Damselfish
Contributor
So, our biggest issue was that they won't run their boat if they don't have at least 4 divers. I was concerned about this because we wanted to boat dive every day and fill in with shore dives. I know some people are all about shore diving when they can but we prefer boats. I'd heard from someone who said there was no boat (out of service) the whole time they were there except one day they sent a boat from the other shop. I have an email from the shop claiming that never happened. (I know who I believe now!) I had a number of emails back and forth with them making it clear we wanted to boat dive every day and the last response I got was that she was sure they would be able to accomodate us. Well we got there, had boat dives for a few days, and one day we got off the boat and one of the DMs said there was a "problem" check at the office. Well, the problem was that they did not have enough divers and wouldn't be running their boat for the rest of the time we were supposed to be there! (another week.)
Apparently their definition of "accommodate" was that if they weren't running their boat on a given day we could commute an hour in the morning to their other shop and hop on the likely cattleboat there to go to sites that aren't as good as the west end. Even though I had made it quite clear in email we were not interested in that, we were specifically coming there to dive from there and visit various sites in that area. We also discovered they seem to consider driving you to a beach for a guided shore dive an adequate replacement for the boat and they schedule these on some days. They were going to offer that up for the next day, except oops they didn't have enough staff for some reason and weren't doing it anyway. Not that we were interested anyway, I can drive to a beach and dive myself just fine if I want to do that. (Now I don't know the whole truth of this, but one of the DMs mentioned they didn't have a captain the next day. And that the captain they had was actually filling in, the regular one had quit. So I don't know if they would have run the boat even if they had more people.)
Another annoyance was that when we checked out, they would not honor their dive rates posted on the lodge website. It happened that I had printed that and taken it with me. The girl checking us out called the main shop to ask about this, and they refused. They said those were low season rates and it was now high season. Now this was August and very much low season, and the page didn't give dates anyway. Never mind that at one point the shop manager told us "it's low season so it's a crapshoot." (Yes, he actually said crapshoot.) Now, mistakes happen. But in my opinion you honor the posted rates, make a joke about the good deal I got, then fix the website. It was only like 10%, but that was just wrong.
Good description of the shore diving setup in earlier post. All the stuff about it not being quite as handy for shore diving as Habitat with the locker and hours situation is too bad, not the end of the world but something that would be easy enough to solve if they "got it" or thought it mattered. Or most likely, were willing to spend the money to do it. The first day we were diving, they closed the shop at 3 because they all had to go to a meeting at the other shop. Not such a big deal by itself, but in the grand scheme of things just another place it seems you can't count on them.
I can understand something like no afternoon boats if there's not enough people, but I think a serious operation has to guarantee some level of service like everyplace else I've been has done. Otherwise some people won't come there and they won't build the business to the point where they do reliably have more people. Basically, sometimes you have to invest in the future a bit. OE simply don't seem to understand this. Apparently the managers at the OE West shop are under pressure from the main shop to make money on a day to day basis rather than worrying about silly things like the long term. (I heard comments to this effect multiple times.) I would have felt better about it I at least got the impression the manager understood and sympathized a bit, but I didn't. Rather he gave the impression he didn't give a damn. Basically an unfriendly guy with no clue of customer service. I've heard a few times what nice folks the new managers are, but that's sure not what we got when something went wrong.
All the things about easier diving after hours, running boats reliably, and any other comments we had, one of the DMs said they'd made all the same suggestions the first week they worked there but I got the impression they were pretty much blown off.
When we told the hotel we were checking out early, the supervisor I talked to that afternoon was very nice about it and just wanted to understand why so they could fix it. It sounded like that would be a longer term negotiation with the shop. But we got a call that evening from the hotel manager saying he had talked to OE and they would run the boat after all. (I didn't think there was any association between the shop and the hotel, but turns out the hotel rents the property to the shop so they do have some pull.) Unfortunately by that time we had already checked out of the shop, hauled all our gear back to the room and packed everything and had reservations at Habitat the next day. (My husband took the call, if I was there I might have decided it was worth unpacking for that nice reef and hotel, but it was too late for him and he had no desire to do business with OE.) The next day when we were checking out, I spoke with the manager and he said we should book the dive package with the hotel, and then they would guarantee boats. I don't know if that was a new policy made that day, it didn't sound like it - just not advertised anyplace. But if it was a standing policy OEW certainly made no effort to let us know about it. Looking at the whole email thread in hindsight, it seems they would weasel around stuff and say just enough of the right thing when pressed, to get you to come - but not actually live up to the spirit of things if it would hurt their bottom line.
The moral of this story is, book your diving through the hotel and tell them what you want. If you don't get it, or have suggestions, talk to the manager of the hotel. Everyone at the Lodge bends over backwards to please.
If Habitat ran the dive shop at this place it would be heaven ...
Apparently their definition of "accommodate" was that if they weren't running their boat on a given day we could commute an hour in the morning to their other shop and hop on the likely cattleboat there to go to sites that aren't as good as the west end. Even though I had made it quite clear in email we were not interested in that, we were specifically coming there to dive from there and visit various sites in that area. We also discovered they seem to consider driving you to a beach for a guided shore dive an adequate replacement for the boat and they schedule these on some days. They were going to offer that up for the next day, except oops they didn't have enough staff for some reason and weren't doing it anyway. Not that we were interested anyway, I can drive to a beach and dive myself just fine if I want to do that. (Now I don't know the whole truth of this, but one of the DMs mentioned they didn't have a captain the next day. And that the captain they had was actually filling in, the regular one had quit. So I don't know if they would have run the boat even if they had more people.)
Another annoyance was that when we checked out, they would not honor their dive rates posted on the lodge website. It happened that I had printed that and taken it with me. The girl checking us out called the main shop to ask about this, and they refused. They said those were low season rates and it was now high season. Now this was August and very much low season, and the page didn't give dates anyway. Never mind that at one point the shop manager told us "it's low season so it's a crapshoot." (Yes, he actually said crapshoot.) Now, mistakes happen. But in my opinion you honor the posted rates, make a joke about the good deal I got, then fix the website. It was only like 10%, but that was just wrong.
Good description of the shore diving setup in earlier post. All the stuff about it not being quite as handy for shore diving as Habitat with the locker and hours situation is too bad, not the end of the world but something that would be easy enough to solve if they "got it" or thought it mattered. Or most likely, were willing to spend the money to do it. The first day we were diving, they closed the shop at 3 because they all had to go to a meeting at the other shop. Not such a big deal by itself, but in the grand scheme of things just another place it seems you can't count on them.
I can understand something like no afternoon boats if there's not enough people, but I think a serious operation has to guarantee some level of service like everyplace else I've been has done. Otherwise some people won't come there and they won't build the business to the point where they do reliably have more people. Basically, sometimes you have to invest in the future a bit. OE simply don't seem to understand this. Apparently the managers at the OE West shop are under pressure from the main shop to make money on a day to day basis rather than worrying about silly things like the long term. (I heard comments to this effect multiple times.) I would have felt better about it I at least got the impression the manager understood and sympathized a bit, but I didn't. Rather he gave the impression he didn't give a damn. Basically an unfriendly guy with no clue of customer service. I've heard a few times what nice folks the new managers are, but that's sure not what we got when something went wrong.
All the things about easier diving after hours, running boats reliably, and any other comments we had, one of the DMs said they'd made all the same suggestions the first week they worked there but I got the impression they were pretty much blown off.
When we told the hotel we were checking out early, the supervisor I talked to that afternoon was very nice about it and just wanted to understand why so they could fix it. It sounded like that would be a longer term negotiation with the shop. But we got a call that evening from the hotel manager saying he had talked to OE and they would run the boat after all. (I didn't think there was any association between the shop and the hotel, but turns out the hotel rents the property to the shop so they do have some pull.) Unfortunately by that time we had already checked out of the shop, hauled all our gear back to the room and packed everything and had reservations at Habitat the next day. (My husband took the call, if I was there I might have decided it was worth unpacking for that nice reef and hotel, but it was too late for him and he had no desire to do business with OE.) The next day when we were checking out, I spoke with the manager and he said we should book the dive package with the hotel, and then they would guarantee boats. I don't know if that was a new policy made that day, it didn't sound like it - just not advertised anyplace. But if it was a standing policy OEW certainly made no effort to let us know about it. Looking at the whole email thread in hindsight, it seems they would weasel around stuff and say just enough of the right thing when pressed, to get you to come - but not actually live up to the spirit of things if it would hurt their bottom line.
The moral of this story is, book your diving through the hotel and tell them what you want. If you don't get it, or have suggestions, talk to the manager of the hotel. Everyone at the Lodge bends over backwards to please.
If Habitat ran the dive shop at this place it would be heaven ...
to dive Alice in Wonderland. There's other gems on the west end too, which makes boat diving almost useless. (I wasn't impressed with Mushroom that much). 
