Review - Belize and Roatan Diving

[mere08]

My husband and I just returned from the Carnival Valor on Sunday. We dove in both Roatan and Belize. To give you a little background, my husband is an experienced diver and I have just 12 dives under my belt. In Roatan, we booked an excursion on our own with Subway Watersports. There were four other divers from the ship that joined us, all of whom had about the same experience that I did. There was also a 7th person who was staying on the island that joined us. Patrick (my email contact) was exactly where he said he would be, right at the port at 11am when we docked and it couldn't have been any easier to to meet him. he had a sign with our names on it and a nice air conditioned van to take us to the dive site. We drove about 15-20 minutes to the dive site. This was great because we got to see a little of the country. We set out on a small boat with a divemaster and a driver. I still have difficulties with buoyancy and the divemaster was great. He took extra weight, which I needed at the end of the first dive. The boat was fairly small, but the ride was short and the surf was calm. We dove Mary's Place and (another place I can't remember). Mary's Place was very cool, got to swim through caverns. The second site was just as good, with a great deal of fish life.

 

For Belize, we did the cruise excursion, which I would highly recommend since the ship tenders quite a long distance from shore. The dive boat picked us up and dropped us off at the ship. There were about 50 total divers on two boats, which were typical, good-sized dive boats. This is definitely not a cattle boat organization. The operation was run by Hugh Parkey' Dive Belize. Our boat had 23 divers on it with 4 divemasters leading 4 groups. We were divided by experience, which totally put me at ease as I did not want to be the one who sucked all the air! The boat ride was short to the dive shop to pick up equipment for those who rented, then about 40 minutes out to the dive sites. I was glad I had taken my motion sickness pills and ginger for the trip. I was fine on the way out, but had a rough time on the way back to the ship. Visibility was great, probably better than Roatan. The reefs and fish were beautiful, also, although I thought there were more fish in Roatan. The two places we dove were The Terrace and Chazbo's Corner.

 

Overall, both were great excursions with great dive operators. If I had to pick a favorite, I'd pick Roatan. First, we got to see a little of the country, which we didn't get with Belize. Also, the boat ride was shorter and the fish life was a little better. Finally, we were back to the ship by about 3:45 and were able to drop off our equipment and head back out to the island for an hour of souvenir shopping. We would love to make Roatan our next vacation destination.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions!

[caribbean dreams]

Thanks for the review, i have been wondering what we will do in Belize.

[billeelou]

thanks!

[infopaul]

Great review and sounds like alot of fun for you. I did want to ask how much both of your dive excursions cost. Did you ever find out the name of the other site in Roatan?...Paul:)