Silent World Key Largo, Not everything you could ask for

[Rainer]

I sure hope someone making a decision to spend money at Silent World reads the whole thread and not just the first post.

There was obvious miscommunication... but... as a PADI Instructor, I wouldn't have signed off on the Adventure Dive, either.

Asking for a guide who is an instructor is a completely different question than asking for an instructor to do an Adventure Dive.

Right, and the OP asked for the latter (according to the woman who took the phone message, at least until she edited her post). No one thinks they should have signed off on the paperwork, but they SHOULD return the money. They admit (again, until this morning's convenient edits) that they messed up the communications.

 

[reefman]

I do not understand any of this. This is exactly why I have learning agreements with all of the people I work with. No matter if I'm just doing a discover scuba or a guided local dive. Too many people think we in the service industry are mind readers. You got a guided dive on the grove. Frankly I think all the ops in the keys should stop doing this for OW divers unless they sign up to take a deep, AOW, or other course with all the required paperwork. People today expect everything to be done for them. An instructor took the time out of his/her schedule to do this dive. Granted it was probably fun for them but it still was time they may have been able to spend making even more money. 50 bucks to have someone make sure a diver who really should not be doing the dive at all does not get bent, hurt, or killed is cheap. This should hae been put in the whine and cheese forum. Chris I think your best bet is to just ban newbies from those dives all together unless as I said earlier they are doing a class. This way there is no question as to what the paperwork needs to be. A 3 person charter to the grove with a guide. let see 80 bucks per person is 240, plus 50 for the Instructor/GUIDE, tax, fuel surcharge, etc. Yeah you got exactly what you paid for. Was it what you asked for? Maybe not but again stop crying over spilt milk. Should he get his 50 bucks? Hell No! Standards were adhered to, everyone came back safe, someone who had no business on a dive like the grove on their own or with buddies not suited to conducting an ow diver on this dive got to do the dive. If it's that big a deal file a complaint with PADI or the BBB. NO instead it's better to throw a hissy fit and cry and whine on an internet message board. You were given an out. Your plans made it so you could not take it. The fact you were offered a dive to make up for it when without the paperwork should not count anyway says something about the class of the op. I've dealt with too many people who think they are entitled to have their way all the time. My advice to you and all the other whiners is go ahead and stay away from the op. More room for us who understand what being in the service industry entails. All the crap we take from yuppies and others who in my day were called spoiled brats. Yet we are still supposed to smile and be nice. Musn't ruffle feathers. Somebody may get angry. TOO BAD! Where is your girlfriend in all of this? Why is she not posting. You are out nothing! Should have not been a wimp and did the entire class at home. Vacation divers make me sick. Those of us who dive alot, not only away but whenever and wherever we can, understand stuff happens. Better if some who only dive a few times a year just quit altogether.

jimlap, you've been certified all of 3 years(taken from your profile) and your making the following asinine comments, and I quote: "vacation divers make me sick. those of us that dive alot" and it gets better, " better if some who only dive a few times a year just quit altogether

jack_ss comes to mind,,,,,,



reefman
key largo
certified 1973

 

[LiteHedded]

Right, and the OP asked for the latter (according to the woman who took the phone message, at least until she edited her post). No one thinks they should have signed off on the paperwork, but they SHOULD return the money. They admit (again, until this morning's convenient edits) that they messed up the communications.

exactly.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

jimlap, you've been certified all of 3 years(taken from your profile) and your making the following asinine comments, and I quote: "vacation divers make me sick. those of us that dive alot" and it gets better, " better if some who only dive a few times a year just quit altogether

jack_ss comes to mind,,,,,,



reefman
key largo
certified 1973

I have my opinions you have yours. I stand by mine. Up here getting 80 or so dives a year is alot I'll actually hit over a hundred this year alone. If I lived in Fla it'd be closer to 200 a year or more. And yes if I could only dive on vacation it would not be worth it. I see these people all the time for their refreshers. And yes they make me sick cause when you suggest local diving they shudder like they were asked to do it in a cesspool. And then they wonder why their skills are crap. And when I have to be on a boat on vacation with these peole they do make me sick. Tearing up the reef, silting things up, and trying to put their gear together backwards. It's why I try to dive with ops on vacation that look the other way when I go in alone. Want me to dive with one of these people? Sure. 50 bucks and sign this release.

 

[John_B]

Ryan, I don't know what happened or didn't happen or who said what or didn't say what. I will say that, after reading your post a couple of times, you strike me as another of the many "something for nothing" types I've met in my life. I could be wrong, but something tells me I'm not. Even reading this with your spin, you admit your friend didn't complete the one objective of the deep dive for the AOW (i.e. a timed task to demonstrate being narc'ed). Which dive boat in the Keys do you think gives out refunds for not completing the objective?

I have to say that I personally don't buy the "they didn't know what the requirements were" argument because the requirements for the deep dive is in the same "Adventures in Diving" book as the other PADI AOW "adventure dives" -- including objectives and knowledge reviews that you are saying your friend completed for the other dives. Something there doesn't add up.

Now I don't know what you are going to expect over at OD, but if you think you're going over there looking to bluster you way into completing your friends AOW for a $50 dive without even completing the one main objective, well you might just be surprised at how that will play out at OD. Especially once they read this post and know you're coming. In fact, I'll even do you a favor and call over there to give them a heads up about this thread so they'll know what to expect from you when you and your friend show up.

By the way, nice fourth post.

John

In mid September I booked a trip with Silent World for 10-13. When I called I spoke with Pat and booked a morning trip for my girlfriend, brother and myself. I explained that my girlfriend was working towards her advanced certification through PADI and had already completed 3 of the 5 dives locally. We were advised by our local dive shop that we could complete the deep dive on a trip where the water would be warm instead of in a local lake where the water would be 50 degrees at that depth. When I booked the trip for 10-13, I requested an instructor from Silent World to complete the deep dive for the advanced certification. Pat informed me that the dive could be completed with no problem, it would just be an additional $50 for an instructor to complete the requirements of the advanced deep dive. A week before the trip, I called and confirmed again with Pat, all of these details for the dive including the instructor for the advanced deep dive.

We arrived in Key Largo at the Silent World dive shop, where we picked up our weights and were charged for the entire trip prior to getting to the dock. We then drove to the dock and met with Captain AJ and the Instructor Joe, who explained the details of the dives to Spiegel Grove and the Banana Reef. Joe explained to my girlfriend the details of the deep dive and as far as I could tell he was giving her the instruction that was needed to complete the deep dive for the advanced certification. The instructor was with my girlfriend on the deep dive and accompanied us on the second reef dive as well. Overall, the boats were in good shape, Captain AJ was extremely helpful and friendly and our diving experience itself was great.

After returning to the dock, my girlfriend gave Instructor Joe her dive log book so he could sign off on the deep dive, he then informed us that he would not be able to do so. We did not understand why and he explained that he had been told he was just a guide for my girlfriend on the trip. We then returned to the dive shop to return our weights and find out why we were provided a guide and not an instructor for the advanced deep dive as I was promised. Chris, the owner, attempted to tell me that I had booked a guide and not an instructor for the deep dive. He showed us the schedule book, which had notes from Pat containing our request for an instructor for the deep dive; and below a different note for a guide to be booked and not an instructor. Chris tried to tell us that we had in fact booked a guide, even though the note written from my conversation with Pat specifically said otherwise. The guide and instructor word seems to be used interchangeably, which is what led to my girlfriend receiving and being charged for something different than what was requested and confirmed prior. Chris confirmed that the dive could not be signed off by the instructor because the instruction portion for the deep dive had not been completed. Chris did offer to allow the dive to be completed the following day, unfortunately our flight left the following day from Ft. Lauderdale and we would not be able to accept this offer. Chris asked what we wanted to be done, and we explained that because we were given a guide, instead of an instructor for the advanced deep dive, we wanted our $50refunded because we did not get what was promised.

As a group we would have been content with two reef dives or a shallower wreck dive, and the only reason we did the Spiegel Grove was so my girlfriend could do her advanced deep dive with an instructor. Chris refused to refund the $50 and tried to suggest that we should have been charged more because only the 3 of us were on the boat and that could be considered a private charter, even though we never requested a private charter. Allison also suggested that we should be charged an additional $25 because my brother and myself were probably in the "vicinity" of the "guide" on the dives. After having both owners blame us for their failure to book and provide us with our promised requests we left the shop.

Our issue with Silent World is that what we requested and what was promised by the dive shop was not provided and we were instead blamed for this "miscommunication" and they failed to rectify the situation.

Outside of our dealings with the owners, our dive experience was great thanks to Captain AJ, who ran a great boat and Joe who was a very thorough and safe guide/instructor.

Due to this experience, it is unfortunate, but we are not able to recommend Silent World. However, after speaking with other divers in Key Largo about our experience we are going to use Ocean Divers because of local recommendations and my brothers past experience with them. We look forward to visiting the Keys again soon. It was just disappointing that my girlfriend and myself had to leave our first trip to the keys on a sour note.

-Ryan

 

[Bad-Andy]

As a business owner myself I see this attitude more and more and cannot for the life of me understand it. In this modern world with all the competition and internet wildfire spreading the report, why would you not be more pliable in satisfying a customer?

Satisfying a customer is one thing, but there is a greater issue at hand here-- adhering to standards. It seems that they offered this diver the free, correct dive the next day. That was the only realistic option. Had they offered the $50 back, it sounds like said diver would have made a big deal about "how they spent $xxx on airfare, hotel, etc" just for this trip to get AOW. Should the shop be on the hook for that? Of course not. It's idiotic to even suggest that. The only other option was for the shop to just sign off the dive. Oh, except that is a complete violation of PADI standards and could put their entire operation at risk (no KR, no instructional brief, etc). Had they done that and something happened down the road, they could have lost everything in a lawsuit. Sounds equally idiotic to me to risk that.

It sounds like SW did everything they could (legally) to resolve the situation, and it is not their fault the guy was leaving the next day. The moral of the story? Don't threaten a business owner with "costing him $1000s" in a bad internet report. And, for those of you who are on here saying that you'll never use SW, shame on you for jumping to conclusions. But, you're probably not the kind of customers they want anyways...

 

[divad]

I've only spoken to the new owners on the phone and they really, really, do not strike me as ruthless scumbags. If it was clear that they had acted unethically, then I would boycott them. They offer great bang for the buck, and I'm low maintanance, so I will dive with them.

 

[Hemlon]

I have my opinions you have yours. I stand by mine. Up here getting 80 or so dives a year is alot I'll actually hit over a hundred this year alone.

 

[deepstops]

I'm low maintanance, so I will dive with them.

Me too

 

[divad]

Also to complete a aow deep dive for a private (1) student should be more than the $50. the divers though it would be.More like in the $125. QUOTE]



Maybe they were trying to get away with a cheap sign-off.