Dive Tech in Grand Cayman, thumbs up or down?

[Cave Diver]

Divetech Cayman once bubbled...
Hello Kevin K -

This is Nancy @ Divetech, and I am writing a short resposne as I have had a lot of folks email me the posting that you put up.

<snip>

While I would love to address all of the comments (which I would be happy to do one on one) I would like to say 2 things. The first - is please do not hold Cayman accountable for Divetech. This is a great island, and the diving is really awesome, year round. The second is that, while opinions differs, the staff at Divetech are some of the best I have ever had a chance to work with. They may be rushed sometimes - hold that against the company, not the staff.

I love the way that you place responsibility with the company. It's a rare trait that someone take the responsibility these days rather than pass it off to someone else.

I was part of the Childers group that was there during September of last year and although we didnt do any boat diving, we used DiveTech as our base of operations for practically our entire dive trip.

Even though we were staying at our family home in Bodden Town (a considerable distance from DiveTech) we made the trek there several times a day to pick up and exchange tanks as we did our shore diving excursions around the island.

All of the staff the I met and dealt with were extremely accomodating and I wouldnt hesitate to use or recommend them again.

OTOH, we found the staff at Eden Rock and Sunset House to be a little rude and condescending. The funny part was how quick their attitude changed when they found out that my little group of dive buddies had more experience than half of their respective staff's...

We also ended up walking out of Cayman Diving lodge after a few of the comments by one of their staff members when we went to see about doing a two tank boat dive with them.

Bad service can happen anywhere for a variety of reasons. But for my money, I'd gladly go back to DiveTech on my next trip even though several other operators are much more conveniently located for us.

Just my $.02, and welcome to the board Nancy!

 

[wb416]

Cave Diver once bubbled...

[snip]

We also ended up walking out of Cayman Diving lodge after a few of the comments by one of their staff members when we went to see about doing a two tank boat dive with them.

Bad service can happen anywhere for a variety of reasons. But for my money, I'd gladly go back to DiveTech on my next trip even though several other operators are much more conveniently located for us.

Just my $.02, and welcome to the board Nancy!

Snap Shots in time.... You're right... anyone at anytime can experience poor service from someone that provided excellent service to another person/group. Timing and/or expectations can also have allot to do with it...

I actually had great luck at CDL as a 'walk-on'... I'd called ahead for a spot and drove the 45 minutes over there and was treated to a refreshing lunch prior to the 2 tank dive... I liked it so much I did it a few more times during my 2-week stay on the island... however, different dives with different staff members had different characteristics....

I had different experiences with Divers Down the 2nd time than I did on my first trip... not bad, mind you, but my expectations and experience level had changed substantially, but so had their personnel...

... My next trip I'll probably try different ops, not 'cause I've had bad experiences, but because I figure no one op has a monopoly on all the good sites/experiences on the island... so far I've been lucky to have had only a few mediocre dives there, but they're ALL still better than quarry diving!

bob

 

[mjn]

I dive Grand Cayman at least four times a year and always seem to have a good time. I was in Cayman the week of May 29th 2002 and we got to dive the North side almost every day except when we chose to go south and east. I do know we were lucky since the north is iffy during this time of the year. If the wind had been blowing on the north and it calmed down it could still take a couple of days for the water to clear. I dive with Divers Down most of the time and they let you dive to your skill level and will go where you want to go weather permitting. Cayman is a good destination and maybe more importantly a safe place with good food and a clean island.

 

[mikeh]

Having just returned at 10PM last night from a week of awesome diving with DiveTech and Cobalt Coast, I am somewhat at a loss to correlate your experiences with ours.

Cobalt Coast:

Great hotel, good service, tremendous effort. We were there from 6/28-7/5/03. Ari and his staff were tremendous, and Dennis at the bar was a kick. We never went further than Georgetown, and rarely strayed out of West End. We were there to dive and relax, so not being in the center of 7 mile was irrelevant. We still put a dent in Decker's lobster supply.

Dive Tech

3 of our group were there for some deep dives (200+) and were well accomodated. We booked Ata Tude for the week (Sun-Fri), although we skipped Friday and went shopping instead. While I think we were given the same dive profiles as Kevink, since we were doing deep in the morning and diving computers the 100' request was fine. To be precise, it was suggested that if you were following the guided dive you not be below the dive leader, and the profile was 100' for 15 minutes, turn when 1st diver reached 1600psi, pass boat around 1000psi, ascend at 800psi. Suggested run time 50 minutes for computers, 40 without. Dive 2 was always 60', turn at 1600, etc. runtime 40 minutes with computer, 30 without.

All that said, our sense was that since no one on our trip was tense about it, the DM made no bones about the profiles over 120', and over 60' on the second dive just shortened NDL, so no worries there either. (we didn't test his patience by going into decompression dives).

BTW..the important part. The diving was AWESOME!!!

 

[Rick Simonds]

All I have to say is Grand Cayman Rocks!

We went down in the begining of June, and dove with several operators all were 1st rate except for one on the west end of the IS that was rude.

I would highly rate Dive Tech, Ocean Frontiers and Dive N Stuff. We were able to dive our profiles and given great advice about the sites in the area.

Rick

PS Nancy congrats on a very professional response.

 

[dc4bs]

mikeh once bubbled...
Cobalt Coast:

Great hotel, good service, tremendous effort. We were there from 6/28-7/5/03. Ari and his staff were tremendous, and Dennis at the bar was a kick.

Denis is awesome! As have been the rest of the staff every time I've been to CC.

My buddies and I were the first ever guests at Cobalt...

We were booked at another place for new years 2001 and they went out of business... They DID give us our deposit back but we had nowhere to stay as the island was prety booked for new years.

We found the Cobalt website and they told us that they SHOULD have all their permits and stuff by the dates we were coming.

As it turned out, they got their final permit on Wednesday and we arrived on Saturday of the same week.

Anyway, Denis used to stop by our rooms in the afternoon and ask if we planned to drink that night. Since we were the only guests at the time, he'd take the night off or open late if we planned to eat elsewhere than CC...

He showed up at "The Roof" and had desert with us one night after we mentioned we might be going there or another place for dinner...

Realy fun guy to hang with.

We've been back to CC a few times since then and my Buddy had his wedding on the beach in GC and everyone stayed at Cobalt. Wonderfull place.

As for Dive Tech, I've rarely been treated so well by any diveshop (even the one I DM for).

They bent over backwords to help my buddy and I. To the point that Nancy offered to loan me her personal BC (backplate/harnes) so we could do a deco/wall dive. I was too big to fit in her rig so one of the other staff offered to let me use their personal harness (I think it may have been Calli) and made a run over the the turtle reef shop to get it for me.

I've since gotten all my own tech gear.

All the boat trips I've done with DT have been great and I whole heartedly reccomend them to anyone. I dunno what happend the week you were there but from my experiance it doesn't sound like them at all.

 

[Carlyle]

I just got back from Cayman, 15th trip. Stayed at Cobalt, and dove with Dive Tech.
Perhaps a conversation with the DM rather than threatening their life maybe a better solution in future.
In may opinion they are as professional an outfit as Nancy's response was.

Good luck with other shops on other Islands.