Info required re: scuba diving at CN

[Starbuck]

Good Morning,

Looking at booking with CN. Have been looking at the info for both CN and CSA. If staying at CN, is the diving with CSA? I see that CSA has a scheduled but could find nothing more for CN. Also, if this is the case, how close is CSA from CN? If we go diving am and pm at CSA, do we have access to stay at CSA for the day or do we have to go back & forth.

So excited to book!!

[dank120]

Good Morning,

Looking at booking with CN. Have been looking at the info for both CN and CSA. If staying at CN, is the diving with CSA? I see that CSA has a scheduled but could find nothing more for CN. Also, if this is the case, how close is CSA from CN? If we go diving am and pm at CSA, do we have access to stay at CSA for the day or do we have to go back & forth.

So excited to book!!

All of the Couples esorts have the same diving schedule (one tank at 9a, and one tank at 1p), and CSA and CN use the same dive sites. If you're a certified diver, bring your C-card and log book and go to the dive shop your first day, if its before 4p, to check-in and fill out your PADI medical questionnaire. If it's been more than 2 years since your last dive, you will need a refresher course (PADI rules, not Couples) Once you're set up, you can do the morning and afternoon dive every day, as long as you get your name on the list the day before, because the boat can fill up. It is by far the easy diving set-up ever, outside of the very expensive valet diving elsewhere in the Caribbean. I'm in my mid-30s, but have been diving for 20 years and have dove all over the Americas (North Am, Central Am, Carib, etc). We have done over 3 dozen dives with the CN crew and they are the best dive team ever. Book CN, meet Richard, Shrek, Sugar, and Alain, and you will be good to go! Enjoy!

[Bart and Bug]

CN has its own diving & snorkeling boat so you won't have to depend on the CSA watersports people to take you out.

[Starbuck]

All of the Couples esorts have the same diving schedule (one tank at 9a, and one tank at 1p), and CSA and CN use the same dive sites. If you're a certified diver, bring your C-card and log book and go to the dive shop your first day, if its before 4p, to check-in and fill out your PADI medical questionnaire. If it's been more than 2 years since your last dive, you will need a refresher course (PADI rules, not Couples) Once you're set up, you can do the morning and afternoon dive every day, as long as you get your name on the list the day before, because the boat can fill up. It is by far the easy diving set-up ever, outside of the very expensive valet diving elsewhere in the Caribbean. I'm in my mid-30s, but have been diving for 20 years and have dove all over the Americas (North Am, Central Am, Carib, etc). We have done over 3 dozen dives with the CN crew and they are the best dive team ever. Book CN, meet Richard, Shrek, Sugar, and Alain, and you will be good to go! Enjoy!

Thanks for the info. My husband & I have been certified for only 1 year now however very much enjoy it. Looking forward to going there.

[Irie at CN]

Saturday they do a 2-tank dive at 9am only, no afternoon dive. You go out with a second full tank for all on board. After the first deeper dive, you switch out to one of the full tanks and do some surface time while on the way to the second dive which is always more shallow than the first. I love Saturday dives!

[GPCouple]

Can you get certified while at CN? If so is there and extra cost and how long does it take?

[dank120]

Oops! Thanks Irie at CN! Forgot about the Saturday schedule!

GPCouple, you can get certified for an extra charge, maybe $325? It's much cheaper and takes less time than trying to do it before you arrive. Certification consists of studying the book, pool time, and 4 open water dives.

Starbuck, having been certified for only one year, you will really enjoy the diving in Negril. The reefs are extremely healthy and the dives are easy.

[BarDar]

Star, Depending on your Cert. level, you might only be able to go on the afternoon dive. That is the shallower of the two and sometimes the dive crew limit the deeper morning dive to AOW cert. I'm sure things will be set up. Get wet!

[BettyinToronto]

BarDar: I wish that was true. We were told the same thing before we arrived for our September 2011 trip so hubby went and got his AOW so we could dive twice a day (I already had mine). We get there and the guys totally catered to a woman who had been certified at CN in 2010 and was on her 3rd visit to CN. She was still a REAL beginner and only wanted to dive in the morning so the next 5 days were shallow in the AM and the PM. Kind of upset me that the rules didn't apply to everyone. Two other AOW divers were upset too.

Thing only changed on our last day when more divers show up - the newly certified dives from that week + 4 more AOW. This then allowed us to go out in the morning with 2 DMs on the boat and we were split for our first (and only) deeper dive of the week.

We are back again this September (and just booked again for Sept 2013) and I hope the rules are the rules and we get in the deeper dive in the morning. If not we will probably complain and either cancel our 2013 trip or maybe try Swept Away to see if their dive staff is better.

Sorry to sound so negative but we are divers and do 3 trips a year. This is the only one where the diving isn't as good but the resort is amazing! And we're not ready to give us the diving completely.

[Bobby and Lisa]

Star, my husband and I were certified just two months before our trip to CN, and we were able to go on all dives, including the night dive. You don't need to have Advanced certification, and it's been my experience in my three trips that most divers are not advanced. In fact, a great deal are like you and me, which is why I love the CN dive team -- they recognize the different levels and try to make sure everyone has a good time. My husband has a tendency to suck air -- the dive team immediately recognized that and kept close watch on his air, then made sure he had the tank with the most amount of air for future trips! dank120 is spot-on...they are the best dive team ever.

[Karon]

We're going to be at CN next week and after these comments I'm really looking forward to diving with the CN dive team. They sound like a great group. However I am a new diver and actually wont have completed my open water cert until the following week when we go the CSA. After some of the comments here I'm a little concerned about how the "experienced" divers are going to feel about me being there. I never felt bad about being an inexperience diver at CSA and I hope I don't feel that way at CN. My husband is an experienced diver and feels very proud of me for learning this new skill. I love diving and really look forward to sharing this experience with him and the other wonderful people I've met diving.
Betty, I agree that all of the shallow dives shouldn't have been in the morning but I also think that all of the deep dives should be in the morning either. We prefer to dive in the dive in the morning too. When we were at CSA (over New Years) they alternated deep dives and the shallow dives in the morning and afternoon so everyone was happy. Seemed like a very fair system to me. I hope CN does something similar while we are there. Maybe when I get more experienced I will have the pleasure of diving with you at CN. BTW, I'm from the Toronto area too.
Karon

[me]

For the person who asked about certification, yes you can do your certification at CN. 3 of us did it in June with Richard the instructor. We then dove with him several times and were done in 2 or three days. They will help you get through it. I was going to do my class here at home but now am glad I did it there. At the time I used our resort credit for the class. I think PADI's website will have the cost of the class on the site somewhere.

[BettyinToronto]

Sorry Karon if I sounded like a b**ch. If doing multiple dives in a day the deeper dive is always the first which is why it is scheduled in the morning.

Maybe they should let certified divers join the 11am shallow dive which is now strictly for the divers on course (resort or full PADI OW).

[Karon]

Sorry Karon if I sounded like a b**ch. If doing multiple dives in a day the deeper dive is always the first which is why it is scheduled in the morning.

Maybe they should let certified divers join the 11am shallow dive which is now strictly for the divers on course (resort or full PADI OW).

Hi Betty,
You weren't being a B. I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement either.
At CSA on Saturday's they did a 2 tank dive. The first was a deeper dive and the 2nd was more shallow. My husband loved it and I'm hoping I will be able to do that level of a dive before we leave. I didn't know that CN had a dive just for the resort dive and people trying to get certified. They didn't do that CSA. There was always a mix of experienced and new divers on each of the dives we did. We liked that because my husband got to dive with me even though I had to work with the Dive Instructor. On my 2nd dive they even let us be partners and at the end of the dive I spent a few minutes demonstrating some skills. I appreciated being paired with my husband while still earning my certification because we will be partnered all the time once I'm certified so it a good way to ease into that responsibility.

We are leaving for CN on Wednesday for a wedding. I can hardly wait to get back in the water but if CN splits their dives and I can't go with my husband, I'll wait until we move over to CSA to dive. We'll snorkel with our group instead. Might be a good thing anyway. Dave's getting over a respiratory virus and he's still coughing from time to time.

Have you ever gone off the resort and dove in the area of the cliffs? I'm not even certified and I'm already looking for new places to dive - lol. I think I'm developing an addiction!
Karon

[Bobby and Lisa]

Karon, the deep dives will always be in the morning, it's the same at all Couples resorts. BUT, please don't be discouraged by other comments. The "advanced" or "experienced" divers that we were diving with were great, and did not make us feel uncomfortable at all. In fact, I noticed on one diving trip that a couple of experienced divers took it upon themselves to take a very inexperienced diver under their wing and told her to follow them and they would find some ocean life for her. Of course, this is why I stay right behind the CN dive team, because they do the same, but I thought it was very nice of them to offer this to this woman. I think most divers don't care about how deep they dive at CN because the beautiful reefs are found 40-60 feet down. I saw so much more in the shallow dives! The couple that travels with us have been diving for 20 years, and they agree. Trust me, you will feel very welcome, and will have a blast!

[Irie at CN]

Betty - I really hope you don't complain about the way the dive team runs their dives. We only dive on vacation and we seem to only go to Couples on vacation. We love the attention and care we get from the dive team at CN, I feel safe and secure diving with them. I really don't care whether the dive is deep or shallow, I only want to go diving. We are very fortunate that Couples doesn't charge for dives for those of us that are certified. I am thankful that we can dive twice a day (weather permitting) and if we want to pay the $50 pp to do a night dive then we can do that too. Couples offers the best quality and care of any of the resorts we've been to and we wouldn't change a thing.

[BettyinToronto]

I think you guys missed my point. I am upset that I was told before we went that my husband would NOT be allowed to dive in the morning because he was not AOW. So he went and got it so he could do the 2 dives per day. Then we get there and the rules changed. That is my complaint.

I think a good compromise is to do a dive that offers 80 ft and 60 ft. Pick what you are comfortable with.

[dank120]

I think you guys missed my point. I am upset that I was told before we went that my husband would NOT be allowed to dive in the morning because he was not AOW. So he went and got it so he could do the 2 dives per day. Then we get there and the rules changed. That is my complaint.

I think a good compromise is to do a dive that offers 80 ft and 60 ft. Pick what you are comfortable with.

I'm not sure what was ever different when you were there, but in 18 total diving days in 3 trips to CN, we have never had anyone unable to dive, because of certification level. When they did have a mix of OW and AOW, or above, if the AOW divers wanted to do Deep Plane or another dive that exceeds 60ft, they would just split the group up. One DM would take the OW group to a 60ft site and the other DM would take the advanced divers to the deeper site. Because all of the dive sites are so close in Negril, it's an incredibly seamless operation, and the scuba team at CN is really good at coordinating this on short notice. Whoever told you that your husband could not dive in the morning obviously gave you some bad information, so that would be the person to be disappointed with, not the resort. The "rules" never changed. No matter what your level is, they do a deeper dive in the morning and a shallower dive in the afternoon.

In reality though, you said it yourself. There are much better diving spots in the Caribbean, and Jamaica is certainly not known for the diving, but the reefs are incredibly healthy, the diving is easy, and while the marine life isn't super abundant, like some other places, the life is really diverse, if you know what to look for. I have been diving for over 20 years, since I was a teenager, and have had the privelege of diving some of the best spots in the Caribbean, but I would never cancel a trip to CN, because I wasn't happy with how deep the dives went. In fact, some of the shallower dives in Negril are actually better dives than some of the deeper ones anyway. The all-inclusive diving at CN is just icing on the cake to an otherwise incredible resort. It's really easy, they supply all of the bulky equipment that is annoying to travel with, and you are never on the boat for more than 10 or 15 mins, before getting in the water. Plus, I cannot stress enough how great the scuba team is, especially compared to some of the careless clowns we have dealt with in Cozumel and Grand Cayman.

[Doug]

To Betty in TO
My wife and I have 118 Dives at Couples Negril . I have been a Dive instructor since 1989 and I have not found a better Crew than those at CN. It is very hard to make every one happy , But some people will complain no matter what. Richard, Alaine Sugar and Sherk are professional and a lot of fun . Hope to spend some time on Bubbles with you some time , I love to hear a good B@#$
h.

[BettyinToronto]

Dank120. The person who told me this was Brian the Manager of the CN dives hop. He was gone when we got there (back to Europe I believe) and he hadn't been replaced yet so there was no one to complain to. I also wish they had split the group like you suggested but they never did until the last day when they had 5 OW and 6 AOW. I would have been happy if they had done that all week. I also agree with your last statement about diving in Jamaica. It isn't the best but it's free on top of an incredible week at an amazing place. We love it so much we go once a year. Just booked September 2013.

Doug: We had an issue with one of the dive shop guys (I will not mention names) and we're hoping it is better this September. If he is still an a$$ (it was to us + another AOW diving alone) then my husband will want to cancel our September 2013 trip but I suggested we try CSA. I am hopeful.

[klkennedy2012]

does anyone know if you are divng for the first time if at couples negril do you have to swim the pool 8 times before the class?

[dank120]

does anyone know if you are divng for the first time if at couples negril do you have to swim the pool 8 times before the class?

Yes, it's 8 laps in a small pool. It's only 25 feet long.

[wegonjamaica]

Wow...why the hangup on depth???? What do you expect to see in 80' of water you don't see in 45'? This is Jamaica. This is a resort that will take people that have never had their head under water and with 4 hours of training take them down 45' and swim around a wreck. And it is INCLUDED. NO EXTRA COST. Couples is not a dive resort. Yet look at the set up they provide. Dive shop...Dive Masters (notice the multiples) and some very nice/well equipt dive boats. Where else as a certified diver can you walk into the dive shop and be provided all your equipment/free air/DM escorts/dive boat and a whole lot of laughs twice a day for as long as you are staying? And me personally I enjoy diving with the baby seals (as Colin at CTI calls them). It gives me an opportunity as an experienced diver to introduce and pass along some of the thrills of diving. It also gives me an opportunity to help out the dive shop staff with first time divers. When you have 8 people that have never been diving it can be a handful. And any certified diver should be happy to help pass along this fantastic experience. I have been able to introduce several people to diving through Couples dive program.

Dank120 and Irie at CN are both dead on in there post. This ias a wonderful program and want to thank Couples for providing such an opportunity the all divers.

I still cannot figure out why the depth of a dive is so important? Besides you get less BT at 80 than you do at 45....

[Karon]

Hi Betty,
Hope you see this post. Thought I'd let you know I got my OW certification at CSA - WooHoo! I was goiong to dive at CN but only there 5 days and was too busy doing other things. BTW, we has a great snorkle off the beach at BGN. Had an interesting interaction with a very large Eagle ray out there. It's all in my review.
I would encourage you to try CSA even if it's just for the diving. They should have their new dive boat in a few weeks. Just thought I'd mention that when I was completing my OW cert they took us on a seperate dive session that isn't listed on the schedule so it doesn't interfer with other divers. Only on my last required dive was I allowed to go with other divers on a regularly scheduled dive. I was booked into a 60' dive and the dive master kept an eye on me. I was great! I only had a chance to do 1 dive as a cert OW diver and again booked into a 60" dive. On this dive there were a number of experienced divers and some AOW divers. We went to a location that was 80' or more in some spots. As I was part of the group I stayed with them but the dive master told me not to go below 70'. I found myself a little deeper a couple of times because I was so comfortable and enjoying myself. It was a really good dive and made me want more. Unfortunaltey for a number of reasons I didn't get another chance to dive. Oh well, I'll be back a New Years and will get a chance then.
The dive team at CSA are wonderful and the people working on their certification do not interfer with the OW and AOW divers. Another reason to consider the switch to CSA is because Brian is now the manager of the water sports team. He is a great asset to the group and is very focused on providing excellent customer service. You will have no problem getting a true AOW dive at CSA. Your husband will not have wasted his time or money to get his AOW.
Where ever you go I hope you have a great trip.
Karon

[smroot]

I look at depth this way, and I am a padi divemaster, when I am on a paying vacation to a wonderful dive spot I do not want to do deep dives at all, why, my bottom time is limited and I am paying for the experience of a new site and location. Nothing like a 20 minute dive to 120 feet followed by a 20 minute boat ride so I can do a shallow dive of say 40 feet for 30 maybe 40 minutes per the instruction of the dive staff on the dive boat. Nothing like spending all that money for maybe an hour of bottom time for a 2 tank dive. Give me 2 dives to 30 or 40 feet when I can stay on the bottom for an hour each, and enjoy the life living in, around and on the coral reefs. Let me take my good old fashion time and enjoy the money I have spent to dive and oh yea, let the dive masters give me heck for my wife and I being the last ones back onto the dive boat when we were supposed to surface with 1000 lbs still in the tank. Mr dive master sir, I still have 1500 pounds or more left can we go back down then? My point is, the shallower dives are safer, last longer and you will see more sea life for the money you have spent. You will not have to worry about the bends, and you can add significant bottom time to your log book. By the way, when I am diving I never let them know I am a dive master, I only show them my open water card, dated 5/5/81. Last time I showed my dive master card, while on a trip to the Caymen Islands, I got put to work as they were short dive masters and it was the only way the boat was going out that morning. Guess what, it was a planned 120 foot dive to an area that goes much deeper and I had to chase someone down to 150. We then did a safety stop and the next shallow dive was real shallow and short. Enjoy the shallow dives my friends and drink a cold one for me afterwards. And yes I carry insurance only because I am a dive master and could be held liable even though I am on vacation and not working.