SBP Studios
Contributor
Well we were actually not going to dive because we only had 1 day and that is like a teaser but we decided to go ahead and do it afterall.
We went with a 3 tank dive through Phuket Dash Scuba. The total was $250 for 2 people, that included all of our gear rental and the 3 tank dives. Not a bad deal IMO.
Come to find out these guys are just brokers, just like about 90% of the Dive ops in Phuket. No biggie. We use their gear and the boat and trip were brokered to Dive Asia. We decide to go to Phuket-Scubas main location the day before the dive to double check their gear make sure all was ok. Just an FYI, if you use this company to book you will be using their gear and its all fairly dated. The mask was the worst part for me as it had black stuff literally growing in it. But what can ya do? I guess I should have brought my own gear. The inflator hose gopt a pretty nasty leak toward the end of my first Dive, they swapped it after that dive. Good thing it was not something more serious.
Dive morning Dive Asia picks us up at the hotel. Drives us about 40 mins to their main location and we all load up from there to head out. Our dive guide was from Phuket-Scuba, his name was Kopp, other than the fact he pretty much spoke no english at all, he was a pretty damn good DM.
The Dives.
The good:
Life, tons of little stuff to see here! It was really awesome to see so much tiny life that we had never seen before. The water, no wetsuit needed, water was great! The boat, Dive Asias boat is huge, we had about 45 divers at least on board. Mostly German.
The bad:
The Vis. First dive maybe 30ft, the second dive 25 or so, the last dive 15ft max. Very dissapointing for Phi Phi and what we had read but still, the life down there was great.
The SPEED. Or lack therof. There was absolutely ZERO reason for a 3 dive day to start at 8am and not return to port until 8pm. The reason? SLOW BOAT, the people on board told me it was because they wanted to save gas. This boat could easily do 15-20 knots, it never got much above 3-5. It was the slowest and most boring boat ride ever. Completely had every diver on the boat frustrated, especially at the end of the day when it was 4, we were all done and only had 25 miles to go and it took us almost 4hrs! Unacceptable.
For this reason alone I would never go with Dive Asia again, IMO they should plan for the gas cost and not waste everyones day.
All in all any dive experience is a good one for us. Last dive was in Cozumel and our next one will be Grand CAyman next month. Looking forward to it.
The amount of Divers: Big boat but still way too many divers.
Overall Rating: 7/10 (easily a 8.5 if viz was better 9 if Dive Asias boat did not suck and they did not cram so many divers on board.)
We went with a 3 tank dive through Phuket Dash Scuba. The total was $250 for 2 people, that included all of our gear rental and the 3 tank dives. Not a bad deal IMO.
Come to find out these guys are just brokers, just like about 90% of the Dive ops in Phuket. No biggie. We use their gear and the boat and trip were brokered to Dive Asia. We decide to go to Phuket-Scubas main location the day before the dive to double check their gear make sure all was ok. Just an FYI, if you use this company to book you will be using their gear and its all fairly dated. The mask was the worst part for me as it had black stuff literally growing in it. But what can ya do? I guess I should have brought my own gear. The inflator hose gopt a pretty nasty leak toward the end of my first Dive, they swapped it after that dive. Good thing it was not something more serious.
Dive morning Dive Asia picks us up at the hotel. Drives us about 40 mins to their main location and we all load up from there to head out. Our dive guide was from Phuket-Scuba, his name was Kopp, other than the fact he pretty much spoke no english at all, he was a pretty damn good DM.
The Dives.
The good:
Life, tons of little stuff to see here! It was really awesome to see so much tiny life that we had never seen before. The water, no wetsuit needed, water was great! The boat, Dive Asias boat is huge, we had about 45 divers at least on board. Mostly German.
The bad:
The Vis. First dive maybe 30ft, the second dive 25 or so, the last dive 15ft max. Very dissapointing for Phi Phi and what we had read but still, the life down there was great.
The SPEED. Or lack therof. There was absolutely ZERO reason for a 3 dive day to start at 8am and not return to port until 8pm. The reason? SLOW BOAT, the people on board told me it was because they wanted to save gas. This boat could easily do 15-20 knots, it never got much above 3-5. It was the slowest and most boring boat ride ever. Completely had every diver on the boat frustrated, especially at the end of the day when it was 4, we were all done and only had 25 miles to go and it took us almost 4hrs! Unacceptable.
For this reason alone I would never go with Dive Asia again, IMO they should plan for the gas cost and not waste everyones day.
All in all any dive experience is a good one for us. Last dive was in Cozumel and our next one will be Grand CAyman next month. Looking forward to it.
The amount of Divers: Big boat but still way too many divers.
Overall Rating: 7/10 (easily a 8.5 if viz was better 9 if Dive Asias boat did not suck and they did not cram so many divers on board.)
