Dixie Divers in Deerfield Groupon

[LowVizWiz]

My wife and I just finished the class. Im happy to say we are finally certified. ( : My wife didnt even want to dive before this class, now is super excited. She even loved the pool classes. We are on our way to the keys on June 8th for our 1st real dives.

The instructor who taught our class has been diving for 20 years now and made it a fun, enjoyable experience. I would not even think twice about going back for the advanced courses for the same price. I want to get some open water experience first.

The owner was annoying, but our instructor was good.

Great to know you and your wife are now certified divers and had a pleasant experience despite all the naysayers! Go out and dive your hearts out it just gets better.

 

[bilsant]

My wife and I just finished the class. Im happy to say we are finally certified. ( : My wife didnt even want to dive before this class, now is super excited. She even loved the pool classes. We are on our way to the keys on June 8th for our 1st real dives.

The instructor who taught our class has been diving for 20 years now and made it a fun, enjoyable experience. I would not even think twice about going back for the advanced courses for the same price. I want to get some open water experience first.

The owner was annoying, but our instructor was good.

Congrats and welcome to the diving community !!!

 

[Reck Diver]

My wife and I just finished the class. Im happy to say we are finally certified. ( : My wife didnt even want to dive before this class, now is super excited. She even loved the pool classes. We are on our way to the keys on June 8th for our 1st real dives.

The instructor who taught our class has been diving for 20 years now and made it a fun, enjoyable experience. I would not even think twice about going back for the advanced courses for the same price. I want to get some open water experience first.

The owner was annoying, but our instructor was good.

Glad you two finished. I never had any doubts about the instruction you received. You are correct about the real diving being in the keys (especially for mini season). There are some deals other dive shops are doing for AOW courses. If they are not posted just ask for a deal. Paying retail sucks!

 

[soamelt]

I got my OW at Dixie Divers, I like my instructors a lot and think they did a great job. My only compliant was that I found their gear to be on the expensive side compared to Force-e. However, that was 4 years ago and that might have changed. Their OW cert was cheaper (once boat trips and everything was added in) than most other places which is why I went with them.

I then did a deal for my AOW up in Scuba Works, I think it was around $200 for everything with 5 boat trips(maybe even cheaper) and had great instruction there as well.

Both places were picked because of price and I wouldn't hesitate to refer or use again the instructors I had to anyone. Price does not equal quality. Besides, I'm sure most of these places are looking to recoup any losses with store sales from the students.

 

[Bad-Andy]

Maybe you have not heard the hundreds of examples of how the end product turned out, when the business or dive instructor was on a shoe string, and had to do huge volume of this groupon result, with almost no payment....

For a drowning man, this is like a life-ring with an anchor line pulling it and the drowning man under...For a "good dive shop", without money problems ( = able to pay instructors full price), Groupon will be irrelevant.
In the last few years in Florida, Groupon has been mis-used by those in trouble, and it has made them worse.
In this thread, it was a "Buyer Beware" issue, because of the potential for mis-use....so many people have contacted me directly, telling me that Dixie is not like this..that they would never compromise training quality, that maybe this is very misplaced in their involvement here....however, I still have not heard of any direct knowledge that Dixie is paying their instructors full price for this....so I do not owe them an apology yet

Take my response with a grain of salt, as I'm slightly biased (I did my IDC with Pavan and Dixie Divers years ago -- when they were in the old building). I was in there with a student last weekend helping her buy gear (I send most of my students there to get gear because of the wide variety available, and because Pavan has always been good about returning/exchanging/repairing stuff when it breaks -- even when slightly beyond warranty. The extra-customer service is worth a little more money to me... Anyways, I asked about the Groupon deal. And, as it was explained to me, the instructors are full-time and work on the floor selling gear when not teaching. So, they get paid either way. The shop expects to lose a little money on the classes (if everyone uses them -- which right now isn't the case). But, they will more than make up for it on gear sales. They are looking at it as an investment to reach more customers that otherwise wouldn't dive (either because of cost or would dive with a different LDS due to location). If only 10% buy their gear there, the shop comes out ahead. One can reasonably assume that more than 10% will buy their gear there, so it ends up a win-win situation (shop makes more money, and divers save a little money on the course).

As for quality of training, they are the exact same classes whether you pay through Groupon or you go in and pay full price. Hopefully that settles the issue. (As for Pavan being annoying, you just have to know how to take his dry, sarcastic, Brazilian sense of humor...).

 

[LowVizWiz]

(As for Pavan being annoying, you just have to know how to take his dry, sarcastic, Brazilian sense of humor...).

+1 That sentiment!

 

[Mike79]

I just want to say I only saw this thread on a google search and had to post. I do feel that what danvolker said is not correct. My wife and I did the groupon with Dixie Divers back in February of this year and had an excellent experience. I will say the deal is there to get people to buy their equipment and hopefully to dive through them. My wife and I first did a cruise beginner dive before we got certified and she could not get the breathing underwater thing. We then found the groupon with Dixie Divers and went for the certification through them. Their instructors did an amazing job with my wife on the first pool session and after that she has been an amazing dive buddy. Bret was the instructor to help her and did an amazing job to calm her down in the water. So to those that think you get what you pay for with dixie divers through a groupon is totally false. It was because of their instructors that we will be going back to Dixie for a long time.

Pavan can be a bit rough but not unmanageable but it is the rest of the crew at Dixie Divers that really does keep people coming back to them. BTW, if anyone ever gets a chance to go to Dixie Joel is one funny cat.

 

[acteg]

Just wanted to say congrats to the OP on getting certified, and I'm also wondering how the trip to the keys went?

I also wanted to chime in on groupon. My understanding is that most companies lose money with groupon. Some companies look at this as a loss lead item, some companies give you a subpar product in return for the reduced cost. It's really a case by case thing so it's hard to assume without knowing for sure...ie first hand experience.

That being said, I purchased the AOW and OW (for a friend) from the Dennis Buice groupon in Orlando. After trying to set up the class and talking with Dennis my gut instinct told me this wasn't the way to go. Still, I tried contacting him a few more times to make arrangements, and eventually I had to call groupon and ask for my money back (which they promptly refunded).

I agree with everyone that instruction is what's really important and price (within reason) really shouldn't enter the equation. I also believe, as with any education, it is what you make of it.

 

[danvolker]

I just want to say I only saw this thread on a google search and had to post. I do feel that what danvolker said is not correct. My wife and I did the groupon with Dixie Divers back in February of this year and had an excellent experience. I will say the deal is there to get people to buy their equipment and hopefully to dive through them. My wife and I first did a cruise beginner dive before we got certified and she could not get the breathing underwater thing. We then found the groupon with Dixie Divers and went for the certification through them. Their instructors did an amazing job with my wife on the first pool session and after that she has been an amazing dive buddy. Bret was the instructor to help her and did an amazing job to calm her down in the water. So to those that think you get what you pay for with dixie divers through a groupon is totally false. It was because of their instructors that we will be going back to Dixie for a long time.

Pavan can be a bit rough but not unmanageable but it is the rest of the crew at Dixie Divers that really does keep people coming back to them. BTW, if anyone ever gets a chance to go to Dixie Joel is one funny cat.

Needless to say I was in a lot of discussions back when this topic came up. I now feel that there are good shops, that "can" use Groupon intelligently, they will pay their instructors full price, and they will not deviate from the good services they are known for when they do Groupon....However, there is the other side of the spectrum, where you have shops that are just hanging on, to the point that they are already "cutting corners" where they think they can...When one of these shops use Groupon, the experience for the new students can be very bad....Groupon will often exaggerate the bad. I have seen several very high end shops use this, with no drop in services or quality of instruction, so to those in that category, my apologies for my earlier post.....For the ones cutting all the corners, no apology is offered

 

[SinkFloridaSink]

DanVolker,

That's nice of you to return to this thread to correct/update your opinion. I live in Broward County and I must say, Dixie is one of the few shops I put on a pedistool when talking about dive shops.
In the next 3 weeks, my GF and I will start our AOW with Dixie.


I posted the below information on another thread on here:
"My girlfriend and I both got our PADI OWs from Dixie Divers with a Groupon deal. We took the certifications separately, but with the same instructor.
We were treated like valued, full-paying guests. I would recommend Dixie to anyone interested in scuba.

They typically charge $350 for OW. We got ours for $169 each (including books)."