Please read these 2 sides of the story and help me pick a better shop next time

[Pauly854]

Sounds like these idiots were expecting the dive op to cater to them, keep them safe, lead them by the hand and wipe their a$$. Customer service is a good thing, but be responsible for your own safety. "When she headed back, again she did not bother checking our air!!!!!!"...do they not no how to read an spg?

 

[Heatheroe]

Scuba Steve, I agree that the divers should have taken some kind of a refresher course. Frankly, after 35 years, I wouldn't remember what my best friend from high school looked like, much less all the ins and outs of diving.

We have visited this country (Bahamas) a few times and did a resort course in Long Island with Stella Maris. We're considering using them to finish our certifications but if it's that hard to choose a shop in our own hometown, I imagine it will be even harder in another country. We did get very good vibes from them before but it was just Discover Scuba. I will look at reviews, etc before we decide. We had such a bad experience with our local shop, I just need things to be smooth sailing from here. Thanks again!

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

Sounds like these idiots were expecting the dive op to cater to them, keep them safe, lead them by the hand and wipe their a$$. Customer service is a good thing, but be responsible for your own safety. "When she headed back, again she did not bother checking our air!!!!!!"...do they not no how to read an spg?

I thought the same thing, but let it go

---------- Post Merged at 04:35 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 04:33 PM ----------

Scuba Steve, I agree that the divers should have taken some kind of a refresher course. Frankly, after 35 years, I wouldn't remember what my best friend from high school looked like, much less all the ins and outs of diving.

We have visited this country (Bahamas) a few times and did a resort course in Long Island with Stella Maris. We're considering using them to finish our certifications but if it's that hard to choose a shop in our own hometown, I imagine it will be even harder in another country. We did get very good vibes from them before but it was just Discover Scuba. I will look at reviews, etc before we decide.

okay pm me this shop, I'm headed to Freeport week after next, and haven't decided who I'm diving with yet. Hopefully this was on another island. I did my classes here in GA, and was suppose to do my OW in a quarry, but broke my ankle and ended up doing in what I would consider not so great diving conditions in HI, but I'm very glad I did because since then even the worse ocean diving conditions haven't been so bad.

 

[mathauck0814]

I wish people like the reviewer in OP's quoted article would post their intention to dive BEFORE they go (not just rant about it later).

Would help the rest of us avoid them out on the water.

 

[cbm32]

I could be completely off base here..............but if my buddy and I were the ONLY two people on the boat, and they bothered to put a DM in the water, I would expect a much higher level of service than it sounds like they got.

Also, if I am a DM trying to make a living from scuba, no way in hell I treat paying customers like this. It just isnt good business to do so.

Are ALL of the complaints legit? Maybe and maybe not. But if the customer thinks they are you have just created a whole lot of negative stuff out there and that is no way to build or maintain a successful business.

Looking at it from yet another angle, while we are all supposed to be responsible for ourselves and take care of our buddy too, if one of these divers had become a fatality and the other was around to tell this story, I believe this op would have been in really deep excrement.

Perhaps I am just coming from the background of having been a social worker and working in a couple of service industries on the side but I can tell you that I take better care than this of divers in my group that are not my buddy when I am paying my way and diving for fun.

 

[Rhone Man]

Hard to judge opposing testimony, but I would apportion blame at 60% to the OP and 40% to the Dive Shop. Dad not diving for 35 years (!) and refusing to take a refresher course and being unable to set up gear is a bad start which it is hard to fully recover from.


The story about the DM getting them to turn around and then running off lacks credibility to me. I don't care how bored you are as a DM, everyone knows what it means if a customer gets lost: at best a headache, and at worst, highly unnecessary paperwork. I have never seen a DM "leave" a guided customer, but I have seen a lot of divers lose their DM, and the smart money says that is what is more likely to have happened on that part.

Dive shop sounds a little rude, but unless I have interpreted the data wrongly, probably not unprofessional.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

First of all I am going to direct everyone to this thread.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ering-diving/283566-who-responsible-what.html
These types of occurrences are why I wrote it to begin with.

Next I suggest you read this one for finding a good class.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ng/287780-how-find-excellent-scuba-class.html

Just talking to an instructor usually won't do it. You need to actually interview them as you would any employee. Only this employee is going to teach you how to survive, exist, and hopefully have fun in an alien environment that is normally hostile to human life and if you forget that may injure or even kill a diver in some very nasty ways.

The main thing to remember is unless SPECIFICALLY contracted for it, the DM is not responsible for your safety. Neither is your buddy. You are and your training should prepare you for that. I actually look for ops that do not put a DM in the water. I don't want one. I decide what is interesting to me. All I want is a good site briefing, which it sounds like the people got, a heading, and then leave me and my buddy, if I have one, alone to do the dive that we planned. The poster of that thread sounds like a pampered spoiled individual who never learned about personal responsibility. If I am going on a dive that is costing me over $100 I don't want someone I have never met touching my gear.

I do not expect them to plan my dive, keep track of my air, keep track of the time, or all of the above. That is my job. Theirs is to get me to the site and back safely. And hopefully have fresh cut oranges after the dives. A certified diver should never NEED a DM. There is a difference between needing and wanting one. A certified diver should be trained well enough to know when it would be a good idea to have one and when one is not needed. If an instructor ever says you do not need to worry about this or that since the op will have a DM in the water run, don't walk, away from that instructor and find another one.

 

[FPDocMatt]

I'd like to cast a vote on the side of the candy-a$$es.

I've just finished a week of delightful boat dives here in Cozumel at the Cozumel Invasion with Dive Paradise. Our DM (Martin) was great because he took responsibility for the welfare of the entire group at all times--on the boat before the dive, in the water during the dive, and on the boat after the dive. He was always looking back and making sure we were okay. He would frequently make suggestions about things like finning style, adding or subtracting air from BC, swimming shallower or deeper, etc. If I ever started looking around for my buddy (yes, I shouldn't have lost track of him in the first place, I admit it), Martin would ring his bell and point to my buddy. So he was always aware of what was going on with each of the 8 divers in the group at all times.

I would never want to go on a group dive with a DM who thought his only responsibility was to point out interesting sites, and who made no effort slow down if the group were falling behind.

Regarding the 2-year hiatus, I've seen dive ops where a refresher dive with a DM is a prerequisite before you can go on a dive, if you haven't dived in a certain length of time. The dive op in question here could avoid the problem of people not being up to snuff by just requiring this.

Since I rent BC and regulator, they're always attached to the tanks by the DM's. If the DM told me to attach my own, I'd wonder what that was about. In this case, they wanted to see if the divers knew what they were doing. Well, in that case, perhaps it would be good to be up front about it. "You haven't dived in 2 years, and I want to make sure you know what you're doing. Would you please set up your gear, I'll watch you and give you any pointers if you need them." Something like that.

But from the response of the dive operator, it sounds like she was angry before the boat left the dock over the divers refusing the refresher course. There's one thing I don't ever want to have, and that's a DM who's pissed off at me before we even get in the water!

 

[koozemani]

My opinion places about 80% of the wrong on the divers and 20% on the op. after a 35 year hiatus, a refresher should have been mandatory. After 2 a refresher would be a good idea and is mandatory at some dive shops.

Refusing the refresher, wrong.
Being so rusty as to not be confident on how to assemble your own gear, wrong
Expecting the dm to be your personal servant, wrong
needing someone to keep track of your air, wrong.
Acting like a spoiled beat afterwards, wrong.

Personally, I hate playing follow the leader in a group, don't like people handling my gear, or babysitting me in general. A 40-45 minute dive is short for that depth, but if that is how they limit their dives then so be it.

My 2 boys just went through a Scuba Rangers camp and are more self sufficient than this group. They assembled, disassembled and rinsed their own gear. stayed with their buddies, kept track of their air and knew when to surface.

 

[FoxHound]

so the majority of dive ops with an exception to the carib, don't put your gear together and don't hold you hand while you dive. If you say you are experienced then its assumed you can perform the basics (like checking pressures).......if you can't then take the f'n refresher......but then again pride is painful


The divers didn't follow proper protocol and im sure there is more to it then what was mentioned.......with the tone of the message im sure the divers were pretty arrogant as well.


Point being, as long as the boat gets me to where I wanna go, and picks me up when the dive is over its all good. My training has showed me how to handle the rest.