Has anyone had to pay extra to rent weights in addition to a dive tank fee?

[JamesBon92007]

for shore diving, but for a guided tour? I am being told to pay $80 a tank plus weights.

I've never done a guided tour shore dive (anywhere) but asked at the dive shop where the good shore dives are. Usually there are other divers when you get there and I'll chat with them too. A tank alone will cost around $10 (plus getting it filled somewhere else or going back to the shop and getting it filled or exchanged for free within 24 hours) and around $10/day for weights. If I'm diving 12 days while on a trip to Hawai'i then that's $120 for weights--almost enough for a two-tank boat dive (they seem to have gone up more than the weights). Some places will charge less for weekly weight rentals, but so far I haven't had to rent any.

 

[Ayisha]

Did you have to pay extra for weights back then?

I had mentioned in the previous post that we drove down to Bonne Terre mine from Toronto with all of our gear, including tanks and weights. We had a very reasonable package including accommodations and dives. The cost of the dives and rentals (gear, tanks, weights) seemed reasonable then, and I noticed a few years later that both had gone up substantially. I believe the weights were rented at extra cost for those that didn't bring them.

 

[gcarter]

I have often rented a combined tank + weights when traveling, but I have never explicitly paid for weights separately.

It is not unrealistic, as a supplier, to want to recover your costs in as short a time as possible.

Having said that, around here, lead seems to be going doe about $5 CAD / lb. That's at retail. I would balk at a rental rate that pays for the gear in 4 - 5 rentals. A smart businessperson would bury that behaviour in a bundled price if that was the kind of payback they were looking for.

 

[caydiver]

At least at some places in Hawai'i the tank and weights are separate charges so I'll bring a couple of weights in my checked bag and buy a couple of used weights when I get there if I'm planning on doing a lot of shore diving. I've even considered using USPS's Flat Rate Priority Mail to ship them to my destination and back home again if it comes to that. Every dive boat I've ever been on included the tank and weights.

That’s all fine and good but there is no customs charges for shipping to Hawaii if you are in the US. Here you have to literally go to Customs and pay the Duty not only on the price of the goods but the shipping costs as well. If all the paperwork is not letter perfect they will not release your goods. I wouldn’t ship anything here if I didn’t have to.

Bundling doesn’t always work. There are many people who have their own integrated weights and don’t see why they should have to have that cost tacked on automatically. Basically there is no way to make everyone happy all the time

 

[JamesBon92007]

I have often rented a combined tank + weights when traveling, but I have never explicitly paid for weights separately.

It is not unrealistic, as a supplier, to want to recover your costs in as short a time as possible.

Having said that, around here, lead seems to be going doe about $5 CAD / lb. That's at retail. I would balk at a rental rate that pays for the gear in 4 - 5 rentals. A smart businessperson would bury that behaviour in a bundled price if that was the kind of payback they were looking for.

I agree it's not reasonable from the the renter's point of view, but I suspect that they get away with it because of the possibility that someone might lose their weights (drop the belt). I think a better way to do it might be to make the rental conditional--if you drop the weights then you pay for them. Somehow I don't think that would be very popular.

I used to rent a BC while traveling for only about $6-$8/day. The price has tripled or even quadrupled in the past few years (there are a few exceptions). I'm not sure how they justify it but at that rate it would take somewhere around 25-50 days before the BC started to make money so perhaps the average BC is showing signs of wear at that point. I don't really know because I never owned one until I bought a used one just for travel (free checked bag with SouthWest made it doable) and it paid for itself after only a few days of diving but it seems to be holding up just fine. I'm somewhat surprised they are getting away with it because if you can get me to do the checked bag, you can get just about anyone to do it. My girlfriend always does a checked bag anyway so even if we have to pay extra it's not really an additional cost.

 

[runsongas]

it is the budget airline model of advertising a low price on the base fare and making a profit on bag fees etc

and it happens because that is what the market wants

 

[stretchthepenn]

Never dove BT for all of the same reasons given in this thread. Same goes for the Vahalla (sp?) silo and Santa Rosa NM blue hole but I may give Vah. a try before too terribly much longer. The lakes are taking too long to warm up this year

Dive Valhalla is quite the experience, but it's totally a BTDT (been there, done that) dive. Kinda the same for the Blue Hole, really. But at least they're both deeper than Balmorhea!