Blue Grotto is lucky enough to enjoy a stellar reputation among visiting divers. In fact, the only thing divers don’t like is the fact that, on some weekends, there may be dozens of students doing open water training dives.
It’s not so much the number of people that’s the issue, but rather the impact this can have on visibility. Therefore, a key to having the best time possible is to time your visit when we have fewer divers here. So, when is this?
It’s not merely weekends
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are generally the slowest days of the week for the Grotto. Traffic then increases on Thursday and Friday, reaching a peak on Saturday and Sunday. This means the best time to visit Blue Grotto is usually early in the week.
But what if you have no choice but to come on a weekend? Then the key may be choosing the right weekend.
- We see the most students from late fall to early spring. This is when northern lakes, rivers and quarries are closed to divers. As an alternative, they come to Blue Grotto.
- Summer months will tend to be less busy than winter. However, how much traffic we see on any given weekend can be highly variable.
- Instructors seldom schedule training dives on holiday weekends. If you were to have come on, say, Memorial Day weekend, you would have seen fewer students but more individual divers.
We can often tell how busy we will be on upcoming weekends by the number of instructors who have reserved pavilions. This means you can call or email us a few days ahead of time to determine how busy we anticipate being.
Earlier is better
Regardless of when you come to Blue Grotto, you are always better off coming as soon after 8:00 am as possible. This is when the water is clearer, and you may have a better chance of seeing Virgil the Turtle.
We’ve often debated whether we should limit the number of students or divers we allow in the Grotto at one time. After all, the quality of our guests’ experience is more important to us than making every buck possible. We haven’t because doing so might greatly inconvenience visitors who’ve driven several hours, hoping to dive the Grotto.
For now, we’re hoping to avoid this by steering people to less busy days and weeks. If you can do this, you’ll have the best possible time when you visit us.