Scuba through RCCL in Grand Cayman?

[luvtocrz]

Has anyone done the scuba excursion through RCCL in Grand Cayman?

 

Linda

[bruce-r]

I have dived there, but I certainly have not gone with the any ship's excursion, but in case you are interested, Royal Caribbean uses Red Sail in GCM. Redsail uses a large boat for their cruise excursions, so there will be a large group of divers divided among several dive masters. You will go on guided, follow the leader dives with a predetermined bottom time.

[tootsiescurly]

The worst dive I have ever been on was with RCCL in Belize. I will never dive with the ship again!!! There are many good dive operations in the Caymans who are willing to work with cruise ship passengers. You would be smart to contact them. Diving with "Joe Diver" who knows everything but really knows nothing and kids who flail all thru the dive is NOT fun.

[cal2632]

While RCCL does use Red Sail, who you go out with depends on the other ships in port and how many divers your ship has. We only had 5 people on our excursion and we were farmed out to one of the smaller operators. The small size of the boat and group was nice, but even though the excursion said there would be one wall dive and one shallow dive, we did 2 shallow dives. Ok for us because we were just beginners at the time, but would not want to book through the ship at GC again.

[luvtocrz]

Thanks for your replies. I normally would not book through the ship but this is a "company" sponsored cruise and they are paying for the excursions through the ship only. We were just wondering if the scuba was worth it. We are beginners as well so shallow dives would be okay. Thanks for the info!

 

Linda

[budaman]

You'll have a good time with Red Sail. Yes, there are several other operators that will give you more personal care, I like Ocean Frontiers myself...but they are too far out on the East End for a cruise visit. On our Rhapsody cruise last April, Red Sail met us at the dock, there were 16 of us and split us into 2 groups. First dive we did Little Tunnels which was fun......start through a short tunnel at about 70 ft and come out the other end at the wall around 95. I don't particularly like tunnels, but you could see through to the end so never got uneasy. Did La Mesa on the second dive. They wanted to dive one of the wrecks on the second dive, but that is the problem with most cruise excursions....you get to the sites later and by the time we got there, there were too many other dive boats already at the site. Had a good dive at La Mesa, but would have liked to do a wreck. Go and enjoy!

 

Mike

 

www.homepage.mac.com/csealove/

[Bassethound]

I'm going to guess they did not make sure everyone in your group was overhead checked out? My guess is they only made sure everyone paid!!

 

These are what scare me about dive operators, I could be buddied with the person who wasn't aware of what they were getting into when they followed some other unaware diver who kicked away in the tight space and reduced vis to one inch. Then panicked, fought their way out of the tunnel and shot directly to the surface from 95 feet.

 

Of course, the "divemaster" is out there in the lead, away from the problems.

[budaman]

Actually, they did check everyones certification and didn't let a couple dive cause they didn't have their cards. They also had a good briefing before we went in the water so everyone was familiar with what we were going to do and that if anyone was uncomfortable, to stay above and follow the bubbles. And yes, there is always the one or two in the group that have no business being there.....I just made sure I was in front of the guy who said he had a tendency to get sick & feed the fishies:D We were fortunate in that 6 of the 8 in our group were familiar with each other.

 

Mike

 

http://www.homepage.mac.com/csealove/