Living the Dream Divers

[chibracdiver]

Why leave the rest to imagination? Wouldn't it be prudent to just come out with their side of the story? We are not in a court of law and since I dive on Grand and this is a dive op I might be interested in diving with...or not I would like to hear their side of the story.

Situations like this should not be open to innuendo and internet folly. If I were LTD I would want to be open and honest in my response to the dive community and move on. I do not see them doing themselves any justice by sitting back and have satisfied customers come on here and state, "leave the rest to the imagination." If mistakes were made then own up to them, and move on. Sometimes the cover up of the action is far worse than the action itself.

 

[Samboney]

I was not saying to let your imagination run and speculate what happened.

My comment about leaving the rest to the imagination referred to the results of a diver that is in need of help and not asking for it or delaying the request for it. Those divers generally end up as DAN Statistics of some sort - dead or injured.

In this case, LTD called the people with the best resources for the situation - the Marine Police. They made the call immediately - rather than try to save face, they chose to make the wise decision. According to the news report (link posted earlier in this thread) The Marine Police lauded LTD for taking the action that they did.

“The dive company did exactly the right thing by raising the alarm as soon as they realised that something may be wrong. Their quick thinking combined with the fact that we were able to deploy so quickly most likely saved the lives of the divers today.”

This statement is exactly why I chose them to dive with LTD. And I will again.

I'm sorry if I lead anyone to think I was suggesting we all let our imaginations run wild about what happened.

 

[dixiedan]

Point taken Samboney. You left out one very important part however, LTD staff were in the water with the guests when they got lost....at Stingray City.

 

[Doctorfish]

I think it's time to give this a rest. I can't imagine there is one dive operator in GC, or elsewhere for that matter, who does not have similar near miss stories if they have been in business long enough. I've dived with Gary before and plan to continue to do so.

 

[getdowndiver]

Ocean Frontiers has 177 trip advisor reviers after 15 years in biz. After 16 years in business Dive Tech has only 58 reviews. Red Sail Sports, in business for more than 20 years has a shop in every major hotel and they only have 38 Trip Advisor reviews. Living the dream divers has been in business for 6 months and they have 244 perfect reviews. These guys lost two people in 15 feet of water. They have been voted "worlds best adventure tour" by Trip Advisor?? How is this possible?

 

[Testudo]

Ocean Frontiers has 177 trip advisor reviers after 15 years in biz. After 16 years in business Dive Tech has only 58 reviews. Red Sail Sports, in business for more than 20 years has a shop in every major hotel and they only have 38 Trip Advisor reviews. Living the dream divers has been in business for 6 months and they have 244 perfect reviews. These guys lost two people in 15 feet of water. They have been voted "worlds best adventure tour" by Trip Advisor?? How is this possible?

One possible explanation is they strongly believe in the power of social media. Could be they actively solicit customers to submit reviews from their actual experience with Living the Dream. There are other possible explanations as well.

I wonder if the "lost divers" submitted a review?

 

[EastEndDiver]

I think it comes down to "marketing".I have been diving Cayman since 1980 and have dove with most of the ops there ,they are all good in my opinion.Take for example Peter Milburn and Olin Miller both these guys probably have 20,000 dives in Cayman waters and are humble and never ask for anyone to write a review for them etc.,they rely on their reputation .Then you can take Jason from Ambassador and Dusty from Dive N Stuff (just to name two ) both are really nice guys ,fun to be around, run a safe fun dive op and they never ask anyone to write a review .Wall to Wall,Indigo,Sunset House,Cayman Diving school,etc. have never asked me to write a review when I dove with them.It seems these ops rely on their word of mouth reputation and repeat customers.

When I look at reviews I usually look to see if there are many repeat customers as opposed to "first timers" who can be easily swayed to believe they were with the best and also people who dove other ops in the area to make a fair comparison.Another thing is experienced divers who have a better comprehension of what is going on.

Testudo I doubt if they did,I didn't see anything when the incident happened.


Alex I will be on island from Sept 18 thru Sept 24 ,really no weekend days available.Dusty said he will be diving the East End weather permitting during that time.

 

[Alex777]

East End? I'll join you if I can.

I agree with all your comments. LTD Divers may well be a very good dive op; certainly, many of their customers think so. But the point is that there are many other dive ops here (including the ones you have mentioned and others) which provide a high quality, friendly, professional service without feeling the need to generate an artificial buzz on Trip Advisor. The TA web site is not a reliable guide for doing comparisons; counting the positive reviews does not provide an accurate indication of whether one dive op is better than another.

 

[Sortsol]

I was just reading another thread that was complaining about negative reviews on TA that the Dive Op claims never dove with them... TA is suspect in my book. I will say that just because someone solicits their customers to write a review doesn't mean they aren't as good or better than the others. It may just mean they are new and trying to get their name out there so they can compete with those that have been around a while.

My 2 cents.

 

[scubadada]

Personally, I use Trip Advisor to help me find hotels but do not use it for dive operators. To find a new dive operator I use Undercurrent, ScubaBoard, and emails to both the operators and former patrons. This strategy has served me well many times.

To put some of the above posts in context, on Undercurrent, Ocean Frontiers has 55 reviews, Indigo 40, Divetech 33, Sunset House 17, Wall to Wall 13 and Living the Dream 4. There's a lot of good information there.

Good diving, Craig