Dive shop bait and switch Cozumel

[macado]

I was not trying to do anything other than recreational dive. I made that clear to them. I also made it clear that I did not want to do a 60 foot dive with new divers. They understood and said I will be doing the dives I asked for. The Captain would choose sites Im interested in. That obviously did not happen. .

I misunderstood your original post. I thought you were trying to do technical dives on a scheduled recreational charter. It sounds like you just wanted to a do typical Cozumel wall dive on a recreational charter.

I agree there are better ways for them to have handled this but it's difficult to please everyone on larger cattle boats. It sounds like they had some newer / inexperienced divers on the boat who they didn't feel comfortable taking on walls with no hard bottom. I'm not defending them at all but this type of situation is pretty common.

They could have split the boat into two groups (inexperienced and experienced) and dropped you guys off at the wall but that would have required multiple DMs and other experienced divers. They could have also put you on their 2nd boat but perhaps it was already full or they didn't have enough people to run it.

My humble guess is they didn't have enough divers to justify the cost of running (paying a captain/DM/fuel for their second boat) and decided it was more cost effective to simply put everyone on one boat.

 

[airbornediver]

Sounds to me like someone needs a private charter if they want something more than the regular diver is certified for.

If you can read better you’d understand that I was told I was going to get the advanced recreational dives I asked for. I was not asking for a technical dive. I asked for advanced recreational dive. Not asking for a private charter when I was told they would accommodate me.

 

[macado]

When I got my gear Luis the guy I was dealing with pretty much told me they will take me to do the type of dive I wanted. Your right they should have told me they had new divers on the boat and they would not accommodate me. I would have went elsewhere. Seemed they just wanted to fill the boat and get paid.

Who do you use in Cozumel?

Luis is a good guy. I don't fault him at all. It's just hard to sometimes make everyone happy on larger cattle boats. Ultimately they usually end up accommodating newer or less experienced divers. I am heavily generalizing here but if you have a boat of 8 inexperienced divers and 1 experienced divers they are going to cater to the lowest common denominator. They are going to try to go where it's safe for the other 8 divers. I'm not defending them at all just giving you some insight.

I don't know how many days of diving you did with them (seems like only 2?). The first day is almost always checkout / shakedown dive especially if you've never dove with them before. It doesn't matter if you have every cert in the world unfortunately. It's hard to say if you would have ended up doing better dives. It would ultimately depend on the other divers skill level on the boat. That is the problem with larger groups.

I sent you a private message with my dive shop recommendation in Cozumel since I didn't want to start another "best Cozumel dive op" cheerleading post in this thread.

 

[airbornediver]

Luis is a good guy. I don't fault him at all. It's just hard to sometimes make everyone happy on larger cattle boats. Ultimately they usually end up accommodating newer or less experienced divers. I am heavily generalizing here but if you have a boat of 8 inexperienced divers and 1 experienced divers they are going to cater to the lowest common denominator. They are going to try to go where it's safe for the other 8 divers. I'm not defending them at all just giving you some insight.

I don't know how many days of diving you did with them (seems like only 2?). The first day is almost always checkout / shakedown dive especially if you've never dove with them before. It doesn't matter if you have every cert in the world unfortunately. It's hard to say if you would have ended up doing better dives. It would unfortunately depend on the other divers skill level on the boat. That is the problem with larger groups.

I sent you a private message with my dive shop recommendation in Cozumel since I didn't want to start another "best Cozumel dive op" cheerleading post in this thread.

I appreciate your recommendations. I’ve been scuba diving all over the world since 1995. I got over 3K dives. I understand everything your saying. They should not have told me they can accommodate me when they knew they could not. They basically blew me off or just didn’t give a dam. That’s unacceptable to me. I wasted my time, money and effort for nothing. I would have been better off staying in Tulum doing side mount cave dives. That’s why I’m upset. My time is valuable. Hate people bullshiting me and wasting it.

 

[BRT]

Sounds to me like someone needs a private charter if they want something more than the regular diver is certified for.

3P's

 

[mcohen1021]

If you can read better you’d understand that I was told I was going to get the advanced recreational dives I asked for. I was not asking for a technical dive. I asked for advanced recreational dive. Not asking for a private charter when I was told they would accommodate me.

I totally understood. And if you think thats possible on a routine day boat that anyone can sign up for, I'd call that delusional. Never going to happen. I've been doing this long enough to know that despite asking for exactly what you did / desired, I have NEVER received it.

 

[BRT]

I totally understood. And if you think thats possible on a routine day boat that anyone can sign up for, I'd call that delusional. Never going to happen. I've been doing this long enough to know that despite asking for exactly what you did / desired, I have NEVER received it.

We seem to get advanced recreational dives on a regular basis in Cozumel without even asking if that is what we will get. We have gone with different shops a few times. One did not meet expectations in spite of telling us they would. The other shop gave us dives similar to our regular shop.

 

[Centrals]

The shop actually supports rebreathers, they do Trimix fills, rent doubles. Luis told me they own the boat. When I was getting the rental gear I asked again that I wanted to do Santa Rosa wall and deeper walls within recreational limits. So I was more than upset when they did this to me. It cost a lot of money in hotels, changing flights etc. More importantly my time. I am not sure what the reason they screwed me over. The answer was sorry maybe next time I can do technical dives with them.

It does not matter what the shop can OFFER!
They agreed to take you out for what ever you requested but could not deliver.
Surely they should had warned you that the advanced rec dive was NOT available before the boat departed.
You should had set out the dive and demand an full refund.

I totally understood. And if you think thats possible on a routine day boat that anyone can sign up for, I'd call that delusional. Never going to happen. I've been doing this long enough to know that despite asking for exactly what you did / desired, I have NEVER received it.

It is NOT delusion because some operators do actually post the schedule the day before to attract certain divers. I have never signed up a day trip not knowing where the boat is going.
Not able to deliver a promise is something else.

 

[scrane]

I appreciate your recommendations. I’ve been scuba diving all over the world since 1995. I got over 3K dives. I understand everything your saying. They should not have told me they can accommodate me when they knew they could not. They basically blew me off or just didn’t give a dam. That’s unacceptable to me. I wasted my time, money and effort for nothing. I would have been better off staying in Tulum doing side mount cave dives. That’s why I’m upset. My time is valuable. Hate people bullshiting me and wasting it.

Better luck next time.

 

[airbornediver]

Better luck next time.

Thanks to a few on here I got great recommendations and advice. Thanks