Cressi Aquapro Plus BCD Scuba Diving Vest

Cressi Aquapro+ BCD: Jacket-Style Buoyancy Compensator for Recreational Divers

The Cressi Aquapro+ is a jacket-style BCD built for recreational divers who want a solid, well-equipped piece of kit without stepping into the premium price tier.

If you are newly certified or a few years into recreational diving and shopping for your first personally owned BCD, this is the kind of gear worth understanding carefully before you buy.

What "jacket style" means for you

A jacket-style BCD wraps the air cell around your sides and back. When fully inflated, it holds you upright at the surface with very little effort on your part.

That is genuinely useful when you are tired, when conditions are choppy, or when you are waiting for the boat. On the downside, some divers find that a jacket BCD pushes them slightly forward when fully inflated underwater. For recreational depths and typical reef or wreck diving, this is rarely a problem, and most divers adapt quickly.

Build quality and materials

The outer shell is 420-denier urethane-laminated nylon, a mid-weight fabric that handles the abrasion of boat rails, tank valves, and rocky entries without wearing through quickly.

The lower section uses self-draining mesh fabric, which matters more than it sounds. Mesh sheds water fast and dries quickly between dives, so you are not hauling extra weight back to the surface or stuffing a soaking BCD into your bag at the end of the day.

The back plate is rigid, which keeps your cylinder from shifting around on your back. It is also padded, so you are not feeling a hard plastic slab through your wetsuit on a long dive.

Fit and harness

The Aquapro+ runs an independent suspension system, meaning the harness and the air cell are designed to work separately. When the cell inflates, it expands away from your body rather than squeezing against you. That matters because a BCD that crushes inward as it inflates can restrict your breathing, which is exactly what you do not want at depth.

The harness gives you several points of adjustment:

• Shoulder straps with torso adjustment and squeeze-style side-release buckles
• Sternum strap that is independently adjustable
• Waist strap with a cummerbund and squeeze-style side-release buckle

The squeeze-style Fastex buckles appear throughout. These are the kind you pinch from both sides to release, rather than pull or twist. They are impact-resistant and corrosion-resistant, which matters in saltwater.

The BCD comes in multiple sizes, with the overall weight of the unit ranging from 5.3 to 6.6 lbs (2.4 to 3 kg) depending on which size you choose.

Integrated weight system

Rather than threading a separate weight belt around your waist, the Aquapro+ lets you load weight directly into two dedicated pockets, one on each side of the BCD. Each pocket holds over 10 lbs (4.5 kg), and the total weight capacity across both pockets is 20 lbs (9.1 kg).

The release mechanism uses the same squeeze-style Fastex buckles as the harness. To ditch the weights in an emergency, you squeeze and pull. The pockets are gravity-assisted, meaning once released, the weight drops away rather than clinging to the BCD.

For most recreational divers in a wetsuit, 20 lbs of integrated capacity is plenty. If you dive dry or in very thick neoprene and need more than that, you would need to supplement with a separate weight belt, which is worth factoring in before you buy.

The weight pockets sit attached to the zippered accessory pockets on each side, so you are also getting usable pocket storage for small items like an SMB, a slate, or a cutting tool.

Inflation and dump valves

The Aquapro+ uses Cressi's Commando Power Inflator, which connects to your regulator's low-pressure hose via a standard 3/8-inch threaded quick-disconnect fitting. The inflator is environmentally sealed, which reduces the chance of water intrusion into the mechanism and cuts down on how often it needs servicing.

There are three overpressure relief and dump valves in total:

• Top inflator: the pull-dump built into the power inflator mechanism itself
• Left and right shoulder valves: manually operated via pull cords, useful for fine-tuning buoyancy during ascent
• Rear lower-right valve: positioned to vent air when you are head-up at the surface or during a controlled ascent

Having three dump points gives you options depending on your body position in the water. A diver ascending feet-down will find the shoulder dumps most useful. A diver who ends up more horizontal can use the rear lower valve. Learning to use all three is part of getting comfortable with any BCD.

D-rings and attachment points

The Aquapro+ carries two stainless steel D-rings on the shoulder straps and two plastic D-rings on the pocket lobes, plus two additional snap hooks for instruments and accessories. That gives you six dedicated attachment points in total, which is enough for a dive light, an SMB reel, a computer, and a few smaller items without things getting cluttered.

Lift capacity

Lift capacity is how much buoyancy the BCD can generate, which needs to exceed the negative buoyancy of your cylinder plus any ballast you are carrying. The Aquapro+ ranges from 16.9 lbs (7.7 kg) to 36 lbs (16.3 kg) depending on size, so smaller sizes suit lighter setups and larger sizes suit heavier tanks and drysuit diving loads.

When choosing your size, match the lift capacity to your typical cylinder and weighting combination, not just your body size.

Certification

The Aquapro+ is CE certified to EN 250 and EN 1809 standards. These are the European safety standards covering breathing apparatus and buoyancy compensators. Certification to these standards means the BCD has been independently tested against defined performance and safety criteria, which is worth knowing if you dive in regions where this matters for rental or travel.

Who this BCD suits and who it does not

The Aquapro+ is a strong match for recreational divers who want a dependable, feature-complete jacket BCD for warm or temperate water diving. The integrated weight system, multiple dump valves, and durable construction cover everything a recreational diver needs without unnecessary complexity.

If you are a technical diver who needs a backplate-and-wing setup, or if you regularly dive in conditions that demand very high lift capacity, the Aquapro+ is not designed for that role. It is a recreational jacket BCD, and it does that job well.

It ships with an owner's manual, which is worth reading before your first dive with it, particularly to understand how the weight release system works before you need it underwater.