Holiday Inn and DiveTech - Any Feedback?

[Dogbowl]

agree, it seems I've heard over time a number of small ops mentioned will take care of gear somehow rather than making you haul wet gear back to your hotel every night, or have some kind of better way to deal with things.

I've dived with Divetech on a number of visits back when they were at Cobalt Coast, and also at Turtle farm, and always though they were a good op. But they were never a valet op, more of a "real divers deal with their own gear" op. But they would certainly help when asked and of course they had appropriate lockers/facilities for you to use.

I’m certainly not a “real” diver so don’t want to be treated as such.

 

[Divetech Cayman]

Hello all, and thanks for all the kind words,

Since the title of the thread is a question about our services, I'll add another few comments here:

Divetech will (and does) provide any level of service a customer requests, including valet diving. Just let us know what sort of service you'd like and we will happily oblige. We will set up gear, change tanks, carry gear to the water upon request. Valet service is not standard practice for all customers, as many divers do not like it, but it's something we will happily do, all you have to do is ask.

For guests staying at either of our locations, we offer lockers for guest gear storage. For guests staying elsewhere, we also offer the option to leave your gear in our secure shed (a.k.a the Wendy House) if you don't want to carry it back and forth to your hotel. Often, guests not staying with us will rinse their gear, and leave it out to dry. Once dry our staff will pack it up, and place it in the storage shed. The next morning, the gear will be carried to the boat by our staff and waiting for you.

All guests who dive with us, have their gear carried to the boats, unless they specifically insist on carrying it, which occurs from time to time.

Tony

 

[howswedeofme]

I have had great experiences with Divetech. Excellent instructors, captains, and all around kind people. While I prefer to rig up my own gear because I double check a valet service anyway, I do appreciate their hauling my bag on/off the boat because I am clumsy and may otherwise fall off the side. I needed help with my tank swap once and an instructor was right there to lend a hand. I also have an affinity for the "real divers deal with their own gear" reputation because after my partial week of diving with them I finally felt like a real diver

 

[caydiver]

Yes there absolutely are ops that rinse and store your gear. We are one and know of others. Also not every diver who would like the service is not "not picky" about their gear. In fact they trust it to be better cared for than it can be in a small hotel room. With regard to reputations dive ops are like restaurants -- they can be awesome one year and not so much the following because of changes in management, etc. Several small ops here are now under one umbrella so what someone experienced a couple of years ago with a small op (good or bad) may be different now. Overall it is a high level here and everyone works to keep it that way.

 

[divezonescuba]

Hello Divetech / Tony:

Since you asked:

Another concern of mine was the issue of doing the actual diving to complete the tec40, 45, and 50 courses. The impression I received was that all of these dives could be done as shore dives from the divetech location. No addition costs were identified for boat trip expenses.

I subsequently learned that it is frequently difficult to do shore dives from the divetech location due to prevailing weather.

So is any necessary boat diving included in the costs or what happens when shore diving cannot be conducted?

 

[Divetech Cayman]

Hello Divetech / Tony:

Since you asked:

Another concern of mine was the issue of doing the actual diving to complete the tec40, 45, and 50 courses. The impression I received was that all of these dives could be done as shore dives from the divetech location. No addition costs were identified for boat trip expenses.

I subsequently learned that it is frequently difficult to do shore dives from the divetech location due to prevailing weather.

So is any necessary boat diving included in the costs or what happens when shore diving cannot be conducted?

Hi Divezonescuba,

thanks for the question, happy to clarify matters here.

You are right in your impression that we plan our training dives as shore dives. We’re in the lucky position to have a great shore dive location at our main Lighthouse Point facility (just voted 4th best shore dive in the world!) with direct access to both the ‘mini’ wall (30 - 60 ft) and the main wall (60 ft +). Both walls can be reached in just a few minutes swim from shore.

We feel the shore dive location offers several benefits. First of all there is more extensive room for course briefing and equipment set-up compared to a more space limited boat. Secondly, as we’re not bound to a boat schedule, we have more flexibility in speeding up, or if needed slowing down, the course to tailor to each student’s needs. This both for the ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ parts of the course. And for tech training, we have no limit in dive time from shore, whereas our regular boat trips have an hour recreational limits.

There are no real downsides, you are still diving the same famous Cayman walls and reefs, so you’re not missing out on any great diving!

I don’t know when exactly you inquired for training, but at our current main location at Lighthouse Point our shore diving is a lot less affected by weather than our previous Cobalt Coast location. It’s more to the south and west, and thus more protected from the prevailing weather than the more northern sites.

Of course occasionally we get ‘blown out’ for a day or so, but I think can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we couldn’t complete a rec or tech course due this in the past 2 years I’ve been here. I myself did my staff training for PADI Tec40/45/50 and IANTD Mod1 rebreather training as shore dives and I recall of all these many days training we had to reschedule one afternoon due some swell.

If shore diving is not possible we discuss options available to both our customers and our operation. We can try to reschedule the training dives, or if boat diving is possible, we can set up a special ‘student’ boat at Divetech’s discretion. In this situation no surcharge would apply for the boat dives.