Novice Needs Advice Plse!!

[cruisecrasy]

Visiting San Juan, PR, St Thomas, St Maarten, Antigua & Nassau, Bhms late November. Plse recommend best scuba diving spots and operators and feel free to make suggestions or relate personal experiences. Really appreciate help with this. Happy cruisin' all!

[alsanto]

We would be happy to hear any thing on a few of the Islands also.

 

Tanks...

Nita

[Penguinlo]

...when we cruised in May. Someone else on this board recommended www.blueislanddivers.com and we booked with them. I was very happy with their service. They picked us up at the dock and we did the navy barge wreck and a reef dive. I was very up front with them from my first email to make sure they knew we were new. They had emailed me back stating that the would take that into consideration when planning our dives. We were very lucky because we were the only two on the boat that day.:D The dive master (I believe his name was James) was very nice and helpful, no feeling that because we were new divers we didn't count. Because of a cold:( , this was my first dive and I was made to feel very at ease. Because of my cold:( , I only made the wreck dive, my husband made the reef dive and enjoyed it. We would recommend them, they were great and would use them again. Hope this helps.:)

[bruce-r]

OK, here is my take on these islands as dive destinations:

 

San Juan, PR, Skip it. You have to drive a couple of hours from San Juan to get to the decent diving. The diving might be good, but it is logistically too difficult.

 

St Thomas is a pretty good choice. There is shore diving available at Coki Beach, check with http://www.cokidive.com if you are interested in an inexpensive shore dive or are traveling with a mixed group of divers/non-divers. The diving from boats is better, so if you are primarily interested in diving, in addition to the dive operator already mentioned, I'd try to go with Chris Sawyer diving, who has an excellent reputation. Also look at Admiralty Diving.

 

St Maarten was very disappointing. All the dive sites are in the open ocean, so I wouldn't dive here again unless the ocean was dead flat calm, and even then, I wouldn't expect much.

 

Antigua - I have no opinions about diving here.

 

Nassau has potential for good diving. It will depend on how long you are in port as to if you will be able to use a private operator or have to go with the ship's dive. The Bahamas are known for their sharks with their signature shark feeding dive. They use a large block of frozen fish parts, a chumcicle it is called. The DM will anchor this near the bottom and the divers kneel in the sand a ways back and watch the action.

[cruisecrasy]

I know your time is valuable and it is so helpful to receive such detailed & precise information. Thank you so much for sharing & happy cruisin' all!!

[bruce-r]

It would be really nice if you could take a couple of minutes, when you return, to let us know who you dived with and what you thought of the experience.

[daldog]

Just got back from a Caribbean Princess cruise ... and we dove in St. Thomas with Blue Island Divers, and James. Just as penguinlo describes (and from alot of other info I read) I believe it frequently turns out to be a private charter. They pick you up right at the cruise ship dock, small boat, and some nice dive sites are very close. There were 3 of us of varying skill levels, from a dive master to a newbie, and they accomodated us very well and made us all comfortable. A very enjoyable experience and couldn't be easier from a cruise ship. We would recommend them.

[Hilary]

I'll have to "third" the recommendation to talk with the folks at Blue Island Divers. We dove with them on Christmas Day and they were fabulous. Picked us up right in front of the cruiseship in their dive boat, took us to the site that I had requested via e-mail a couple of weeks earlier, and we had 2 wonderful dives.

 

Admiralty Diving pulled up in front of the Blue Island dive boat and the crew was very friendly and the boat looked good. I've heard they are an excellent option as well, so either of these would be good choices.