Dec 11-18 - Diving Belize/Coz/Cayman

[AgVball]

My husband and I will be on the Grand Princess during the week of Dec 11-18, 2004

 

Last year, we dove with the excursions on Royal Caribbean, and they were ok. Although we didn't like the operator in Cozumel (cattle boat.)

 

Princess is really expensive (to me)...considering we are bringing our own equipment.

 

We are considering scheduling our own dive trips at the locations below.

Just curious if anyone else already has something booked and could use more people?

I haven't had time to go back through the old posts, I'm sure someone has posted reputable dive ops.

We're a little nervous about cancellations and what happens if the cruise is not on time, or does not stop in the port. :o

 

 

BELIZE 12/13 01:00PM-06:30PM

MAJAHUAL 12/14 08:00AM-03:30PM

GRAND CAYMAN 12/15 12:00PM-06:30PM

COZUMEL 12/16 10:00AM-05:30PM

 

 

I had called Princess to find out more about the operators being used. I was surprised that they didn't even know...they just gave me a phone number for PADI who does the onboard certifications. Eventually, this is what I found out:

Belize - Belize Dive Connection

Cozumel - Sand Dollar Sports (hmmm....I think this is who RCCL used)

Cayman - Resort Sports

If you have any comments about these operators, I would appreciate hearing them.:D

[WesW]

For Coz, we're using Chellie and Antonio of Eagle Ray Divers, www.eagleraydivers.com

They receive kudos in this and the excursion section...plus they cater to cruisers..

[bruce-r]

BELIZE 12/13 01:00PM-06:30PM

MAJAHUAL 12/14 08:00AM-03:30PM

GRAND CAYMAN 12/15 12:00PM-06:30PM

COZUMEL 12/16 10:00AM-05:30PM

 

 

Belize - Belize Dive Connection

Cozumel - Sand Dollar Sports (hmmm....I think this is who RCCL used)

Cayman - Resort Sports

If you have any comments about these operators, I would appreciate hearing them.:D

Because of the odd times you will be in port, I'm afraid that you will be limited with who you will be able to dive with.

 

For Belize, I'd probably go with the ship's excursion even though I'm sure it is over-priced. I'm thinking that Belize is a hard port to arrange your own dives when you are there first thing in the day and if you don't get there 'til 1:00 pm then it will be even harder.

 

In Coz there are about 70 dive operators, surely you will be able to find on that does afternoon dives. Dive with Martin is who I'd contact for a start. Sand Dollar Sports is a large cattle boat operator, mooooo. I used Blue XT Sea and they were excellent, but I think that arrival time will be an issue. Contact Christi at Blue XT Sea, she might have a recommendation of a dive op that can work with your schedule. I would trust her opinion.

 

Grand Cayman. Don't know anything about Resort Sports, but you get there probably too late to make most of the morning dive boats. I used Neptunesdivers.com and liked them. Good boat, 8 divers max, and got to do my own dive. The alternate is to do some shore diving, which can be pretty good on GCM. The site closest to the tender dock and therefore in the worst condition is Eden Rock. The shore dive at the turtle farm is supposed to be pretty good, at least pre-Ivan. Divetec is the close by dive op where you can rent tanks and weights. There are (or were) a couple of dive shops to the south of the tender dock at Sunset House and Seaview that have onsite tank rental and dive sites, but I don't know how well either fared in the hurricane. I'd check both of these places before I went with an unknown dive op, but I'm a fairly advanced diver and have no issues with doing a solo shore dive. Since you will be traveling with a buddy, this shouldn't be an issue for you.

 

I'd be happy to answer any questions for you.

 

These are from Grand Cayman:

[bruce-r]

I forgot to mention that there are 2 dive operators in Costa Maya/Mahahual. BlueHa.com and http://www.mayapalms.com You will have to contact one of these to arranging diving since Princess doesn't offer diving in Costa Maya.

[Latitude 20]

I forgot to mention that there are 2 dive operators in Costa Maya/Mahahual. BlueHa.com and http://www.mayapalms.com You will have to contact one of these to arranging diving since Princess doesn't offer diving in Costa Maya.

 

 

Can't believe there are two ops in Majuhual now--seems like it was yesterday (OK almost two years ago) that we scoured the village looking for anyone who had air and a boat! Found lots of wonderful people, happy dogs, good beer and a fishing trip but no diving. Should have known all those construction sites we passed meant something!

 

We're going to be stopping in Belize on our cruise in Feb. but have decided not to dive in favor of making a dedicated dive trip there in the future. The best dive sites are too far away from shore--better to do the jungle stuff while on the cruise.

 

In Cayman, we're still counting on Casey and Keith at Neptunes Divers. Sent them an e-mail tonight to make sure they're still OK.

 

We dive with a friend in Coz. Someday we hope to convince her to go public!

 

Kathi and Leo

[KaC-Cruiser]

My husband and I will be on the Grand Princess during the week of Dec 11-18, 2004

 

Last year, we dove with the excursions on Royal Caribbean, and they were ok. Although we didn't like the operator in Cozumel (cattle boat.)

 

Princess is really expensive (to me)...considering we are bringing our own equipment.

 

We are considering scheduling our own dive trips at the locations below.

Just curious if anyone else already has something booked and could use more people?

I had called Princess to find out more about the operators being used. I was surprised that they didn't even know...they just gave me a phone number for PADI who does the onboard certifications. Eventually, this is what I found out:

Belize - Belize Dive Connection

Cozumel - Sand Dollar Sports (hmmm....I think this is who RCCL used)

Cayman - Resort Sports

If you have any comments about these operators, I would appreciate hearing them.:D

AgVBall - just got off the Grand this morning, and dove all 4 ports. Belize - only way to do it, is with the ship. Yes, it was pricey, but with the time limitations it won't work any other way. we were late to arrive, so the op picked us up straight from the boat and headed for Turneffe Atoll. Well organized, great boats. They do limit bottom time as a group, but each dive was about 45 minutes. As we arrived late, our last dive was a twilight dive, but still pretty good. Costa Maya - we had booked with Maya Palms, but found out when we got there that Douglas had handed us off to Blue Ha. Tanya was very nice and you can tell she's trying to put together a good op - the first dive was nice, the second just so-so. For the price, I'd rather dive Cozumel, but you take what blue water you can find! Grand Cayman - decided to shore dive up by the Turtle Farm with DiveTech so grabbed a cab $20 for 4 people - great op, very helpful staff. Reef was great with lots of fishlife. Would go back in a heartbeat. Getting a cab back was hard as everyone books their cabs for tours so those that stop at the Turtle Farm are busy. Ended up taking the local bus (really a van) for $2.50 pp and got a free tour of the other side of the island on the way back to town. The townspeople on the bus were just great to talk to as well. Cozumel - due to the odd arrival time we missed all the morning boats, but we found that Alison of 'Scuba with Alison' was willing to push back her start time for us, so we met up with her at the Marina. She was a real blast, and has excellent reviews on Scubaboard. (She'll die if you bring her cookies from the ship!)

 

Over all we had some great dives, but Grand Cayman & Coz were my favorites!! (And we also bring all our own gear ....) Hope your trip goes as well!!

[topdownblondandme]

my wife and i did this cruise in april and it was wonderful. in georgetown we rented a jeep and drove all around the island. is was very reasonable. also we went snorkling on our own. when you come on to the island , turn right and about 1\4 mile down the road is a dive shop right on the beach, we rented our gear and went right out from shore. absolutley beautiful. lot's a reaf,fish and economical and you can move about at your own pace. we then drove down the island and there was no traffic, no people (hardly) we stopped at several spots along the way and it was wonderful.just some food for thought

in belize we went cave tubing(great)

cozumel be sure to visit Sr. Frogs and paradise beach (must see places)

[AgVball]

Kac-Cruiser & Others...thanks for the replies!!! You guys have been very helpful.

 

We will definitely stick with the Belize cruise op.

Costa Maya...we may just hang out on the beach that day.

Cozumel - we are going with Eagle Ray Divers - I'm looking forward to trying them out!

Cayman - I never got responses from anyone - so we may just go with the cruise dive op.

 

The cave tubing sounds pretty interesting though.

 

I'm so excited, I can hardly wait!!!:D

[lbhafen]

Shirley,

 

When you return, please post a reply on your experience, how the Princess excursion(s) were, how your privately arranged dives went (both time-wise as well as how the dive operator was). This will help out others that are on the same cruise (like me!).

 

Thanks, and have a great time! The diving should be great.

 

Keith

[bruce-r]

Cayman - I never got responses from anyone - so we may just go with the cruise dive op.

 

If you didn't get an email reply from Neptunes divers, I would suggest calling them. Grand Cayman has pretty good cellular phone service post-Ivan, but the land lines really took a beating. Casey and Keith might not have a reliable internet connection yet. Their web site is hosted in the US, so that wasn't affected by the hurricane. Their phone number is (345) 945-3990 .

[michaelaz]

Try www.scubaboard.com I find it very helpfull

[AlwaysReady2Go]

Would love to hear how your diving went - please fill us in on the details - thanks - we will be diving in early March and am curious how yours went. Thanks.

[AgVball]

Yes! I will post a review here.

I'll work on it this week.

No complaints really, we had a good time...more details later...

[AgVball]

Ok...here it goes...I haven't written a scuba review before.

This is kinda in a hurry.

If you have any questions, let me know.:D

 

 

 

Belize

 

 

We scheduled the dive using the boat's excursion which was Hugh Parkey's. The Dive Boats came and picked us up right off the ship, so no need to tender. Yeah! We had 2 dive boats. I was on boat one, and we probably had 12-16 people, not including the dive crew. I'm not sure how many people were on boat two.

 

 

 

 

We brought all of our own equipment except for weights and tanks. For those renting, you will fill out an order form on the cruise ship so the dive op will have everything ready on the dive boat. When we boarded the dive boat, everyone just sat down in front of tanks that already had BCD/Regs. It seemed chaotic with everyone trying to find their own equipment...and no instruction from the crew. One guy said he turned his order in to the CruiseShip, and either it didn't show up, or, the it was the wrong size. We drove by the dive store, and some workers threw on another BCD and we were off.

 

 

During our hour long ride out to Turneffe Atoll, the boat was divided into 3 groups. Our group leader was Roscoe, and we had 6 people total. There is no drift, so there is no rush to get off of the boat. The crew would put your fins on for you before getting in the water as well as rinse your mask off. They offered to take your equipment when coming out of the water (particularly for the women), but that didn’t really happen.

 

 

Our first stop was Elkins Cay.

 

Water Temp was @ 81(f) at each stop.

 

We dove in just our bathing suits, but almost everyone had a suit on.

 

One person had a 5mm…I would think that’s too much. I am very cold natured, and I felt fine.

 

They mixed the dive levels together.

 

Roscoe had a magnetic slate and spotted various aquatic life and wrote down the names. Nothing huge (spotted Eel, spotted file fish, a couple barracuda, various angel looking fish, shrimp, crab, lobster)

 

 

2nd stop was at Mandie’s Dandies (sp?)

 

We had a smaller of 4 this time.

 

The sun was already starting to go down.

 

We had our pocket lights with us, and I’m glad we had them…would like to have had our bigger lights.

 

This was along a wall. It was beautiful.

 

 

I’m not very good with visibility, but I called it 60 feet.

 

It was not as clear as Cayman was the prior year. They had mentioned it wasn’t as clear as usual.

 

 

Hugh’s provides fruit, coke/soda, bread. They do not have a water bucket to rinse off your camera, but they do have a freshwater hose.

 

 

Our ride back was pretty choppy as we were hauling butt. I know of one person who felt a little sea sick. We could see the cruise ship in the distance all lit up, it was really pretty. Roscoe gave us information on Belize and the Reef as we were riding.

 

 

 

COZUMEL

 

We used Eagle Ray Divers as suggested by a few people on this board. The information provided prior to the trip (website and emails) was very good. We had another couple on the ship join us on this trip.

 

 

Chellie picked us up in her Jeep between 11:45-noon, then took us out to a pier to catch up with the boat. They were already on the water with a group from RCCL that was doing Discover Scuba. I’m not sure how to describe the boat, it was not like Hugh’s boat, or the typical dive boat. It was older with no platform on the back. It was quite crowded with the 5-7 Discover people, 4 of us, and the staff of 4 or so. To get in, you had to step up on the side of the boat. My husband is around 6’2”…and he had to hunch over because his tank could catch on the “ceiling”…he didn’t like that.

 

 

Our first stop was Palancar Gardens. I can’t remember how far we went…60-80 feet…but we saw plenty of plant/coral life. Luis was our leader…and he took us through some swim throughs. Again, we were just in our bathing suits. We hit pockets of “cool” water, but I still felt ok. The other couple with us had their suits on. Its good to have a pocket light for the swimthroughs.

 

 

The second stop was Delilah and this was more of a flat dive more around 40-50 feet. Plenty of fish. We saw a nurse shark and eagle ray swim buy. Chellie had mentioned that they had been seeing @ 12 turtles each day, which was wild because it was not turtle season…we didn’t see any. I had a Barracuda swim at me, scared me to death.

 

 

It was a little cool after coming out of the water with no suits on.

 

We had hoped to do a 3rd tank, but we ran out of time. If we had started another 30 minutes earlier, we could have done it. We got in port at 10am, and we took our time getting off the ship, but you could get off quicker if you wanted to. We had no problem getting a cab, it just takes a while to get through all the shops. When we made it back the pier where ERD has their shop, ERD called cabs for us, so they were there waiting as we were buying a t-shirt from ERD.

 

 

The crew was nice. We had our own dive leader and the discover scuba had their own people. They had some little cookies to snack on. They offered bottles of water after our first dive, but not after the second dive. This op is ok. If you book, check to see how many people will be on the boat with you. And, ask if other people are from other ships, because you may have to go back early to drop them off, or go pick someone up. They are very friendly and see detail oriented if you are interested in the Discover Scuba. If you are an experienced diver, they are ok…but I may try someone else next time. It was certainly much better than using Sand Dollars cattle service.

 

 

The day before Cozumel (wed. dec. 15), Cozumel diving was canceled due to rough waters (according to Chellie) Our Diving in Cayman had been canceled that day due to rough waters. I don’t know if it was because of the 6.7 earthquake on Tuesday? Or just some weather moving in?

[girasol]

COZUMEL

 

 

We used Eagle Ray Divers as suggested by a few people on this board. The information provided prior to the trip (website and emails) was very good. We had another couple on the ship join us on this trip.

 

 

Chellie picked us up in her Jeep between 11:45-noon, then took us out to a pier to catch up with the boat. They were already on the water with a group from RCCL that was doing Discover Scuba. I’m not sure how to describe the boat, it was not like Hugh’s boat, or the typical dive boat. It was older with no platform on the back. It was quite crowded with the 5-7 Discover people, 4 of us, and the staff of 4 or so. To get in, you had to step up on the side of the boat. My husband is around 6’2”…and he had to hunch over because his tank could catch on the “ceiling”…he didn’t like that.

 

 

Our first stop was Palancar Gardens. I can’t remember how far we went…60-80 feet…but we saw plenty of plant/coral life. Luis was our leader…and he took us through some swim throughs. Again, we were just in our bathing suits. We hit pockets of “cool” water, but I still felt ok. The other couple with us had their suits on. Its good to have a pocket light for the swimthroughs.

 

 

The second stop was Delilah and this was more of a flat dive more around 40-50 feet. Plenty of fish. We saw a nurse shark and eagle ray swim buy. Chellie had mentioned that they had been seeing @ 12 turtles each day, which was wild because it was not turtle season…we didn’t see any. I had a Barracuda swim at me, scared me to death.

 

 

It was a little cool after coming out of the water with no suits on.

 

We had hoped to do a 3rd tank, but we ran out of time. If we had started another 30 minutes earlier, we could have done it. We got in port at 10am, and we took our time getting off the ship, but you could get off quicker if you wanted to. We had no problem getting a cab, it just takes a while to get through all the shops. When we made it back the pier where ERD has their shop, ERD called cabs for us, so they were there waiting as we were buying a t-shirt from ERD.

 

 

The crew was nice. We had our own dive leader and the discover scuba had their own people. They had some little cookies to snack on. They offered bottles of water after our first dive, but not after the second dive. This op is ok. If you book, check to see how many people will be on the boat with you. And, ask if other people are from other ships, because you may have to go back early to drop them off, or go pick someone up. They are very friendly and see detail oriented if you are interested in the Discover Scuba. If you are an experienced diver, they are ok…but I may try someone else next time. It was certainly much better than using Sand Dollars cattle service.

 

 

The day before Cozumel (wed. dec. 15), Cozumel diving was canceled due to rough waters (according to Chellie) Our Diving in Cayman had been canceled that day due to rough waters. I don’t know if it was because of the 6.7 earthquake on Tuesday? Or just some weather moving in?

 

Having spent alot of time in Cozumel (part-time resident), I am familiar with many dive ops. Eagle Ray is an excellent operation for beginners, families with a mix of divers and snorkelers, or those divers that are in no hurry and just want to enjoy a nice peaceful day of sunning and diving. I highly recommend them for these scenarios, however, I would not recommend them for advanced/seasoned divers who have different expectations.

 

As AgVball mentioned, the boat is not your typical dive boat. It is a charming refurbished old fishing boat rigged for diving. It has a nice sun deck up top for people wanting to catch some sun, but otherwise not a comfortable dive boat. It is very slow, so travel time to the sites will be over an hour and up to two hours. Because of this, some sites will actually be excluded because they are simply too far. With this said, the more advanced sites are usually not an option. If you arelooking for a hard-core day of diving, Eagle Ray is not going to meet your expectations. However, if you are ok with the long boat ride and enjoying some beautiful dives, they are great.

 

The staff and crew are all very friendly and personable as well.