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I think the comments people make about it consuming all of the time on a cruise are a bit overblown in my experience. When I did it we did the pool work on the first day (like a 6am start), and done by 9am (but it would probably be more like 10 most of the time). It was then at 2 ports we did the open water dives, so that was in place of excursions. We also had to gather briefly after the 2 days of open water dives to finish paperwork, but it was not long. Get the e-learning done in advance of the cruise and it will be a much more enjoyable experience. I really enjoyed the whole process of doing it on the ship- my experience was broken into 2 cruises due to COVID restrictions limiting things. I was the only student for the pool work and first 2 dives on 1 cruise, then I joined a group of students on the last 2 dives on another cruise to finish. There is some camaraderie that develops with the other students and instructors, in fact I am still in contact with the instructor I had on the 2nd ship and met up with him on another ship to swap dive experiences and stories since my certification.

Keep an eye on it, sometimes it opens up. Worst case is go straight to the Dive Shop when you get on board (Pool Deck near the sports pool) and inquire. They will often let people join in on board. You will have to find time to do the e-learning (so you will need internet), but if you get on board early and start quickly, you can finish it in time.

If you want to send me a DM with your ship, I will share with you the email address that will likely work for that ship. I did this same offering 2 years ago and have worked with instructors on multiple ships, and find contacting them directly works much better than Royal Diver.

Airline labor is governed under the Railway Labor Act, which requires an extensive process, which when it breaks down will require a cooling off period of 30 days before the unions are released to allow self-help (ie strike). There are a lot of other processes that can intervene, but a strike is a long way off. With that being said, there could be illegal wildcat strikes, or work-to-rule that could affect overall operations, but it would not completely stop AA travel.

Some ports they go on the same boat, just head out in other directions. For example, in St. Thomas it is usually one boat that has Discover Scuba Diving, PADI Certification, and certified divers all going out on the same boat, just doing their thing in different areas around the dive spot (same location every time).

At the end of May this was still the case.

I would caution that this may not work out for you... They have capacity limits in terms of space on dive boats, number of students, etc. I was just on Symphony and all of the diving was sold out well in advance. They MIGHT be able to squeeze you in on the ship, but they might not be able to do all 4 dives. They will prioritize those that are doing the full course, those who are already certified and booked the certified dive in advance, or the Discover Scuba students first. The boat in St. Thomas was full and they had no extra room, and they might have been able to get 1-2 more people on the Coco Cay training dives.

I did my OW certification on 2 different ships and thought it was fantastic! If you do the theory work in advance, it is honestly not a big consumer of time. Pool work was done on the second day of the cruise- in the water around 6:30am, done by 10am. Open Water dives replaced excursions at 2 ports, but the diving was worthwhile. There is a little bit of other time at the dive shop, but honestly not too bad. You will connect with the other students and the instructor, and really creates a great vibe for the cruise. I stayed connected to the instructor on the 2nd ship that ultimately certified me and found out he was on the ship for the cruise I just completed, so we were able to connect and talk about diving and catch up. I feel like the value is good, the quality of the instruction is good, and the dive sites that you do the training is outstanding. I am a big advocate for doing the course on the ship, as long as you remember that you have some commitments to during the cruise.

I would suggest emailing [email protected] and inquiring about the status. They will email you some forms to fill out, then they will send you a link to register for the e-learning. There is also a way to communicate directly with your ship's dive instructor via email, which they are usually pretty responsive to, however responsiveness is sometimes dependent on how many instructors are on the ship, and how much time they have to spend working the shore excursions desk (they are a part of that team too).

I had booked Sip, Tour, Brunch as well as Sushi Making on Liberty for my B2B cruises that finished a week ago. Both were canceled with no notice, and when I went to guest services they seemed confused as to why they could be bought in the cruise planner because the ship was not (and had not been) offering them.

Same thing happened on Voyager last night. Unfortunately no free cruise for me

What ports are you going to? Seems like they are doing dives at Coco Cay, St. Thomas, Cozumel, and Roatan. I know that they do not have a dive operator in Nassau, St. Maartin, and Costa Maya. That is what I saw on my cruises over the past few months and what I am seeing as available on my future cruises.

I did the tour a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Honestly, it is a shopping tour in disguise, but at each food stop you get to learn a little bit about their product and get a sample. After the sampling the wait around long enough for you to purchase additional items, but it is not a hard push. Off the top of my head our food stops were (I may be missing one or two): The New Duff for Guava Duff Tasty Teas for a variety of teas John Watlings Distillery for rum and conch fritters The Bahamas Rum Cake Factory for rum cake We also stopped by the fort near Queen's Staircase and a beach to the west of the city, both locations having souvenir shopping. Our driver/guide was really knowledgeable and his passion was strong! Our driver was Harrison, who was well known by the locals, and showed great pride in his tour and his bus. He shared history and tales about Nassau, along with different Bahamian music that all tied into it. Our last stop was at the Fish Fry where we had a lunch and a demo on how they harvest conch from the shell. It was a morning/lunch time well spent! Probably my favorite Nassau experience.

It is not an amazing tour, but I felt like it was priced nicely to kill the day, see some things I maybe would not have gotten to, and get to the airport. Hollywood is dirty and we spent quite a bit of time there, but the other stops were nice and didn't feel overly touristy.

It only goes down to about 35 feet, and there are a few things they point out like an anchor and some airplane propellers. There were a TON of rays in a few areas, and there are some reefs and other areas to explore. It is a nice dive, not amazing. I have done it once and plan on doing it again in a few weeks.

I did the tour twice- one time fully, and one time interrupted. The first time we were to the airport by 3, the interrupted time we were there at noon. Bags stay on the bus. When we were interrupted we ended up having to wait for the bus because the driver had left to get food because she expected us to be touring for a few more hours, but it was the same bus. If I recall they say in the description that you should have a flight departing after 5. From my own experience you should be more than fine, especially if you can use TSA Precheck lines.

It is amazing how different each individual's experiences are on a cruise. I was on the same cruise as a solo and had an absolute blast! Other than some major hiccups with the Kennedy Space Center excursion on the disembarkation day (not Royal's fault), it was nearly a perfect cruise for me. I interacted significantly with the dive shop people on board, as well as the St. Thomas dive operator and found them to be exceptionally competent and great. The pools did get crowded at times, but I never had a problem getting into them and did not witness any spilled drinks that looked like vomit. The slides were open quite a bit, not just a couple days. I ate at Izumi, Wonderland, 150 Central Park, Jamies, and Johnny Rockets as a solo and never felt like that affected my experience or treatment by the staff. Getting into shows with a reservation, I showed up about 30 min early and never had an issue getting a decent seat for any of them. I think the escape room closure and the hard sell in the spa are fairly well documented. I never experienced the issue with the kids, but I did hear from multiple people about a small group of kids that were just absolutely terrible to other cruisers and were out of control, but it was only a couple of them. At disembarkation there seemed to be a number of people getting off from the lower deck that I am assuming were the Covid positive people, but it did not seem like a lot of people and the setup on the pier did not seem to be that big. I know in the Facebook group there was a large number of people who tested positive upon returning home, but I think that seems to be standard across the board these days.

I can give you ALL the details! I was on this tour on July 3 while it was guided. We had been on site for about 30 minutes (max) when a security guard literally interrupted our guide mid sentence and physically pulled him away from our group. Come to find out, the operators of the visitor complex (Delaware North) decided that only their tour guides could provide guided services, and did not inform any of the tour companies of this decision. The security staff was extremely rude and ejected all of the group because we had violated their rules by having an unauthorized tour guide, no exceptions to allow us to tour on our own. Everyone from the tour guide, the tour operator, and Royal were all blindsided by this. They even had a scheduled time for a bus exclusively for our group to go out to the Apollo/Saturn center, but we were unable to do so. They literally had armed guards walk us out and got really nasty with us, and were glaring at us as we waited for our bus to return. Nobody in the group acted out of line or violated any moral/legal/or ethical standards, other than the fact we used a valid ticket to enter the complex with an unauthorized tour guide. The tour guide and tour operator had been doing this tour for Royal for years. While we were in the middle of this they stopped at least one other tour company. I would normally say it is worth a visit, but I don't want any money to go to that company. I had done this exact tour from Royal last November and loved it, so I wanted to try it again. But if you do go, I believe there are buses operated by the Center to take people out to the Apollo/Saturn center. I am not sure the visit is worth it without that, but the Atlantis Shuttle Center is pretty amazing and could make it worthwhile. One of the biggest values I found out of the excursion was the tour guide providing history of the space program and the area on the way there and the commentary/guided tour through the center. If you do go and you encounter Rex either on the bus or at the center distributing your prepaid tickets be really nice to him- he literally had the vast majority of his income evaporate in front of our group of 47 that morning.

I tried it on my last cruise (had the 3 night package). I was not sure I would enjoy it because I can be a bit picky, but I really did enjoy the experience overall. I was given a menu, but in reality they have a plan for you and will bring you items. They asked if I had any dietary restrictions, and if I had any particular things I did not like, then brought a number of things. It seemed like it was different for everyone around me. Food was not "amazing", but the whole experience was worth it.

I was on this same cruise and I had nothing that amazing experiences (other than the casino taking a ridiculous amount of money from me)! And yes, NEVER use a debit card to back an account like this- the banking system is antiquated and it takes a long time for holds/refunds to actually hit an account, it is not necessarily Royal in most cases.

Glad you were able to connect with the ship using the info I had sent you! Diving from a boat means you will go off the ship and go to a much smaller boat (Think like a large pontoon boat) that is set up for diving. This boat will take you out to the dive site where you will gear up and jump in. Its good you will get the shore dive and boat dive experience as they each have unique aspects. I would suggest going to the dive shop on board as soon as it opens because it can get busy and each transaction can take a little time. On the 2 ships I have been on it typically opens at 1 and closes around 3 or 4. The instructors almost always are part of the Shore Excursions team, so they will also be working at the Shore Excursions desk, so sometimes if you need something quick like drop off or pick up an item, or ask a quick question, they will have some time during the hours they spend there. I ran into both of my instructors a couple times on Allure and Harmony while they were at Shore Excursions. See if you can get some photos of your experience, or at least of you geared up. My Allure instructor took a photo right before we started the pool session, but no others and she didn't share it with me. The Harmony instructor loved photography and had an amazing underwater setup. He took the time to adjust 72 photos from the diving experience and share them via dropbox with the members of the group that shared their email address with him. He had a little more time to photograph in St. Thomas because technically he could not instruct there due to visa/work rules, so he was basically just tagging along and assisting the local instructors/interacting with students.

We did it with only 1 morning in the pool. I was the only student so it went fairly fast, so that may have been the reason for only doing 1 pool session. It may also depend on your itinerary, because if everything had gone according to plan I would have needed to knock it out on the first day (sea day) because the next 2 days were the ports for the open water dives. I think it is capped at 10 max for the class. When I finished the class last week there were 8 students that made it to dive 3/4 plus me, and the instructor mentioned someone (maybe 2) had dropped out at some point in the process. I actually think having others is good because you can watch them perform the skills before you do yours, so you can learn a bit from that! I bought my mask and snorkel in advance because I wanted a good selection I think they only have 4-6 options on board for masks, and only 1 snorkel option. They do not allow you to try them on right now (Covid protocol), so I would suggest buying in advance at a shop you can try on to make sure you get a good fit. My mask flew off the boat on the way to the dive site so I got stuck using the loaners on the boat and it leaked so bad and I was constantly clearing my mask- fit is very important! In terms of completing on a 2nd cruise, they will likely not refund you if you cannot complete it for reasons other that their fault. I got a partial refund in January because they could not provide an instructor for 2 of the dives, but if I bailed out or just couldn't do it I would not have gotten a refund. The ability to do additional dives on a later cruise will not be able to be determined until you get on the ship. One suggestion Royal Diver gave me was to register for the lower level/cheaper Scuba Diver course in order to essentially secure a slot with the instructor, and they would refund the portions that were not needed. I ended up corresponding directly with the ship based instructor and he told me to just come to the dive shop and not do that. But he did have me register for the certified dive excursion because it would guarantee my spot on the boat they were doing dives 3 and 4 on. But on the good news front- the only way to truly fail is to either call it off yourself, do something completely unsafe that the instructor feels it is hazardous to sign off on you, or you don't do something like pass the e-learning. It is a situation where you just need to show completion of a skill, and you can try again until you get it. Main advice is to just relax! If you want to DM me I can share the email address format that can get you directly to the ship instructors because they know more about how things really operate compared to the shore-based Royal Diver team.

I did my open water certification through Royal. I started it on Allure in January where the diving ports were supposed to be Cozumel and Roatan. During this time they were not allowing crew off the ship, so the ship's instructor could not leave and they had to use local instructors. There was no instructor available in Cozumel, so I could only do the first 2 dives in Roatan. The ship instructor and the local instructor were not great. Since I could not dive in Cozumel, not sure who their dive shop is there, but I do know for training dives they do shore dives, so maybe they don't use a local shop for the training. I did the last 2 dives last week on Harmony, and there were 2 instructors on the ship- both were absolutely amazing! The first 2 dives were at CocoCay (didn't do those since I had already done them), and the last 2 were in St. Thomas. I think the experience of doing the certification on the ship is fantastic! They have pretty good equipment, the locations are great in minimizing outside factors that can make it difficult. I tried to do dives 3 and 4 at Catalina Island with an independent dive shop, but the water temp and 7mm wetsuit were too much for me trying to do training. The water you will experience will be warm enough you probably will not need a wet suit unless you want to wear one. Complete the e-learning in advance, expect early morning pool time (6am on Allure, 8am on Harmony). Some people say it consumes your trip, but I found completing the e-learning before getting on the ship made it take up less time. Early morning pool time (usually done by 10, depends on what time that pool is scheduled to open for everyone), 2 ports you dive instead of doing an excursion, a little time spent at the onboard dive shop the first day to go over the logistics, and a brief time after all the dives are complete to do a quick final review/dive logs/final paperwork is the onboard commitment- I didn't feel like it affected the rest of my vacation, and it gave me something unique to do. I have heard mixed reviews about people getting the e-learning login information in a timely manner. If you have not heard from them at least 2 weeks before the sail date, I would reach out to [email protected]. Instructors can be hit or miss as I mentioned, but the experience I just had on Harmony completely redeemed it in my eyes. The Allure situation was not ideal because of restrictions, and I was also the only student that cruise, so that may have influenced how things went on that cruise.