Beware Fantasea Dive

[divinglife]

Well I for one am sorry you girls had a less than pleasant experience in Playa! And for the reception you got on this board....! I fully understand the angst towards negative posts, wouldn't it just be wonderful if we all only had positive things to say about all our diving experiences!! BUUUT, when I am looking for a safe reliable place to dive, to stay, basically to spend lots of money on, I want to read the good AND the bad reviews. This board could use a little balance sometimes and the moderators are there to help with any abuse! None of us are brain dead (at least not all the time), and we can use our own judgment when reading reviews and I am happy someone started piping up and giving a different view! As for calling your "paying customers" drunkards on a public forum.... well I would be a little peeved as well...

 

[Canard]

Like you said Sofia.

 

[Tigerman]

Well I for one am sorry you girls had a less than pleasant experience in Playa! And for the reception you got on this board....! I fully understand the angst towards negative posts, wouldn't it just be wonderful if we all only had positive things to say about all our diving experiences!! BUUUT, when I am looking for a safe reliable place to dive, to stay, basically to spend lots of money on, I want to read the good AND the bad reviews. This board could use a little balance sometimes and the moderators are there to help with any abuse! None of us are brain dead (at least not all the time), and we can use our own judgment when reading reviews and I am happy someone started piping up and giving a different view! As for calling your "paying customers" drunkards on a public forum.... well I would be a little peeved as well...

The other thing that surprise me in this thread is really that people take PCBs statements as facts and the OPs statements as bashing straight form the start.
If he had reasons to keep people off his boat he should tell them straight up (which reading both his and the OPs posts theres conflicts) and not use any other excuses.
If he DID infact say that he himself was in "no condition to dive", thats not what I would call professional. You dont make yourself in "no condition to dive".

 

[DcubedLP]

--Full Review--
We are a group of three ladies (30+ to 50+ dives) that has been diving at least a couple of times each year for the last three years. We dove Playa del Carmen/Cozumel/cenotes in late August 2009.

We booked with FantaSea Divers after reading good reviews of their outfit, but sadly, we ended up being pretty disappointed with them.

I am one of the three divers in the trip report provided by dcubedSW (my dive buddy). When planning our Playa del Carmen/Cozumel dive trip, I discovered the ScubaBoard forum and read rave reviews about Jason and his operation that we decided to book him as the dive op for our trip.

I want to thank Scubawife for pointing out the cons of booking with a one man dive op. We are vacation divers and novices to this sport, and had this very thread existed on this forum prior to our trip, we would have thought twice about booking a one man op, instead would’ve chosen an intermediate op since the main purpose of trip was diving wanted guaranteed days of diving (weather permitting of course)!

We posted a trip report, with both positive and unfortunately negative aspects of our diving experience with Jason. Our intent was by no means malicious. I hope management (Jason) will take our constructive feedback into consideration to improve his services for future customers.

 

[Beyond_Diving]

review aside, there's a lot of freelance instructors out there. Just because you had a bad experience with one you don't need to say that we are all going to be the same (because we run a one man op). having said that, sorry you had a bad experience, and I hope you'll come back to visit the area soon.

 

[Spratman]

I agree with the above posts. You shouldn't throw off PDC because of a bad experience. There are a number of folks on here that would provide you with a good experience.

There is nothing wrong with one man ops, since I've basically dive with one regularly. It's too bad your experience (perceived or real) happened on a costly vacation. I just am back today from Cancun and my dives were great but the resort has gotten really expensive. So, that detracted from the vacation.

Just because you are going with a dive op doesn't mean you are going to get better service. Some are good and some are mediocre. Better luck next time, ladies!

P.S. Hey Eric! Where were you the nights we were having a few?! I was looking forward to chatting it up with you and Miguel!

 

[dive pro]

I do not know Jason personally but I have met several people that have dove with him before and all have been excellent comments of very thourough briefings, excellent services and if you look back on this board I recommend him and will continue to do so not because he is my friend like stated before we never met, he also has posted several videos on this board providing good information, answers and great comments and reports on his dives.
It is hard sometimes to make a desition and my outmost respect to Jason, we are all living a very bad season in the whole area and it could have been very easy for Jason to make the money of the Cozumel dive of these girls instead of MAKING IT SAFE FOR THE WHOLE GROUP.
Now this one-man op thing is very variable, if they had booked with a huge dive shop and same thing happend there would just be another name on the OP.
In any case it is ALWAYS better to be SAFE than SORRY....I have had courses, divers, clients that have threatened to report me to PADI and SSI because I refused to continue the course or tried to delay it due to them being on inconvenient state.

BY THE WAY JACK (SPRATMAN) VERY SORRY I DID NOT GET TO MEET YOU, Erik (VRYOLAKAS) was in Canada when you came in and that Sunday I was doing administrative work for shop and then the next time you went to Pescaditos with Ben I was coming back from a very very long day in Coz. BUT I PROMISE NEXT TIME the LITROS XX are on me and I will also tell Ben to let me know in advance. Cheers mate

 

[Spratman]

Yeah, Miguel...I was disappointed, but next time. Man, we had a crew at La Playitas on Sunday night. Some of my family, Ben, Betty, Jorge, Diego, his wife (?), another guy that spoke no English, and Alex (cave diver) came as well. Man, I ate a lot of stuff and drank a bunch of Pacifico! We'll be going back there next trip. Pescaditos was good too! They treated us very well!

I know the two nights you were tied up with work stuff. Gotta make the pesos, right?! I should have stopped by the shop because we were staying at CIC and the rest of the family was at the Royal Caribbean. I'm going to try for a solo trip in Feb. Do the entire coast...

Take care, my friend!

Jack

 

[Ed Hatfield]

This is an interesting thread. I actually enjoyed reading all the input. Jason....I think you dropped the ball on this one. Your account doesn't have the 'ring of truth' that I hear from the other side of the story. Since when has a couple of drinks stopped you from diving? A little bad press won't stop me from diving with you. I won't be back to PDC until FEB/10. See you then.