a guided snorkel tour. Both guides made certain to point out interesting things along the way.

 

Because we wanted to take the 2:00 flight back (there is also a 3:00 flight, but we didn't want to cut it too close for the last tender to our ship at 4pm) we didn't do a second dive, but instead went to "Shark Ray Alley" to snorkel. This isn't my favorite activity since they "chum" the water with sardines to attract the nurse sharks & rays, and it is basically a tourist attraction. It was quite busy with boats coming & going to this area. But we did enjoy it and it is certainly dramatic to be in the water with lots of rays & sharks & other fish swimming all around you. Our dive shop is enforcing the apparently new rule that you are not to touch or pet the sharks or rays, which we actually appreciated since all of the information we've had is that it really isn't good for them (although it does look like fun). Now, that didn't prevent them from coming right up and bumping into to us!

 

It was probably 10-15 minutes from the dive shop to Hol Chan, 10 more to Shark Ray alley, and 15 back to the "downtown" area of San Pedro where then dropped us off. We walked 5 minutes with gear to the airport and arrived at 1:20, checked our dive bags, then walked down the street to grab a quick rice, chicken & beans lunch (which was very local and very good). We arrived back at the airport at 1:55, which put us in time for our 2pm flight back with our friends, a return cab to the Tourist Village, and time for a little shopping and a Belikan beer before we caught a tender back to the ship (and the aft jacuzzi!) around 3:30.

 

All in all a great day, and a good value ($5 per person each way for cab to /from airport, $67pp round trip flight, $70pp dive + snorkel combo including equipment = $147 + tips & lunch). We are glad we did it... and might do the same again if we ever return to Belize.

 

Very Nice!! Thank you so much for remembering us :). I'm even more excited now than I was before (if that's possible). I'm really glad we decided on the Ambergris Caye tour instead of the Turneffe Atoll excursion. I'm just really looking forward to all of the many different parts of the trip. The flight alone would be enough. And I'm really looking forward to the sightseeing and shopping in San Pedro. The diving will just be like a big bonus. Thank you for adding all of the details. It helped us ensure that we've booked the right times so we'll have enough time to fit everything in. It sounds like you all had a really great day. This has been a really great thread that I think has helped a lot of us with making our plans. Thanks to EVERYONE that has contributed.

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Excellent info. Just what we needed. We go Jan 10-17. We're doing the snorkel only with ecotours so we'd have more time on island. We're hoping to have an hour or so to rent a golf cart like we did on Caulker before.

Anyway I'll post our review of the flight over when we get back.

 

Carnivals regard to indy tour groups is one reason I go out of my way not to book tours with Carnival. We did not book one shore excursion with them for our upcoming cruise. All indys.

 

We'll definitely be looking forward to your review too. Each time I read a new review I just get that much more excited. I think you'll have a great time doing the golf cart. It sounds like a lot of fun. I honestly wouldn't mind doing the first dive in the morning and then using the rest of the day for lunch and shopping in San Pedro and then doing some relaxed touring around the island before flying back. We'll be diving 3 out of the 4 ports plus we'll be diving in the Crystal River area a few days in advance of the cruise. I'm thinking we're probably going to be pooped by the time we finish our vacation. Let us know what you think about touring around using the carts and the island itself. Have a great trip!!

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Thanks Txsmiles for the quick review. Sounds like fun. Texas is getting a lot of representation on this thread! I think I am still going to do the ship excursion. Your comments focused in on one of my main areas of concern. I almost never book a ship excursion (going with some independent operators on Grand Cayman and Cozumel), but I also have a tendency to stress over time. We will be in Belize on January 21st, I will also try to post quickly. Thanks again!

 

~Mike

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We just returned from our cruise aboard Carnival Valor. We purchased the Paradise by Air Diving thru Eco Tours Belize.

 

Carnival asked passengers that booked non-carnival excursions to meet at 8am in the Eagles Lounge for tender tickets. We were there at 7:30 and were ashore in no time.

 

Eco Tours met us on the pier and issued our vouchers for the Round trip plane on Maya Island Air and Voucher for the two tank dive.

Here's a pic of the plane and Baggage claim.. (baggage claim cracked me up)

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The Eco tours driver took us directly to the airport where we boarded our plane for the short 12 minute flight to San Pedro. The flight was terrific! Very smooth and beautiful scenery!

 

Unfortunately I had contracted a bug aboard ship and couldn't dive so I just enjoyed the flight and planned to spend the day at Ramon's village while my fiance was diving. (Eco Tours only charged us for my flight)

View from beach at Ramon's below:

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The dive shop Eco Tours used is Aqua Dives. It was a short walk from the airport to the dive shop. There were 8 people on board the boat with one dive master. The site they dove was the Tackle Box. My fiance thoroughly enjoyed dropping down into the middle of a group of 6+ foot nurse sharks but that was where the fun ended.

 

My fiance is a very experienced diver; he dives all the time here in New England for our local police department and has dove all over the Caribbean.

His experience with Aqua Dives was good and bad.

 

Here are the negatives:

The boat was a small open air boat with an incredibly short 3 rung ladder that was nearly impossible to re-board after the dive unless you are an incredibly strong contortionist.

 

The dive master led the group into a tunnel in 85-90 feet of water when the dive profile was only supposed to be 60 feet. The water got so silted out that a number of divers, including my fiance, got lost. My fiance searched for a hole in the ceiling to exit and find and the group again.

 

The dive master did not gauge what the experience level was of his divers. At the end of the dive one of the divers was reprimanding the dive master for taking them on such a challenging dive with so many inexperienced divers.

 

My fiance cancelled his second dive. It just wasn't worth the risk of diving with Aqua Dives again.

 

We spent the rest of the day walking around San Pedro and caught our 1pm flight back to Belize City where the Eco Tours driver met us to take us back to the port. Back on board with an hour to spare!

 

We will definitely dive Belize again but will not use Aqua Dives.

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Excellent info KTHY66,

We snorkel with eco tours next week off the Legend. I'm glad we decided just to snorkel now that I read your review. We wanted more time on Ambergris to check it out and that's why we're not diving. We're diving the next day on Roatan.

I'm an experienced Caribbean diver and your fiance's story sounds down right scary. He was smart to call the second dive. Hopefully they won't be as careless and unsafe with us or we'll be spending even more time checking out Ambergris.:o

Also thanks for the flight info. I've heard Carnival Legend doesn't care whether you're on an indy tour or not. Carnival tours have preference. Maybe with enough complaints they've changed their attitudes.:rolleyes:

Michael..............

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Thank you so much for posting your review. Once again, the tour itself sounds fabulous. I'm still really pumped for this tour as a whole. However, the description of the dive sort of scares me. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that you gave us an honest review because it really gives us something to consider. But it makes me a little leary about doing this now. I have some physical limitations, so the 3-rung ladder on the dive boat intimidates me somewhat. But, more than anything, the idea of getting separated from the divemaster and trouble finding the ceiling to exit just scares me to death. I really don't like the idea of the dive op not gauging the experience level of the divers. That was one of my concerns from the beginning because we don't have much dive experience at all. I really don't blame your fiancee for deciding not to do the second dive. I would have done the same thing.

 

We're booked on our excursion through Shoretrips.com which I believe uses Eco Tours. I don't know if they will tell us which dive shop they'll be using. I emailed them some other questions because we were thinking about just doing the first dive and then touring around San Pedro before the flight back. They couldn't tell me what airline they use or really anything else about the tour. The answer was really more of the attitude "We plan everything and you don't need to worry about anything" so don't ask questions. I think I'm going to call them and see if I can find out what dive shop they use. By any chance, does your finance remember the name of the divemaster from Aqua Dives?

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Michele, make it known to the dive master your experience level. Make sure he understands your concerns. He should be immediately receptive to your concerns. If not, I would cancel the dive. You might even bring up the specific incident Kthy66 is talking about.

The only other thing you might do is email the dive shop and express your concerns now before you cruise.

There is plenty of great safe diving there.

There is no reason for you to go into a diving situation where you feel stressed or even scared.

When are you going?

Michael............

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Michele, make it known to the dive master your experience level. Make sure he understands your concerns. He should be immediately receptive to your concerns. If not, I would cancel the dive. You might even bring up the specific incident Kthy66 is talking about.

The only other thing you might do is email the dive shop and express your concerns now before you cruise.

There is plenty of great safe diving there.

There is no reason for you to go into a diving situation where you feel stressed or even scared.

When are you going?

Michael............

 

Hi Michael,

 

We're cruising on February 14th (I see you only have a few days left :)). Believe me, I'm all about safe diving. I'll definitely take your advice and explain our experience level to every divemaster prior to the dives as well as to get a complete description of what to expect during each dive. I just can't go into a situation where I don't feel completely comfortable. There is too much that can go wrong once you're down there. Yes, diving is all about having fun, but you don't have to forfeit safety in order to do that.

 

I went back through and looked at the past posts to see what dive shops other people used. DiverEarl said he has used Ambergris Divers about 7 or so times and has always been happy with them. And, TxSmiles used Ecologic Divers and seemed really happy with them too. They both made all of their arrangements themselves instead of going through a tour operator. I think I'll email or call Shoretrips, and frankly, if they can't tell me what dive shop we'll be using, I may cancel the excursion through them and book everything independently. Or, we may even just do the excursion you're doing and just tour around Ambergris Caye all day in a golf cart (that just sounds like too much fun :cool:). It's like you said, there is just no reason to go into a diving situation where you're scared or stressed. You're just putting yourself and others in danger. Honestly, when we first started diving, I had problems with Claustrophobic-type fears and freaking out and it took me a good amount of time to get past it. But I felt some of those fears coming up again when I read the post by Kthy66. I just don't want to freak out down there and put everybody at risk. Once we booked our diving tour for Grand Cayman (booked directly through the independent dive op), I wrote them and explained our experience level and told them that I just didn't want to put us in a situation where we were out of our league or would affect other divers. They wrote back and said they appreciated us doing that and they would make sure that a divemaster stayed with us to assist us and if we were uncomfortable going as far as the more experienced divers, it would be no problem. It absolutely seemed as if there would be more than one divemaster/instructor unlike Kthy66's fiance encountered. We're diving Grand Cayman and Roatan too, so if we were to decide not to dive in Belize, at least we wouldn't be missing out altogether. We've honestly wondered if we've been a little bit overly ambitious in our planning and might not find ourselves completely wiped out if we do dive 3 out of 4 ports (plus some diving at Crystal River prior to the cruise). So, it's definitely something to consider. I think our best bet in San Pedro might be planning everything independently and doing only one dive and then doing the golf cart gig the rest of the day. As we've discussed before, I'm a major planner like you, so making all of the arrangements myself wouldn't stress me out or worry me about us missing the ship or anything.

 

You guys definitely have a great cruise and don't wear the Legend crew out before we get there. We're expecting a lot of pampering when we get there :D.

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Michele, sounds like a good plan. My wife is a brand new diver also. I think we all can remember the nervous anticipation we had when we first started diving. That's enough to worry about besides a bad or unsafe dive operation.

When I'm there next week I'll ask some questions also.

Let you know what our experience was when we get back after the 17th.

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Michele, sounds like a good plan. My wife is a brand new diver also. I think we all can remember the nervous anticipation we had when we first started diving. That's enough to worry about besides a bad or unsafe dive operation.

When I'm there next week I'll ask some questions also.

Let you know what our experience was when we get back after the 17th.

 

I actually just called Shoretrips.com. The gentleman could not tell me what dive shop they would be using. He could only say that they use Ecological Tours, but that Eco Tours uses a variety of dive ops so they wouldn't know which shop would be used for our tour until right near that date. However, he said that the average depth for any of these dives is going to be 85-90 feet if they are trying to accomodate both experienced divers and new divers. I'm not sure why, but I was under the same impression as Kthy66 in thinking that they were going to be in the 50-60 foot range.

 

Well, have a great cruise!!

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I'm not sure why, but I was under the same impression as Kthy66 in thinking that they were going to be in the 50-60 foot range.

 

Well, have a great cruise!!

 

Yes the dive master actually told the people on the boat that the profile was 60 feet... which surprised us since we expected a deeper profile for the first dive.

 

I really don't want to scare anyone but I needed to share our experience so someone doesn't end up in a dangerous situation. Thank goodness my fiance had the experience level needed to survive the dive!

I am sure there are lots of great dive shops on the island; we just would never refer anyone to Aqua divers. Very spooky experience for my fiance even with his dive experience.

 

A little more information on their dive boat.

To first enter the water they had to do the backwards roll off then to reboard the boat the dive ladder barely reached the top of the water and was supported by a boat bumper to give your fingers rooms underneath.. but once any weight was on the ladder the bumper was crushed so my fiance couldn't even get his fingers underneath to haul himself out of the water. :( He told me if I had been with him he doesn't think I would have been able to get myself out of the water.

 

All that aside.. We would definitely take the flight over to the island again.. it was awesome. :D

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Once again, thanks so much for the info Kthy66. At least we will be somewhat informed on what we could possibly expect.

 

We're looking forward to the flight over also.

Flew a small twin de-haviland otter over to the island of Saba in Sept. Landed on the shortest commercial runway in the world situated on a 100 ft cliff. Now that was a rush.

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Once again, thanks so much for the info Kthy66. At least we will be somewhat informed on what we could possibly expect.

 

We're looking forward to the flight over also.

Flew a small twin de-haviland otter over to the island of Saba in Sept. Landed on the shortest commercial runway in the world situated on a 100 ft cliff. Now that was a rush.

 

Have a wonderful trip! Keep your eyes peeled on the flight over.. we saw dolphin and sharks in the water below us. ;) It was pretty cool.

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I personally would be very hesitant to dive with Aqua Dives after reading the postings here. Sounds more like a dive shop that just wants to make the money taking cruise passengers out.

 

The boat was a small open air boat with an incredibly short 3 rung ladder that was nearly impossible to re-board after the dive unless you are an incredibly strong contortionist.

 

I would want more information - is this dive shop PADI certified? And if there is an emergency (which it sounds like there could have been) are they properly equipped? Do they carry oxygen onboard?

 

And I was told to always "plan your dive and dive your plan." Sounds like that was not followed if they were told they were going to 60ft and ended up going deeper.

 

Just thought I would put in my .02, since I would be very nervous in a situation like this and wouldn't want it to ruin my vacation with the constant thinking about it. :)

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