Lastly,i'm not here to flame anybody out of ill-will nor to ruin any bussiness...i'm just sharing my experience/feedback with fellow divers/diver-to-be in this forum.
Regards
Disappointed and Horrified with the level of service provided by SunnyCove
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Regards
Hi Stephen,
No worries! Frankly, I didn't know why he did that and since he can't give me a satisfied answer and answer for several mistakes he made. We had no choice but to sack him for his lack of professionalism and pro-activeness as Instructor.
Don't worry, I know you are not here to ruin anyone. We also want the general public to understand the concerns too. It's not that dive operators always blame the mother nature or traffic but sometimes things can't be helped.
I foresee that for 2009, crossing Malaysia checkpoint for divers will take even much longer with such chaos at the new checkpoint nowadays. This kind of stuff are unavoidable and I think divers should be kind to understand such things are beyond our control. Instructors, divemasters are going for trip every weekend and they should be the FIRST person to hate traffic jam or any hiccups.
Anyway, Stephen, rest assure things are much different now with newly implemented SOP at Sunny Cove.
I would not recommend this school at all. First of all, the complete course is really under a huge time limit. everything has to be "rush, rush, rush" My Class on Monday was until 12am, coz you needed to ask everything again and again...again, until 12AM! So how could it be possible to be concentrated at this time??? And even worse: Seems those guys don't take it too serious when it comes to safety. I was in a small group for the pool session but as we were running out of time we just skipped some exercises (one person did not even had to show fully her swimming skills, even though she said shes not good in swimming) . Others test where not well done, so even if you did not do them properly they would just say "can" and move on to the next one. It was almost impossible to repeat them, and they were starting getting pissed off when you said something. I did not feel comfortable at all. I canceled my course after the pool experience because I dont not trust them at all. I had the feeling it was funny and not serious for them. There were 3 instructors at the pool (just 4 students) and they still did not manage to coordinate it properly. You did not now to which instructor you should show it to. They switched back and forth. They made fun all the time (not that I dont like that, but we still talking about a serious theme here --> your life!)
Make sure that you are choosing the right school with professional personal.
I have seen other examples, so I know there are schools witch do it another way. Make sure you find them, and dont go for those who just push you through the course. So its super ****ty to start such a nice sport with such a bad experience. Thats why I would like to share this information to make sure you dont do the same
Make sure that you are choosing the right school with professional personal.
I have seen other examples, so I know there are schools witch do it another way. Make sure you find them, and dont go for those who just push you through the course. So its super ****ty to start such a nice sport with such a bad experience. Thats why I would like to share this information to make sure you dont do the same
Perhaps you would like to post this at www.scubasg.com, it is a very active Singaporean scuba diving forum. Might reach out to more locals that way.
Any chance you are from SIM? A friend of mine mentioned she was worried about this operator but decided to go ahead with them in the end, but mentioned someone else in the group decided not to.
i did my pool dives with sunny cove so not too much experience with them.. did the e-learning and then joined them for pool sessions and did the checkout dives on vacation. I thought they were alright although i'm quite sure that the one girl in our group didn't do the full swim or treading water like the guys ha..
overall, i think it could have been a bit less rushed and detail oriented but i felt it gave me enough to understand what i was trying to do and i didn't feel unprepared at the checkout dives. Plus they were the cheapest, so....
i will say that generally i feel a lot of the dive operations aren't very professional out here compared to other countries. you get the impression that its just some people that love diving so instructing gives them a chance to dive for free more often, rather than an actual passion and professionalism about instructing and teaching people how to be great divers. that's just my opinion. ;o)
overall, i think it could have been a bit less rushed and detail oriented but i felt it gave me enough to understand what i was trying to do and i didn't feel unprepared at the checkout dives. Plus they were the cheapest, so....
i will say that generally i feel a lot of the dive operations aren't very professional out here compared to other countries. you get the impression that its just some people that love diving so instructing gives them a chance to dive for free more often, rather than an actual passion and professionalism about instructing and teaching people how to be great divers. that's just my opinion. ;o)
racerx_ You know the saying, right? "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys."
A really professionally done course costs more than a run-of-the-mill course because the instructors are experienced and seasoned professionals (not freshly-minted kids who can't demand a decent wage), the school will take the time needed to do a great job (rather than rushing the through the curriculum--for example, doing the entire pool training in only three hours--so that they can cram more students into the schedule per week), and the class sizes will be small and offer individualized attention (rather than booking the maximum number of students per group so that the instructor is spread thin).
These comments in no way are meant to reflect on the quality of instruction at Sunny Cove, but rather to say that when you use price as the primary selection critereon, you can sort of expect to be disappointed in other areas.
A really professionally done course costs more than a run-of-the-mill course because the instructors are experienced and seasoned professionals (not freshly-minted kids who can't demand a decent wage), the school will take the time needed to do a great job (rather than rushing the through the curriculum--for example, doing the entire pool training in only three hours--so that they can cram more students into the schedule per week), and the class sizes will be small and offer individualized attention (rather than booking the maximum number of students per group so that the instructor is spread thin).
These comments in no way are meant to reflect on the quality of instruction at Sunny Cove, but rather to say that when you use price as the primary selection critereon, you can sort of expect to be disappointed in other areas.
Yup I hear you. If I had to do it over I wouldn't be doing e-learning or a referral either ha.. But I still don't have big complaints about them like these other guys. I procrastinated the course and needed to get it done in a jiffy or my bro-in-law who was flying out from the states to dive with me would have murdered me (we promised each other we'd get certified) ha.. Not the best circumstances but it is what it is.. And it got me diving lol.
Sunny cove did it fast and cheap and it fit my schedule and I'd say they did an adequate job. I have no beef with them, but the more time I spend on the forum the more a feel there are a LOT of dive instructors/operations that aren't quite up to par out here..
Sunny cove did it fast and cheap and it fit my schedule and I'd say they did an adequate job. I have no beef with them, but the more time I spend on the forum the more a feel there are a LOT of dive instructors/operations that aren't quite up to par out here..
On my 1st trip with Sunnycove back in 2008, I had some trouble finding their dive centre and the DM who answered the phone sounded quite uninterested in giving me directions. When I reached there, I was given a rental BCD 2 sizes too big and was brushed off when I asked for a smaller one. Ended up hugging myself when diving to keep the BCD close to my body.
I joined the trip as part of a Singapore Institute of Management Diving Club trip, but I was put in a group where I was the only SIM student.
A few months before the trip, a diver had been hit by a boat and died during a night dive and the DMs were telling us constantly that we should be careful. But at the end of one dive, a DM went right under the boat ladder, started purging his regulator and surfaced with the ladder right in front of him.
On my 2nd trip with them in 2010 (WTF was I thinking?), the instructor was teaching navigation to 4 AOW students while seated around a table and students were just rotating the compass to the required bearings.
Of course, they didnt really know how the compass actually worked from that session and were totally clueless underwater. Some of them even went so far as to remove the compass from their wrists and rotated it while still facing the same direction. While figuring out how to use the compass, one or two started floating towards the surface without realising.
During a night dive, a divemaster lost her mask while helping one of the AOW students whom I heard panicked (so it may not be her fault) and the instructor dropped his camera during the safety stop.
Here we see a Sunnycove divemaster getting entangled with her SMB line without realising until it was launched.
SMB Deployment (Entanglement) - YouTube
And here we see the instructor with a burst o-ring at the 1st stage bringing the group down to 30m while feathering his tank valve. IIRC, the entire dive was 16min and he surfaced with 30bar of air left.
o-ring burst - YouTube
Upon bringing these points up to the Singapore Institute of Management's Diving Club who runs trips through Sunnycove, I was subtly accused by the club president of trying to get the SIM Diving Club to switch to another dive operator of my liking. He also hinted that the points I brought up were too well thought out to be entirely mine and were probably from an instructor of the dive operator I wanted to promote.
The club president is now an instructor for Sunnycove while I am still just a leisure diver who has since gone on diving trips with 3 other dive operators. I did not have a vested interest to any specific operator back then and I still do not have a vested interest today. Cant say the same about him.
But of course, with their constant flow of students from SIM, they have a young, hip and happening crowd. Which I think is their biggest draw besides price.
I joined the trip as part of a Singapore Institute of Management Diving Club trip, but I was put in a group where I was the only SIM student.
A few months before the trip, a diver had been hit by a boat and died during a night dive and the DMs were telling us constantly that we should be careful. But at the end of one dive, a DM went right under the boat ladder, started purging his regulator and surfaced with the ladder right in front of him.
On my 2nd trip with them in 2010 (WTF was I thinking?), the instructor was teaching navigation to 4 AOW students while seated around a table and students were just rotating the compass to the required bearings.
Of course, they didnt really know how the compass actually worked from that session and were totally clueless underwater. Some of them even went so far as to remove the compass from their wrists and rotated it while still facing the same direction. While figuring out how to use the compass, one or two started floating towards the surface without realising.
During a night dive, a divemaster lost her mask while helping one of the AOW students whom I heard panicked (so it may not be her fault) and the instructor dropped his camera during the safety stop.
Here we see a Sunnycove divemaster getting entangled with her SMB line without realising until it was launched.
SMB Deployment (Entanglement) - YouTube
And here we see the instructor with a burst o-ring at the 1st stage bringing the group down to 30m while feathering his tank valve. IIRC, the entire dive was 16min and he surfaced with 30bar of air left.
o-ring burst - YouTube
Upon bringing these points up to the Singapore Institute of Management's Diving Club who runs trips through Sunnycove, I was subtly accused by the club president of trying to get the SIM Diving Club to switch to another dive operator of my liking. He also hinted that the points I brought up were too well thought out to be entirely mine and were probably from an instructor of the dive operator I wanted to promote.
The club president is now an instructor for Sunnycove while I am still just a leisure diver who has since gone on diving trips with 3 other dive operators. I did not have a vested interest to any specific operator back then and I still do not have a vested interest today. Cant say the same about him.
But of course, with their constant flow of students from SIM, they have a young, hip and happening crowd. Which I think is their biggest draw besides price.
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"Par" only means "average" and by definition a good portion of practitioners in any profession will perform more poorly than average, and a good number will also perform more expertly than average. Fifty percent of all doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class, right? It's up to consumers to select the product they purchase wisely, using more than the price of the product as a deciding factor. The expression "value for money" does not mean the same thing as "cheap"; it means "high quality at a fair price." Too many scuba students look for the cheapest course rather than finding the one that offers the best value for money.
But that's only part of the dynamic. Dive training is a teaching and learning partnership--if either part of that partnership performs below average, the result is bound to be a poorly prepared diver. As an instructor I have to say that I sometimes encounter student divers who believe that when they pay their course fee they are buying a certification, so they don't study, don't follow instructions, show up for dives unprepared in one way or another, etc. I personally sell training, not certifications. If a student doesn't come to class prepared, or comes to the boat hung over after partying all night, or violates the rules underwater, that student doesn't get certified. My courses take a little longer than "average," and I'm a little more demanding than the "average" instructor. But I do believe that my courses, and those conducted by other serious instructors, give good value for money even though they also cost more than "average."
Ouch. Sometimes crap happens on dives - even to dive masters. It's how the diver deals with it that sets them out as good or bad. Those are two good examples of some pretty poor responses.
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