Going to Phuket in April; and tips for US Divers?

[mislav]

The problem with this board is that most of the replies here are coming from Phuket dive operators, which are NOT necessarily the clients' point of view... and it looks like there is a big difference between the way some dive operators and regular clients see Phuket diving.
Maybe sometimes operators should hear what clients say, don't you think?

Just wanted to specify that I'm not a dive operator here on Phuket, nor affiliated with any. I've listened to the OP's needs and concluded that the best course of action would be to have someone customizing their diving experience and I have provided them with two choices.

And to further illustrate my point - the best dive I ever had on Phuket was with South Siam Divers that you've mentioned. I went diving with a group of five of my colleagues - all instructors. We went to King Cruiser, Koh Doc Mai and Shark Point in one day. Except for myself, none of my friends have been diving these sites before. Still, we told South Siam crew we needed no guide and they allowed us to go alone. We've seen lots of things and had lots of fun on these dives. Yet, it was a totally different experience from what the OP asked for and it would make no sense to recommend South Siam based on this experience.

We did give our honest opinions but sometimes "clients" don't seem to listen.

Having said that, if we were to generalize, there would be a lot of truth in your post as well.

 

[gchild]

We dived with Sea-Bees late last year (as a client) and confirm the commnets of Big Jeff above.

Very good dive to guest ratio, we had no more than 1:3 on our four days of diving. The boat is very well set up, the dive guides were excellent, and the service and food on the boat was excellent.

It was in my opinion a very safe, well organised, professional organisation.

We will be back in Phuket later this year and will be booking again with Sea-Bees.

 

[Zsuzsika]

Hi There!

I am the OP who was looking for information about our trip to Phuket and thought I would stop back in and leave some feedback. We had a great two weeks in Thailand - left on 3/31 and got back home a week ago on 4/14. We spent four days in Phuket, though I wish we would have had more time. My husband and I agreed that we will alot more time diving next year. I very much appreciated your input.

We made arrangements to dive with Sunrise, based in Patong in advance of our arrival by email. We paid $85pp per day that included our equipment (we took only our regulators), three tanks of diving, hotel pick up (which was always prompt) breakfast and lunch as well as snacks. We didn't have a lot of time to research our options or where to dive (though your input was helpful), so my husband made arrangements to dive with the dive operation that responded to our emails - very few bothered to my surprise!

Visibility wasn't the best (I guess I was expecting visibility to be on par with past dives in Hawaii or in the Caribbean), however, we saw more and had much better dives the day we went to Phi Phi. The other dive sites mentioned here were okay, and looking back, would have much prefered to dive around PhiPhi. But that's not where we went, and to be honest with you, we had a great time even if the conditions (poor vis) were not always the best. Not much current present.

We are very experienced divers, but as this was our first time diving from Phuket, I have no regrets; we now know what to expect. That said, the two days of diving we spent at Racha Yai and Racha Noi (or there abouts - don't recall the actual dive sites names) weren't the best. Conditions okay - just not a lot to see.

The dive boat had mostly students, so we dove with one other experienced diver in our little group; our dive master was exceptional and did a great job. No complaints about anything, except maybe the dive site the first day especially. But like I said, now we know.

Thanks again for all the input.

Take care.

Suzi

 

[stiggy]

Phuket Scuba club, or Sea bees both offer Excellent customer service.

As for dive sites that will depend on conditions when your there, most divers will always find something interesting if they are open minded at any site.

Personally I cant see what difference your nationality makes to where or who you should dive with.

Underwater we all sound the same..........

As for tipping if the service is good tip appropriately also make a point of telling the staff and there boss when you are happy.

 

[Zsuzsika]

Personally I cant see what difference your nationality makes to where or who you should dive with.

Underwater we all sound the same..........

The dive operators in Phuket use a different system - the metric system - to measure depth and air. Here in the US we do not. I just wanted to find out what other divers recommended we do - bring our own dive gear or rent. Due to baggage restrictions, we took only our regulators and I am very happy I did. Though the BC's we rented were fine, I missed mine. Somthing to be said about having familiar equipment!

As for dive operators - Sunrise had a 1 to 4 ratio of dm to divers. There were a total of 3 divers in our group - my husband, myself and an experienced diver. I don't know what was up with the other dive boats, but all seemed a lot more crowded than ours. We had mostly students on the boat, so that might have been why we had so few - one instructor for one student. The boat was roomy and very comfortable.