No Morning Dive After Flight the Day Before with ProDive Mexico?!?

[ggunn]

I've dove with Pro-Dive from the Occidental Grand (same boats and DMs as the Allegro) several times. I've never pre-booked any of my dives, I just go to the dive shop the day we get there, sign up, and get on the boat the next day. They have never mentioned anything about doing afternoon instead of morning, in fact, on my last trip I did all four the day after I arrived.

They know you. As I said earlier, if the OP had been a repeat customer he probably wouldn't have been subject to this policy and we wouldn't be having this discussion. If the op knows you there is no need to evaluate your proficiency; they already know it. Otherwise they want to find out if you can handle a deep dive before they take you out, and what your cert card says isn't a reliable measure of that. There are lots of folks who hold an AOW cert who have very few dives, haven't dealt with currents, etc. No matter what their card says, they're not ready for Punta Sur and that may be the plan for the next morning's dive.

 

[Lorenzoid]

There was no offer of a 10 am checkout dive as has been suggested. . . .

Huh? Are you playing semantics with the word "offer" or "checkout"?

. . .
Coralie: So I would have to check with the dive center if you can maybe start with the 10 AM dives
Coralie: what is your experience ?
Coralie: How many dives do you have logged ?
Coralie: We can make some exeption
. . .

As I interpret it, they made you an "offer" of a 10 am dive, conditional on you answering their questions. These are the same sort of questions every dive op asks. But I guess you, being a divemaster, would know that.

 

[Dan]

You may need to buy more popcorns. Can I have some of those popcorns, Dogbowl?

 

[Mitch H.]

Huh? Are you playing semantics with the word "offer" or "checkout"?



As I interpret it, they made you an "offer" of a 10 am dive, conditional on you answering their questions. These are the same sort of questions every dive op asks. But I guess you, being a divemaster, would know that.

What you don't know, and what was not mentioned, is in our previous conversations we were told they have boats that go out at approximately 8:00 and 1:00 every day. Never a mention of a 10:00 boat previous to this conversation. I honestly looked at it as them just trying to get us to book with them. We had been trying to ge

t answers to several questions before booking our dives with them. As I said before, there is no doubt I was frustrated from our previous conversations and lack of direct answers. It would certainly be nice if they posted those previous conversations, but it is obviously not in their best interest to do so.

Seriously, if they had just said something like you have never dove with us before so we have to do a shallow check-out dive first, that would have been the end of the conversation. Instead, we started going down a rabbit hole.

 

[Mitch H.]

Well, it's obvious I don't know how to post pics either.

 

[Mitch H.]

The real interesting thing to me about ALL of this is we have never been asked to do this before or this issue even been raised. This is our 3rd trip to Cozumel in the last year. In addition, we have dove in the Bahamas, the Florida Keys and the Flower Gardens this year. NEVER did we need to "audition" for a dive op. We offered our C-card and all was good.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. We chose a different dive op that we have dove with before. No auditions required.

Edited to add: The GLARING mistake I made was trying to apply reason to this situation based on my previous experience with other dive ops.

 

[redacted]

Huh? Are you playing semantics with the word "offer" or "checkout"?



As I interpret it, they made you an "offer" of a 10 am dive, conditional on you answering their questions. These are the same sort of questions every dive op asks. But I guess you, being a divemaster, would know that.

They said, "...maybe start with the 10 AM dive". The "maybe" often means "no" after they set the hook.

This is a bad dive op. Any other op in Cozumel would put them on an 8am dive as requested.

 

[stuartv]

This is a bad dive op. Any other op in Cozumel would put them on an 8am dive as requested.

And maybe that's (part of the reason) why there are diving fatalities on Coz, but none have been with ProDive?

 

[morecowbells]

My guess would be that the 10 am dive involves joining the other divers during the surface interval after the first dive and being a part of the second dive.

I haven't been in Cozumel in several years, but for the purposes of this thread, I will describe one of those occasions when using one of the operators Christi listed. They have a number of boats, and they endeavor to divide you by ability. As soon as I arrived, I went to the shop, dropped off my gear, did my paperwork, and discussed my goals. The next morning I went to the pier outside my hotel and awaited my boat. It arrived with the rest of the divers all ready to go--I was the last to board. "We're going to Maracaibo--OK with you?" one of them called out as the boat reached the pier. Of course it was OK. Doing my first dive at a site that requires a dispensation from the Pope for most of the operators was perfectly fine.

First dive to Maracaibo would raise a red flag to say the least! My husband and I are experienced, capable divers. However if a boat pulled up and declared that we would be diving such an advanced, deep, and current laden site without truly knowing or assessing our skills and experience would make me turn around and find another dive op that wasn't focused on pleasing the dive jocks.

 

[RhodeDiver]

From the looks of the transcript, the OP was just looking to pick a fight. I would also like to point out that the OP lied about being a divemaster at the time of the conversation.

I would say they are better off not having him as a customer.