Bonaire scuba diving excursion canceled for December 2022

[GaryAA]

While canceled excursions do not surprise me, I’m surprised RCCL canceled this excursion 11 months out. If it was a tour operator issue, I would think RCCL could sort that out within 11 months. As some of you know, Bonaire is a popular scuba diving destination. 

[twangster]

So many excursion vendors are going out of business from the pandemic. 

They won't hold your excursion hoping they may find another scuba shop over the next 11 months, when that supplier goes away, they cancel all booked excursions.  

[GaryAA]

51 minutes ago, twangster said:

So many excursion vendors are going out of business from the pandemic. 

They won't hold your excursion hoping they may find another scuba shop over the next 11 months, when that supplier goes away, they cancel all booked excursions.  

Not sure who RCCL normally uses, but Divi Flamingo is still operating and they are within walking distance of the cruise pier.

[MarvinS]

I had the same diving excursion scheduled for mid-June 2022 in Bonaire, and haven't receive any emails.

I just went to my cruise planner to check, and discovered that the excursion was indeed NOT in my calendar.  Looked in purchase history, and it's not there.  My amount of OBC has increased (as I used OBC to pay for the excursion originally) so they just refunded it back to my OBC balance.  The diving excursion is also no longer available in my cruise planner.  It was there when I reviewed things a few weeks ago...

[bobroo]

Buddy Dive is Royal Caribbean’s dive excursion provider in Bonaire. For the past 20 years or more Buddy Dive is always, always, always the perennial favorite to be voted best overall dive provider by the readers of Scuba Diving magazine in their annual poll. In short, Buddy Dive is the best of the best. I am certain they are not “going out of business”.

However, right now, today; Bonaire is turning away cruise ships that have ANY cases of COVID aboard. Maybe that is some insight why these excursions have been cancelled? Or, maybe it’s that Royal’s scuba shops onboard have quietly been turned into boutiques that sell snorkeling gear, Boca Clips, and Go Pros?

 

I don’t think Royal Caribbean wants anything to do with scuba diving anymore to be perfectly honest.

[GaryAA]

19 hours ago, bobroo said:

Buddy Dive is Royal Caribbean’s dive excursion provider in Bonaire. For the past 20 years or more Buddy Dive is always, always, always the perennial favorite to be voted best overall dive provider by the readers of Scuba Diving magazine in their annual poll. In short, Buddy Dive is the best of the best. I am certain they are not “going out of business”.

However, right now, today; Bonaire is turning away cruise ships that have ANY cases of COVID aboard. Maybe that is some insight why these excursions have been cancelled? Or, maybe it’s that Royal’s scuba shops onboard have quietly been turned into boutiques that sell snorkeling gear, Boca Clips, and Go Pros?

 

I don’t think Royal Caribbean wants anything to do with scuba diving anymore to be perfectly honest.

Thanks for the reply and info. I emailed Buddy Dive and they just said as of February 2022 they no longer have a contract with Royal Caribbean but they still offer diving services. 

[DisneyGal52]

We are having the same issue.  Had diving excursion booked for 6 months for our June cruise, but then RCCL cancelled it.  I have been checking regularly, but they have not posted any other dive options.  Is Buddy Dive near the port?  We have always booked our dives through the cruise line so we are a bit hesitant.

 

[GaryAA]

On 3/21/2022 at 9:44 AM, DisneyGal52 said:

We are having the same issue.  Had diving excursion booked for 6 months for our June cruise, but then RCCL cancelled it.  I have been checking regularly, but they have not posted any other dive options.  Is Buddy Dive near the port?  We have always booked our dives through the cruise line so we are a bit hesitant.

 

Please post your experience in Bonaire after cruising in June. My trip is not until December though.

[mac66]

I had a dive booked through the ship in St. Thomas jn February, Fully expected that one to be canceled but it was not. No ship dive offered in St. Maarten though. I had dived through the ship in SM a couple years ago. 

Had two ship dives booked in March, one in St. Croix, one in St. Kitts. Both were canceled inexplicably and without notice. They simply disappeared off my cruise planner.  Had some other dives planned privately (originally scheduled 2 years ago) who went out of business during covid.

I'm guessing that by next December things will have loosened up and your dive(s) may be reinstated. A lot of dive operators went out of business so the cruise lines are struggling to find opps who meet their standards. That doesn't explain Buddy's dive in Bonair however. It may just be BDs just didn't want to depend on the cruise ships anymore.

Bottom line is that nobody knows what's going on with cruise ship diving.

As far as diving through the ship vs. a private operator, I've done both. When I dived in St. Maarten a couple years ago I met a guy while getting off the ship. He was walking the same direction as I and was going diving. We ended up at the same dive place. I had booked privately, he had booked through the ship. My dive was $10 cheaper and they put me on a boat with 5 other people, all staying on the island. They put him on a boat with 12 other cruise ship passengers from various ships.

Booked privately in St. Croix and St. Kitts when the ship dives were canceled.

Diving through the ship in Roatan is always Anthony's Key.  We booked a private op two years ago (pre covid) because we wanted some snorkelers to go with us, something AK doesn't do. That company was out of business. We booked a different company. We had 4 divers and 2 snorkelers in our group and had the boat to ourselves.

In Nassau you have to dive through the ship. Diving is on the other side of the island and no dive operators will book you.   Stuarts Cove who all  cruise ships use is the only provider.  It was a cattle boat (lots of people) but a good dive. About half were staying on the island, half from various ships. The ship's dive instructor dived with us.

In St. Thomas in February I booked through the ship. The ship rep/instructor walked 4 of us to the dive boat which was docked close by. There were 4 other people diving from the island. In that case the ship's dive instructor stayed on board when we went into the water.

In Cozumel I always book privately. Dive operators are cheaper and fairly close to the port, easy to get to. I've dived twice In Costa Maya,  once privately, once through the ship.  Getting out of the port complex is a PITA and dive ops are a ways away. Just easier to book through the ship.

I've dived in Aruba and Curacao both privately. Didn't dive  when we were in Bonaire but it's on the list.

[Eirc]

On 3/21/2022 at 9:44 AM, DisneyGal52 said:

We are having the same issue.  Had diving excursion booked for 6 months for our June cruise, but then RCCL cancelled it.  I have been checking regularly, but they have not posted any other dive options.  Is Buddy Dive near the port?  We have always booked our dives through the cruise line so we are a bit hesitant.

 

We are cruising May14th and will be diving with Buddy Dive. I booked this on my own through Buddy Dive. They have a great reputation as a dive center and are short walk from the pier.