Hello All.
We had people in Provo from Dec 8-16th for a wedding, and diving trip. On the trip there were 5 of us there to dive. We had scheduled trips with Caicos Adventures and Provo Turtle Divers so that we could get a little of both worlds. I think any of the ops that work these waters can get you to see great things, how they handle you as a customer is the difference. Here are some thoughts on that...
CA: I made an online reservation about a week before the trip. I had been told on the phone that I could cancel or modify by 4pm the day prior to our dive. I arrive the afternoon before our dive and meet up with the rest of our crew. I find out that the bride and groom could not dive the following day like planned so I call the shop at about noon Monday. I am told that because it is not 24 hours before the dive (16 is not enough even though I was told 4pm day before on the phone) I can not remove people from the dive because they have lost business to hold our reservation. So I reluctantly decide that I will just pay for them since it is their wedding and I am not sure what else to do. Fifi picks us up about 10 minutes late and we head for the bus. We add two others from another resort. So there are a total of 5 people as we board the 54' cat (What business did they turn down because of our booking?). The crew on the boat was very good. We get briefed on everything a couple times as we head out to West Caicos. Our dive master was fantastic at spotting the life and getting us through the dives of the day. We later found out that his last day has now passed as he moved to Cayman. A nice lunch was provided and then we moved a little closer in before taking our second dive. These cats ride amazingly well... when running. About 20 minutes into the return trip one of the engines stops. After spending 2 hours limping in, a big storm rolls through. We spend about a half hour huddled in a closet as it dumps. We start limping again... 3 hours of return trip later we see Fifi pull up with the other cat that had been at the dock all day. We assume that we were going to be transferred to this boat so that we can get back to shore. Not so... he just brought some fuel to see if that would help. So 90 minutes later we finally get back. Fifi meets us there and ties the boat up. Not once was there an "I'm sorry the boat broke down guys". After spending another 20 minutes at the dock while he could try to diagnose things he finally tells us to get in the bus and he would take us back.
In conclusion, their captain and dive master were great. The ship rode well. Ship maintenance clearly left something to be desired. Customer service before and after were awful.
Turtle Divers: These guys were great. They arrived on time, set everything up, tore it all down and were a joy to be around. The dives were great with an abundance of life of course. Everything went as we would have hoped and it was a success.
I know that my experience is not the norm and things happen. But, I would hope that customer service would win out in these things. Customer Service is shown when there are unplanned actions in a trip. Turtle did not have the chance to show me how they manage that, but CA did. And they failed miserably.
-Chris, Robert, Stefany, Bill and Cara.
We had people in Provo from Dec 8-16th for a wedding, and diving trip. On the trip there were 5 of us there to dive. We had scheduled trips with Caicos Adventures and Provo Turtle Divers so that we could get a little of both worlds. I think any of the ops that work these waters can get you to see great things, how they handle you as a customer is the difference. Here are some thoughts on that...
CA: I made an online reservation about a week before the trip. I had been told on the phone that I could cancel or modify by 4pm the day prior to our dive. I arrive the afternoon before our dive and meet up with the rest of our crew. I find out that the bride and groom could not dive the following day like planned so I call the shop at about noon Monday. I am told that because it is not 24 hours before the dive (16 is not enough even though I was told 4pm day before on the phone) I can not remove people from the dive because they have lost business to hold our reservation. So I reluctantly decide that I will just pay for them since it is their wedding and I am not sure what else to do. Fifi picks us up about 10 minutes late and we head for the bus. We add two others from another resort. So there are a total of 5 people as we board the 54' cat (What business did they turn down because of our booking?). The crew on the boat was very good. We get briefed on everything a couple times as we head out to West Caicos. Our dive master was fantastic at spotting the life and getting us through the dives of the day. We later found out that his last day has now passed as he moved to Cayman. A nice lunch was provided and then we moved a little closer in before taking our second dive. These cats ride amazingly well... when running. About 20 minutes into the return trip one of the engines stops. After spending 2 hours limping in, a big storm rolls through. We spend about a half hour huddled in a closet as it dumps. We start limping again... 3 hours of return trip later we see Fifi pull up with the other cat that had been at the dock all day. We assume that we were going to be transferred to this boat so that we can get back to shore. Not so... he just brought some fuel to see if that would help. So 90 minutes later we finally get back. Fifi meets us there and ties the boat up. Not once was there an "I'm sorry the boat broke down guys". After spending another 20 minutes at the dock while he could try to diagnose things he finally tells us to get in the bus and he would take us back.
In conclusion, their captain and dive master were great. The ship rode well. Ship maintenance clearly left something to be desired. Customer service before and after were awful.
Turtle Divers: These guys were great. They arrived on time, set everything up, tore it all down and were a joy to be around. The dives were great with an abundance of life of course. Everything went as we would have hoped and it was a success.
I know that my experience is not the norm and things happen. But, I would hope that customer service would win out in these things. Customer Service is shown when there are unplanned actions in a trip. Turtle did not have the chance to show me how they manage that, but CA did. And they failed miserably.
-Chris, Robert, Stefany, Bill and Cara.
