LDS sponsored trips

[DeputyDan]

This is a very good point. If a resort is familiar with your LDS because they've been there a good bit, chances are you might receive some level of preferential treatment...or, at least get a quick pass thru some of the tedious stuff. For example, we're going with our LDS on a trip where the resort requires an orientation dive. For most people, this means no diving on the day of arrival, as the orientation dive is the next morning. For our group, the LDS has been there so many times, the resort trusts him to give his group their orientation dive, so we'll be diving on day of arrival. BTW, my LDS only tacks on $25 over what I could book it. Sure, he may get a free spot too, but that's really none of my business and I don't care if he doesn't "split it" with the rest of the group. I mean, I wouldn't be getting that discount otherwise, and I think of it as part of his revenue. People that get pissed the LDS is getting a free spot, should try running their own dive business for a while, spend their dive vacation fielding complaints, tend to problems that pop up on the trip, blah blah blah...and then get back to us on the topic.

Sounds like some place I visit that is on a series of islands just off the mainland in central america. and yes, I have had that exact same experience.