Hope y'all can help. We have a customer (I own a dive shop now) who will be stopping in Belize City on a cruise ship...he assures me he'd rather not be on a ship but he'd rather stay married, so he is.

At any rate, he's asked me to locate the best dive operator I can for him out of Belize City. He's not been well-served by the cruise company and I'm hoping we can help him out. All my time's been on AC so I've no experience with mainland operators.

He's a little worried about getting to AC and back while in port; hence the need.

Can anyone help with recommendations?

Thanks.

I get several emails a week from cruse ship passengers with this concern.
I highly recommend Sea Sports Belize
there in belize city.
http://www.seasportsbelize.com/

I agree about SeaSports. Very professional. And they do regular snorkeling trips for cruisers so would be sure to get him back to the boat in time.

But beware you may not have a free choice.

.

Comment deleted.

Thanks very much, Elbert and Barbara.

Peter, in this case, our customer does have a choice...but I understand your comment.

Jesse's comment, as usual, isn't topical or helpful.

Let me explain my "free choice" comment. It isn't a dig at different operators in Belize City - far from it - but results from the cruise ship operators' practice of making it difficult for "cruisers" (if I may call them that!) to join tours not purchased from the cruise ship. They do this in several ways. They make it more difficult (and slower) for people doing their own thing to leave and later rejoin the ship. On your return you typically have to make an earlier transfer boat than is available to people on tours they've sold. And once the posted departure time arrives, they will wait for passengers they've booked on tours but NOT for people who booked independently.

I also had in mind that I have been told by people who tried to book independently with one of the two main operators (both of whom do an excellent job) that even though there were trips going (for the customers booked by the cruise ship) they were unable to join them. Whether the boats were full or the cruise ship had given instructions to operate restrictive practices I don't know (I really don't) but the bottom line is that they found themselves unable to get on a trip run from Belize City.

I've never been on a cruise and what I hear from passengers doesn't make me want to try it.

FWIW I would happily go out diving with Sea Sports Belize, a most professional outfit. But there's nothing wrong with "Belize Dive Connection" either.

Our 1st trip to Belize was on a cruise ship and we dove w/Sea Sports Belize. Didn't have any problem getting back to the ship on time! However, that was back in 2002 so things could've changed since then. We've been coming to AC every year since, guess we found our little piece of paradise on that cruise!

According to my customer the cruise company isn't offering a dive opportunity in Belize on this particular cruise, although they normally do. Why or why not is unknown to me and I'm not a cruiser myself, so I'm uncharted here.

According to what I've been told, he's been encouraged to find an operator on his own, so that's what I'm helping him do.

I'll relay these very relevant comments to him and truly appreciate all the help.