Gear Packages

[FailedExistence]

My wife and I are looking to get open water certified soon as we are planning a trip to Hawaii (Maui) for the Summer. Neither of us have any diving experience, but are both extremely excited about getting into it. We've talked to a couple local dive shops here in Arizona about getting the certification done and all said we needed our own equipment as far the personal type items go. As we live quite a ways from any of the scuba stores we were looking to go mail order and found LeisurePro which offers some package deals on what appears to be everything we need.

Does anyone have any experience with this retailer?

The packages we were looking at were :
Mares Optimum-Diver Snorkel Package from LeisurePro.com
Tusa Olympic-Tech Snorkel Package from LeisurePro.com
Any positive / negative opinions about them?

Anything more we're going to need?

Thanks for any and all insight!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Both look like good packages at a reasonable price. The one issue you need to consider though with two items is fit. Boots are just like shoes. One size from one manufacturer is probably different than the same size from another. On the plus side they are neoprene which stretches but even still I have my first pair of boots and 4 years later they kill my feet. Maybe they shrunk but I had to get new ones.

Mask fit is extremely critical. If it does not fit properly it will leak, possibly hurt, and generally make life miserable. It's kinda hard to try one on thru the mail. My advice if you insist on buying stuff now is get the fins, maybe a snorkel, but wait till you actually start classes and get a properly fitting mask and boots with that shop. Best thing is get everything at the same time so you're sure it fits. May spend a few more bucks but hey this is not a cheap sport. There's lots of other stuff you can save money on down the road.

 

[Damselfish]

You really need to try on the mask, if you do it mail order be prepared to send things back and try again. (and maybe again...) I've gone into shops and tried all the masks they had and not found one that fit right, so it's not always easy. You also need to know the right way to check a mask for fit, it's something they would show you in a shop, another argument for doing it there. (If you do mail, do a search here for mask fitting tips, it's been discussed a lot.) Ideally you would also try on the boots and fins, together, though you have a somewhat better chance of getting that right remotely.

Those packages may be a good deal for what is included, hard to tell, but a package that contains things you don't need or that you will hate and want to replace in 6 months is rarely a good deal. Do you plan on doing only tropical diving? If so I especially wouldn't buy either of those packages. You don't need gloves, in fact aren't allowed to wear them many places. The boots they show might be taller and thicker than you want (they don't seem to give the thickness.) Any boot would work if it fits, but you might find you prefer a lower 3mm tropical style booty than what they show. I suspect the bags they include you might not find all that useful in real life. They may be lightweight and only suitable for holding the snorkeling set. Again they give no details, but neither looks like something you would pack your gear in for travel, or looks like a good boat bag for all your gear.

One of those packages has split fins and one has paddle fins. People tend to have strong preferences for one or the other, if you don't have a reason to pick one or the other yet at least do a little reading about them. Even better if you can try them in a pool someplace or in class.

 

[FailedExistence]

My advice if you insist on buying stuff now is get the fins, maybe a snorkel, but wait till you actually start classes and get a properly fitting mask and boots with that shop. Best thing is get everything at the same time so you're sure it fits. May spend a few more bucks but hey this is not a cheap sport. There's lots of other stuff you can save money on down the road.

The stores we visited told we had to get equipment before the first class and we don't have a lot of opportunity to make it into town/to the stores - thus I was opting for the mail order route hoping to make life easier - sounds like it might do the opposite!

Thanks for the advice.

 

[wjknobles]

failed existence ... i can't quote you a price at the moment since I'm not at the store, but I know that we basically have the Mares package in stock ... pm RoyalScubaAustin and the owner will get back to you ... or I'll check once I get in tomorrow afternoon

 

[FailedExistence]

Do you plan on doing only tropical diving? If so I especially wouldn't buy either of those packages. You don't need gloves, in fact aren't allowed to wear them many places.

Not really sure what the future holds as far as our diving locales ... I'd like to use it as an excuse to travel more! Either way, we were told by at least two of the local shops that we HAD to have gloves for our open water dives - thus one of the reasons we were looking at these.

One of those packages has split fins and one has paddle fins. People tend to have strong preferences for one or the other, if you don't have a reason to pick one or the other yet at least do a little reading about them. Even better if you can try them in a pool someplace or in class.

One of them was more geared for my wife, and one for myself based on what we had read and heard. Like I said above, unfortunately our ability to get to the dive shops is not as easy as I wish it was and they advised us that we had to have the gear prior to day one. Hopefully we can make it up there again soon to try some things out.

 

[terrillja]

The stores we visited told we had to get equipment before the first class and we don't have a lot of opportunity to make it into town/to the stores - thus I was opting for the mail order route hoping to make life easier - sounds like it might do the opposite!

Thanks for the advice.

I'll second JimLap, masks, at least for me are completely hit or miss, it look ~10 before I found one which fit well, if I had to order and return each one, that would get expensive, or i'd just settle on one that didn't fit perfectly. I'd be fine with buying fins or wetsuits from LeisurePro, but just be careful when buying BCs or Regs in the future, since many of the BCs, Regs, and computers LP sells they are not an aunthorized dealer for. Because of this, you only have a warranty from LP, not from the manufacturer. If you have a problem, it has to go back to NY for service, rather than any other dealer in AZ or wherever you hapen to be diving.

I'd recommend looking at scubatoys.com because they have such good customer service and returns policies. If you buy an item and it's the wrong size, you pay to ship it to them, they pay to ship you a new one. Pretty good deal overall.

 

[FailedExistence]

I'd recommend looking at scubatoys.com because they have such good customer service and returns policies. If you buy an item and it's the wrong size, you pay to ship it to them, they pay to ship you a new one. Pretty good deal overall.

Thanks for the info, and the link! I hadn't checked that site out yet, but definitely will now. The warranty information is good as well - does that also apply to scubatoys?

 

[Don Wray]

Plus, tell Scubatoys you're a member of Scubaboard and get the discount; yes Scubatoys is an authorized dealer for their products.

 

[Damselfish]

Not really sure what the future holds as far as our diving locales ... I'd like to use it as an excuse to travel more! Either way, we were told by at least two of the local shops that we HAD to have gloves for our open water dives - thus one of the reasons we were looking at these.

well for local OW dives you very well might, I have no idea of the water temp where you will be doing those. I see now they're 5mm, for some reason the links didn't show up for me before. Gloves are another thing that are nice to try on, though.