Dive package prices: how to compare what is included

How do you define a dive package?

Picture a week on Bonaire with the keys to a rental vehicle and dozens of official dive sites, most of them reachable from shore. Buddy Dive sells that week as its Drive & Dive package: 7 nights of accommodation, a 7-day rental vehicle and 6 days of unlimited shore diving. ^{10, 1}

Roatan builds the week another way. Anthony's Key Resort sells the room, three meals a day and airport transfers as its Resort Package, then adds diving as a separate package with its own tax. On San Salvador in the Bahamas, Riding Rock Resort folds the room, meals, boat dives and all taxes into one number. ^{2, 3, 4}

• Partly bundled: Buddy Dive's Drive & Dive covers the room, a rental vehicle, airport transfers and shore diving, with boat dives and equipment priced as extras. ^{1, 5}
• Add-on: Anthony's Key's Resort Package covers the stay, and a 6-dive, 12-dive or 6-day dive package goes on top. ^{2, 3}
• All-inclusive: Riding Rock's dive packages cover the room, meals, airport transfers, a set number of boat dives and all taxes. ⁴

Before you compare two prices, write one sentence for each quote: the nights, the dives by type, how many people share the room, the equipment, the transport and the currency. A quote that leaves part of that sentence blank needs one more email to the resort. Twenty scheduled dives and six days of shore access are different products at any price. ^{3, 1}

If you are still deciding between sleeping on a boat and sleeping by the shore, liveaboard vs shore diving cost compares the complete trip.

What should an inclusion grid include?

Give each quote a column and each part of the trip a row. In every cell, write included, extra with its price, or unconfirmed. Here is that grid for three published packages on one basis: 7 nights, two people sharing, and each resort's high season where it sets one. ^{1, 2, 4}

Count the people in the room. Buddy Dive prices per person at full occupancy, so in high season its Drive & Dive Shore week costs $1,611.68 each for two people in a 1-Bedroom and $1,161.29 each for six sharing a 3-Bedroom Apartment. That is a $450.39 gap per person for the same diving. ¹

Riding Rock also publishes single, triple and quad rates, cheaper per person as more people share. If your group is smaller than the headcount a price assumes, ask for the rate at your own number. ⁴

• Boat dives and shore diving, counted separately
• Each piece of equipment, with its unit: per day, per week or per dive
• Tax: included, extra with its rate, or unconfirmed
• Park and local fees, and who collects them
• Transport from the airport and to each dive site
• Cancellation tiers and what happens to unused dives

How to compare dive packages using the payable total

The payable total is the price plus every tax and fee the price leaves out. For one diver in a shared 7-night week, priced as in the grid above, that comes to $1,535.13 plus tax at Buddy Dive, $2,601.08 at Anthony's Key and $2,184 at Riding Rock. Only Buddy Dive's week leaves every meal and every boat dive for you to buy. ^{1, 6, 2, 3, 4}

Divide the diving by the dives you will make. Anthony's Key's 6-Day Dive Package is $780 for 20 scheduled dives, or $39 a dive. Riding Rock's 6-night diver package costs $657 more than the same stay for a non-diver: $50.54 for each of its 13 dives, within 54 cents of its $50 rate for an extra dive. ^{3, 4}

One week is only part of a diving year. How much a year of diving costs sets the package beside everything else you spend to stay in the water.

How do dive allowances differ from schedules?

A dive count comes from a schedule. Riding Rock runs two morning boat dives and one afternoon dive on each full dive day, then a 1-tank dive on the last dive day, and keeps arrival and departure days free of diving. That is how the 7-day, 6-night package holds 13 dives. ⁴

Price the extra day, too. Stretching a Riding Rock stay from 7 days to 8 adds a night, meals and three boat dives for $202 per person, while the step from 6 days to 7 costs $344. ⁴

Unlimited diving still runs on a calendar. Buddy Dive sells unlimited shore diving at $48 a day, $205 for its 6-day week or $239 for 7 days, so the seventh day adds $34. Four single days cost $192 and five cost $240, so the week pays from the fifth day you dive. ⁵

Then test the week you expect to dive. Skip one day of Anthony's Key's 6-Day Dive Package and 17 of its 20 dives remain, so each dive you make costs $45.88, up from $39. Its 12 Boat Dive Package holds a flat $40 a dive for a lighter week. ³

What equipment should you check for separately?

A full rental set has a local definition. At Buddy Dive on Bonaire, the $48-a-day scuba set covers a BCD, regulator, mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit and a dive computer. Rainbow Reef in Key Largo rents its full gear package for $35 a day with the same kit minus the computer, which rents for $15, so its like-for-like set is $50. ^{5, 11}

Rent by the week when you dive most days. Seven daily scuba sets at Buddy Dive cost $336 against $240 for the week, a $96 difference. A mask and snorkel follow the same pattern: $56 for seven single days against $40 for the week. ⁵

Some packages fold the gear in. Buddy Dive's Become a Diver package, from $1,620.92 per person, bundles 7 nights, a 7-day rental vehicle, and unlimited air and rental equipment for the week. ¹

If you own most of your kit, the buying vs renting scuba gear worksheet finds your break-even, and diving with your own gear: baggage costs prices the flight side of the same choice.

What does guided diving actually include?

Guiding is priced by the dive. Buddy Dive charges $52 for one guided dive with a divemaster and $83 for two in a half day, or $41.50 a dive. Before you pay for guiding inside a package, get these answers for each type of outing. ⁵

• Is a guide in the water on every boat dive, or does the crew brief buddy teams at the surface?
• How many divers share one guide?
• How does the shop match experience levels on each boat?
• Does the guide stay with the group for the whole dive?

For a smaller group or a guide of your own, private vs group dive guiding compares the service and the price.

Are local fees included in dive package prices?

Park fees go to the park. STINAPA manages Bonaire National Marine Park and Washington Slagbaai National Park for the Bonaire government. Its nature fee costs $40 a person, is mandatory for every user of both parks and stays valid for the calendar year. You pay it through STINAPA's own online portal. ^{7, 6}

Some fees wait for checkout. From 2027, Aggressor's Hurghada Floating Resort adds a $90 port fee and a $100 marine park fee per person at checkout. With 14% VAT on both, those two fees come to $216.60, and the $25 visa brings the local bill to $241.60 before gear, nitrox or tips. ⁸

Tips come on top. Riding Rock's all-inclusive price leaves them out, and Aggressor keeps tipping voluntary and outside the price at every destination it runs. ^{4, 8}

Marine park and conservation fees covers park charges in more destinations, and the Cozumel diving budget prices boats, lodging and marine fees for one island.

What transport is included in your package?

Airport transfers are the easy part. All three resorts in the grid include them. The questions that move the total sit between the room and the water, and between your home airport and the island. ^{1, 2, 4}

• Buddy Dive's Drive & Dive pairs its airport transfers with a 7-day rental vehicle. ¹
• Anthony's Key includes round-trip airport transfers in its Resort Package. ²
• Riding Rock covers transfers between San Salvador's airport and the resort; getting to and from San Salvador island is a separate purchase. ⁴
• Aggressor's Hurghada transfers are complimentary for guests arriving and departing through Hurghada Airport on the charter's start and end dates. ⁸

Ask how many vehicles come with a shared apartment and who drives. A vehicle shared by six divers makes a different week from one shared by two. Map each outing from the room to the dive site and back, and price every leg the package leaves to you.

Before you pay: get the package in writing

Send the resort your version of the booking and ask it to correct you. A specific summary draws specific answers, and the reply becomes the record you check when the balance falls due.

1. 01

   Write the package sentence

   Nights, dives by type, people sharing, equipment, transport and currency, each taken from the resort's own page with the date you read it.

2. 02

   Ask for every remaining payment

   Tax with its rate, park fees, anything collected at checkout, and the price of dives beyond the package. At Riding Rock, extra boat dives are $50 each with a minimum of 6 divers. ⁴

3. 03

   Put the cancellation tiers in your calendar

   Copy each deadline in the operator's own words. Buddy Dive's four tiers are in the table below. ⁹

4. 04

   Plan how you pay on arrival

   Ask which cards and currencies the operator takes for local charges. Aggressor accepts gratuities in cash, Visa or Mastercard. ⁸

With dates this firm, read what scuba insurance wording needs to cover before the first penalty date arrives.