Northwest Dive Club

My girl and I are planning a dive trip for her spring break on the cheap from March 18th to the 25th give or take. she is a PhD student, so I will be fronting most of the cash for this trip. I travel a lot for work so I am trying to go to places that will let me use my miles/points. So Delta Airlines, Hilton or Holiday Inn, and Hertz.

Right now I was looking at mainland Hawaii, Key West, or Key Largo. I also haven't ruled out just loading up the truck and heading to Southern California either.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Mexico can be quite cheap if you know what you're doing. We found a hotel/air deal that ended up being something like 700 for both of us for 4 nights (that was out of O'Hare though). Diving is all boat diving however, so that adds up pretty quickly.

California has some good diving too. I'm headed to Monterey in a few days, actually, and there's some nice shore diving around there and lots of shops. This time of year hotels are cheap too - I was finding them as low as 28/night on weekdays. Even rental cars are cheap right now, and if your dates are flexible you can fly to LAX or SFO for around $120-200.

Some places in the Bahamas are pretty cheap to stay (if you have a week you could do a Blackbeards liveaboard for I think 900 is the current rate), but airfare from this side of the country is probably pretty expensive. I never found Hawaii to be cheap myself.

...now I want to go on vacation too...

Try giving Tony a buzz at Puerto Rico Technical Diving in Augadilla Puerto Rico. It is still part of the US so cheap airfare and some great diving. The trench wall drifts are amazing to do and diving around De Mona is great. They are not just a full technical shop so dont get spooked buy the name. He also has lots of choices for accommodations in the area divers bunk house, Rincon resort, Hotels, ect.

http://www.technicaldivingpr.com/

We were down their looking for a B-52 wreck for the government. Here are some of the pics from the trip.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 945&type=1

The Puerto Rico part interested me.... although when I go to their website the first thing I see is a big blurb advertising.... their upcoming trip to Bonaire.

Kinda got distracted after that.

Probabaly not the best way to advertise your services - an add about how you are going someplace else in the Caribbean

It is not a destination dive resort it is a local dive shop. so they are advertising to their local customers. Same as any shop here would do.

Well, if you don't mind a road trip, Monterey is FABULOUS. Tons of color and amazing structure -- but the best diving from shore is out of Point Lobos State Park, and you need to make reservations. (You can do it on line.) There is very affordable lodging in Monterey (Lone Oak Lodge is where we stay) particularly if you don't plan it over a weekend.

LA is also utterly fantastic, but the best diving there involves boats -- although going out to Catalina for a day or two is a pretty trip and some beautiful diving.

Personally, I wouldn't go to Hawaii for the diving. Go to Hawaii if you want a tropical vacation, but I view Hawaiian diving as something you do while you're there, not something you go there to do.

There's some GORGEOUS diving in Florida -- I haven't done the Keys, but we dove off West Palm Beach and the reefs were beautiful. And there's something amazing about diving with 400 pound fish. But again, it's all boat diving, which adds up fast.

loanwolf wrote:It is not a destination dive resort it is a local dive shop. so they are advertising to their local customers. Same as any shop here would do.

I do understand.

Puerto Rico does interest me as a place that I could probably get to easily and cheaply with miles. A bit of research might produce some decent shore diving - combined with a place to stay and perhaps a few boat dives and it could be a nice little dive vacation on the cheap, especially since I speak fluent Spanish.

I think its going to be the Keys, in fact Key largo. Air line points there and back, hotel points for the lodging and Hertz points for the rental car. Its a perk of spending a significant amount of time overseas in rather interesting places. As a bonus we will get to visit my gals snow bird father, just outside of Miami while we are there.

Thanks for the feedback!

You should look at Utila Dive Center and the Mango Inn on Utila off the coast of Honduras. I've been able to do a whole week for under $2,000 total if you get a good plane ticket.

I will have to keep Honduras in mind. At the moment I have two round trip tickets, a weeks worth of a rental car, hotel rooms, and I am only down $200 so far and most of that was for the rental car fees not covered by points.

Kelvininin wrote:I think its going to be the Keys, in fact Key largo. Air line points there and back, hotel points for the lodging and Hertz points for the rental car. Its a perk of spending a significant amount of time overseas in rather interesting places. As a bonus we will get to visit my gals snow bird father, just outside of Miami while we are there.

Thanks for the feedback!

Not that it matters but +++++