cactusgirl Posted July 4, 2022 Report Share Posted July 4, 2022 Hey, I am thinking about doing the PADI certification on my Oct cruise (Freedom 10/2). The diving ports would be Cozumel and Grand Cayman. 1. Has anyone done this through RCCL recently and 2. Do you know the dive shops they use in these two ports? My fam isn't interested in diving, but I'm trying to find them an activity close to the dive shops. Thank you so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cactusgirl Posted July 6, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2022 Correction—Liberty, not Freedom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted July 6, 2022 Report Share Posted July 6, 2022 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 royaldiver@rccl.com. 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. bobroo, DDaley and KristiZ 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cactusgirl Posted July 7, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2022 Thanks for your insight! I've reached out via the royaldiver@rccl.com email, but I have not heard back from them. Was your training one morning in the pool on the ship or two? It looks like it might be a pretty big class for my cruise as there are only 4 spots left. I have a cruise in October and then another in February. It sounds like if something goes awry for the October one I can finish up with the February cruise. Did you purchase your snorkel and mask onboard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted July 7, 2022 Report Share Posted July 7, 2022 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cactusgirl Posted July 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2022 In case anyone is wondering, if you have a cruise from Galveston with the Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Falmouth ports, this is what your schedule will look like: Day 1--Embark. Sign form at dive shop Day 2--Pool time 6:45am - 10am Day 3--Cozumel. Diving from sunset beach (sand dollars) which is a 10 min walk from the port Day 4--George Town. diving from boat. (I don't know what that means. Does it mean we dive directly off the cruise ship?). According to the person I've been emailing, each of these should last about 4-5 hours Thank you Brendon for helping me get this info. bobroo and Brendon 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted July 9, 2022 Report Share Posted July 9, 2022 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melweaver2 Posted January 21, 2023 Report Share Posted January 21, 2023 @cactusgirl Did you do the online portion from home? I am supposed to do the open water diver course next month and have not got any info on how to do the online portion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted January 23, 2023 Report Share Posted January 23, 2023 On 1/21/2023 at 2:55 PM, Melweaver2 said: @cactusgirl Did you do the online portion from home? I am supposed to do the open water diver course next month and have not got any info on how to do the online portion I would suggest emailing royaldiver@rccl.com 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). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunkelBierJay Posted January 23, 2023 Report Share Posted January 23, 2023 @cactusgirlI reactivated my certification in October of 2021 through a local dive shop. The open water check out was in a quarry and it was nice to have that taken care of when I dove on Coco Cay on my Indy cruise (that dive was not all that great, btw)...see my signature for descriptions of a couple of dives with Royal on Roatan and with a shop in Costa Maya -- I have dives booked with Royal and with independent shops in Coz and Costa Maya on my up coming back to back....while I haven't done the pool training on a ship, I think that it takes a huge amount of time and energy while in vacation, and unless you really want to do it that way, I recommend getting your C-card at a shop that is local to you, and arrange your check out dives with them or with a shop at a port that they may be affiliated with. I don't know of a shop that doesn't do trips to the Caribbean and has good contacts in Cozumel and Grand Cayman...that's just my $0.02. I say all this because I've experienced poor response times from Royal's scuba team myself. FireFishII and osok 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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