Key West SCUBA - cruise line or independent?

[robstrash]

Wife and I will be in Key West in about 10 days on the Carnival Celebration. We are scheduled to get in at 7am and depart at 3pm (back on boat at 2:30pm).

 

It appears that most of the dive shops are up North near mile marker 21 or 50 or 100. These seem too far to go to if we dock around mile 0 (I am guessing we do). Has anyone ever used an independent shop while on a cruise at Key West? Which one did you use? How did you get there?

 

We may just have to use the ship's excursion if the private places are too far.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[KaC-Cruiser]

Wife and I will be in Key West in about 10 days on the Carnival Celebration. We are scheduled to get in at 7am and depart at 3pm (back on boat at 2:30pm).

 

It appears that most of the dive shops are up North near mile marker 21 or 50 or 100. These seem too far to go to if we dock around mile 0 (I am guessing we do). Has anyone ever used an independent shop while on a cruise at Key West? Which one did you use? How did you get there?

 

We may just have to use the ship's excursion if the private places are too far.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

Rob - here's a couple links to dive shops actually in Key West. The one time we were going to dive there (off a cruise) the weather ended up being too windy, so divers couldn't go out - so I can't give you a personal perspective. You may also want to check out the forums on scubaboard.com and see if you can get some info there as well ......

 

http://www.divekeywest.com/

 

http://www.subtropic.com/index.html

[robstrash]

Thanks for the info. I did some searches but must have done them in the wrong forum. Went back after I posted here and saw the divekeywest was well rated and shot them off an email.

 

I'm disappointed now as jus see that our ship docks in Nassau at 2pm, which is too late for any diving. And no places seem to do night dives in advance on a weekday so looks like no diving there. Oh well, nothing we can do about that. The ship doesn't even offer a dive.

[Searanger]

I have used Captainscorner.com several times. It's a 10 minute walk from the pier. They depart at 930am and arrive back at 2pm. Cost with own equipment is 35.00 plus 15.00 (tanks weights). It's unescorted...they give you a briefing at 2 sites and then your on your own. The boat is on the corner of Ann and Elizabeth (Marina). The have a kiosk there where you check-in. Last time I used them, I called the day before I left on the cruise and booked. They didn't ask for a deposit.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Michael

[robstrash]

I read some good reviews of DiveKeyWest on scubaboard so booked them. I hope to update the post when I return and let you know how it was.

 

Thanks for the info everyone.

[Hilary]

I've heard that the wrecks are worth the price of a dive in Key West, but the reefs aren't as good as Key Largo. You're lucky to be able to book privately, we were stuck booking through the ship as our departure time is 2pm.

 

Can't wait to compare reviews with you! When are you going? Ours is a Christmas cruise so I'll be posting my reviews in January.

[robstrash]

I've heard that the wrecks are worth the price of a dive in Key West, but the reefs aren't as good as Key Largo. You're lucky to be able to book privately, we were stuck booking through the ship as our departure time is 2pm.

 

Can't wait to compare reviews with you! When are you going? Ours is a Christmas cruise so I'll be posting my reviews in January.

 

Plane leaves SFO in 2 hours (red eye) and we board upon arrival Saturday, Nov 6. :)

[robstrash]

We had some fine dives in Key West. Overall, we weren't overly impressed with DiveKeyWest. We took a taxi from the cruise ship for about $12 including tip. Once we checked in, we were told that we had to get ourselves from the shop to the ship. Nowhere was this told in advance, even though they knew we were coming from the cruise ship. Luckily, one of the other divers was nice enough to drive my wife and me over.

 

All the dives for the entire week (listed on the white board) were to the reefs so we did not get a chance to do any wrecks. From reading on this board, the reefs are not great in Key West but the wrecks are good.

 

We were not impressed with the reefs. First stop was Outer Reef (or some such name). There was a DM but she was pretty much there hunting her own lobster rather than showing the local sites (she took home a lobster for dinner). This didn't seem very classy to us, but to each their own. We had 1 hour or to 500 psi. The average depth was 36 with a max of 45. I didn't think my air consumption was that good, but we hit the 1 hour mark and I still had 1050 left in my tank (wife had 750 but uses more air when taking pictures). Nothing too great, but we did see lots of lobsters.

 

After a short SI (23 minutes from water to water) we went to Haystacks. We just went out on our own here and didn't even wait for DM. Average 21 feet with a max of 29, this was definitely a shallow dive. We dove about 45 minutes and still had 1700 psi at the end. This was a better dive and saw a decent amount of fish as it had better coral buildup. Saw 4 lobsters hiding under one overhang - looked like a little family. Also saw a 4.5 foot nurse shark that was just sitting on the ground. Of course, we didn't have time during the short SI to switch camera batteries and it died as we saw the shark. Oh well. Since the shark was just laying there, I know we could have gotten some good shots. Doesn't it always happen like that.....

 

So overall, we don't think it was worth the $75 we paid per person (we brought all our own equipment but tanks and weights). We could have gone to the Captains Corner for $45 and also would have saved $12 each way on taxi from the cruise ship pier. I doubt I would dive again in Key West, but if I did, would try the Captains Corner as the DM was nowhere near the worth of the extra $30 per person (since she didn't do anything but hunt for her dinner).

[Hilary]

Robstrash....sounds like a pretty bad experience with DiveKeyWest. Makes me really wonder what going through a ship's excursion will be like. Hmm, oh well, it's our only ship dive, so we'll just suck it up and make the most of it.

 

While we were diving Key Largo this summer, we asked about Key West and everyone said that if you're in Key West and want to dive, great, but that people don't go to Key West to dive. The upper keys have much better diving, but that Key West does have some fun wrecks to explore.

 

I'm hoping on our dive excursion that we'll be able to request a wreck dive or two, but frankly I'm not holding my breath that we'll have any say in where we dive.

[bruce-r]

Robstrash, thanks for taking the time to write about your experience in Key West. It is exactly this kind of post that makes the scuba section valuable to other divers.

[szdiver]

I concur....thanks for the info. I have never dived Kay West, but hope to some day. We will be in Key West in January, so maybe....