The short answer
- You do not need a certification. An introductory dive takes an hour of instruction and puts you on the outer reef the same day.
- Introductory dives start at $90 on top of the day fare, at Passions of Paradise and Down Under. Dreamtime is $102 and Silverswift $98.
- Certified dives: Passions of Paradise is $75 for the first and $55 for the second, with gear and wetsuit included.
- Minimum age is 12 everywhere that publishes it, and you fill in a medical questionnaire before you get in.
- Do not dive within 24 hours of flying. This is the constraint that catches people on their last day.
The most common thing people get wrong about diving the Great Barrier Reef is assuming they cannot. They picture a course, a pool, a weekend and a card, and they book a snorkel trip instead.
You do not need any of that. Here is how it works out of Cairns, what each boat charges, and the one scheduling rule that trips people up.
The introductory dive
An introductory dive, sometimes called a resort dive or a try dive, is a supervised dive for people with no qualification and often no experience at all.
The shape of it is the same on every boat. On the crossing you get a briefing covering the equipment, how to clear your mask, how to equalise your ears and the hand signals. At the reef you go in with an instructor, in a small group, usually to around 6 to 8 metres, for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. The instructor is holding on to you or beside you the entire time.
What it is not: it is not a qualification, and it does not let you dive independently afterwards. What it is: the difference between looking at the reef and being in it, which is larger than any photograph suggests.
Quick picks
You can be breathing underwater on the Great Barrier Reef this week, with no course and no certification.
- First dive on a full reef dayDreamtime Dive and Snorkel, intro dive $102See the day →
- Certified divingPassions of Paradise, $75 first diveSee the day →
- Up to three divesSilverswift, three sites, $308See the day →
On this page
What it costs, boat by boat
All from our own tour pages. Prices are per dive and sit on top of the day fare.
| Tour | Day fare | Intro dive | Certified dive | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel | $255 off peak, $275 peak | $102 first, $184 for two | $81 one, $103 for two | Full day with about five hours at the reef; from age 12 |
| Passions of Paradise | $275 | $90 first, $60 second | $75 first, $55 second | Gear and wetsuit included on certified dives |
| Down Under Cruise & Dive | $275 | $90 per dive | $90 per dive | Or a dedicated dive departure at $365 with the first dive included |
| Silverswift | $308 | $98 first, $186 for two | $78 first, $116 second, $142 third | All dives guided; three sites |
| SeaStar | $280 | $95 first, $55 second | $75 one, $130 two | Michaelmas Cay and Hastings Reef |
| Ocean Spirit | $288 | $174 | Not published | Sailing catamaran to Michaelmas Cay |
Our own published fares. Minimum age for diving is 12 on every operator that publishes one.
Two numbers worth pulling out of that table. Every Silverswift dive is guided, so its $78 certified dive is not a like-for-like comparison with a bare $75 elsewhere. And Down Under's dedicated diving departure at $365 bundles the first dive into a higher fare rather than selling it as an add-on, which works out well if you intend to do two or three.
Your first dive
Swipe or use the arrows.
A first dive on a full snorkel day
If you would like to try diving once, the easiest way is to add it to a full day at the reef.
Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, from $255 off peak. A full day with about five hours at the outer reef, marine biologists and an Indigenous cultural presentation. Add an introductory dive for $102 (no certification, from age 12), or a certified dive for $81, two for $103. Diving is subject to availability and an on-board medical questionnaire.
For the same kind of day, Passions of Paradise at $275 plus a $90 intro dive comes to $365, and Dreamtime comes to $357 off peak or $377 in peak season. The gap is small, so pick on the day itself rather than the price.
The catch, and there is always one: Dreamtime is a two-site day rather than three, and it is a general reef boat rather than a dive-led one. If diving is the whole point of your trip, a dive boat serves you better. If it is something you would like to try once, this works.
If you are undecided about whether you will dive, choose a boat where the dive is an add-on and decide when you book. The dive is 20 to 40 minutes out of an eight-hour day, so it costs very little snorkelling time.
If you are already certified
Bring your card, or a digital copy of it. No card, no certified dive, and you fall back to an introductory dive at the higher price.
Passions of Paradise charges $75 for the first certified dive and $55 for the second, with gear and wetsuit included. Transfers are $25 from the city and $45 from the northern beaches.
On dives per day, Silverswift is built for it. Three outer reef sites means three dives is realistic, at $78, $116 and $142 cumulative with dive gear and wetsuit included, or $65, $103 and $129 with tanks and weights only. It also holds 19 exclusive sites.
On depth and structure, the southern cluster is the draw. Flynn and Milln have the swim-throughs and walls; the northern reefs are flatter and better for snorkellers. See our guide to the Cairns reef sites for which boat works which reef.
Age, health and the 24-hour rule
Four things decide whether you can dive, and it is better to know them now than at the dive deck.
Minimum age 12
Every operator that publishes a minimum age sets it at 12 for an introductory dive. Under 12s snorkel, and on a pontoon they have the lagoon, the semi-submersible and the observatory instead.
A medical questionnaire, before you get in
Compulsory under the Queensland code of practice. Asthma, heart conditions, recent surgery, epilepsy, ear and sinus problems and some medications all trigger further questions, and some need a doctor's clearance obtained before you travel. Declare things. An undeclared condition is the one genuine risk here.
No diving within 24 hours of flying
The rule that ruins plans. If your flight home is on Saturday, Friday is not a dive day. Build the diving into the first half of your trip, not the last morning.
Ears that will equalise
The most common reason a first dive gets cut short is a head cold. If you cannot clear your ears on a plane, you will not clear them at 8 metres, and the instructor will bring you back up. It is worth moving the booking rather than wasting it.
What your first dive is like
Honest version, from what guests report back rather than from the brochure.
The first two minutes are strange. Breathing underwater through a regulator feels wrong until it suddenly does not, and the instructor expects that. Almost everyone has a moment at the surface where they wonder whether to go through with it.
The ears are the hard part, not the breathing. You equalise every metre or so on the way down. If it hurts, you stop and go up slightly. Nobody is in a hurry.
At depth it goes quiet. This is the part people describe afterwards. No splashing, no surface, and fish behave differently around a diver than around a snorkeller kicking on the surface, so you see more.
Twenty minutes feels like five. Consistently. Which is why the second dive on the same day is the one people wish they had booked in advance.
Should you do a full course?
Straight answer: probably not on this trip, unless you already know you want to dive for life.
A full open-water certification takes several days including pool sessions and theory, which on a week in Cairns means giving up the Daintree, the Tablelands or both. For most visitors, two introductory dives on two different days gives you more reef and less classroom for the same money.
Where a course does make sense: you are here for two weeks or more, you are travelling on to other dive destinations, or you have wanted to do it for years and this is the excuse. In that case tell us and we will point you at operators running courses, since the boats above sell dives rather than qualifications.
If you are choosing between diving and snorkelling at all, our snorkelling versus diving guide works through it properly.
Want to try a dive on your reef day?
Tell us your dates and whether anyone is certified, and we will book the boat where the dive costs least, or nothing. We will also check your flight date against the 24-hour rule before you pay.
Compare the boats →Our verdict
You do not need a course, a card or a weekend. An introductory dive puts you on the outer reef with an instructor the same day, from age 12, after a briefing on the crossing. Introductory dives cost from $90 on top of the day fare, at Passions of Paradise and Down Under. If you are certified, Passions of Paradise is $75 for the first dive and Silverswift at $308 gives you three sites with every dive guided. Whatever you book, put the diving in the first half of your trip: you cannot dive within 24 hours of flying.