Puget Sound area dive shop reviews ...

[MXGratefulDiver]

As many of you by now realize, the "No BS Dive Shop Review" thread has been pulled.

It was created by someone who billed himself as an independent instructor, and it turned out, was a staff instructor at the only local dive shop that he had anything good to say anything about. That is considered stealth promotions, and it is something that we do not allow.

However, several people felt that there was value in having a thread for local dive shop reviews. I agree. I like to encourage you ... the divers who frequent local area dive shops, to use this thread as a repository for comments about what you like, or don't like, about the area dive shops you've done business with.

I think that will be helpful to a lot of folks ... especially those who are new to the area or new to diving.

I would like to establish some ground rules for this thread ... and since I plan to participate, will ask my fellow moderators to enforce these ground rules. I will not, myself, moderate this thread at all ... and hope no one else feels they need to either.

First ... try to base your evaluations of a shop on your experiences ... positive or negative ... tell us what you liked and didn't like about a shop, but please don't just state that you don't like a certain shop without any substantive information upon which to base it.

Second ... if you have a shop affiliation ... i.e. shop owner, staff member, or a customer who's loyal to the point of being exclusive to a single dive shop, please be up front about it. It will help put your comments in the proper context.

I think we had some valuable information in that previous thread ... and will see if we can salvage any of those comments and move them over here.

Personal attacks on other poster's views will not be tolerated ... feel free to disagree based on substance, but let's see if we can build an honest picture of the dive shop resources we have available to us in the greater Puget Sound area.

With that, I open the floor to you ... the local dive community ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[daniel f aleman]

Well, what I notice the most are the huge differences in operations that exist between Northern versus Southern LDSs (cold water v. warm water). As far as equipment, all I need from my local shop is gas and the yearly warranty work on my regs; I purchase everything on the net. Northern shops deal in intensive training (wreck, deep, cold, etc.) and complicated equipment choices (DIR ~shudder~). On the Riviera Maya the important thing is the quality of the boat/guide/divemasters that take you out to the dive site. That, and we get to look at bikinis year-round...

 

[scubak]

Well, shall we start this thread again..? I am sorry that it was misrepresented from the start and became a sticky only to lose all the valuable info....
K

 

[TSandM]

I've shopped at three shops, but I will only review the one with which I have the most experience.

Bubbles Below is our "local" shop. It is three minutes from our house. We got certified through them, and I think they try very hard to do the best job they can in teaching OW students. They keep a very low student/instructor-divemaster ratio. They have a lot of hours in the pool.

The shop is attractive and welcoming, and the staff is friendly. The level of expertise varies. They carry quality equipment at commensurate prices. We have had superb customer service and support -- ANYTHING that has failed to measure up to expected performance has been replaced or serviced at no charge.

It is a shop for recreational diving. They do not carry many of the things that technical or DIR divers would want (eg. bolt snaps, bungee cord, or hard weights). They will order anything you want, but you may wait for it, and sometimes it's more efficient to go elsewhere.

The shop has created a great nucleus of enthusiastic divers. They have an e-group, have frequent fun dives, and organize at least twice yearly major trips. They were recognized by DEMA this year as one of the top 15 dive shops in the country. There is a reason why.

Like all retail shops, they exist to sell product. But they give (in our experience) good advice, don't necessarily steer you to the most expensive items they sell, and stand behind what they sell, sometimes much further than one would expect.

 

[Solitude Diver]

Bob, I think we lost some valuable reviews in the pulled thread.

Could you possibly transfer (at least) some of the more non-biased reviews? Perhaps even consider re-posting all that did not attack other stores?

If nothing else, I’d be in favor of at least posting your review which was pretty fair to several of the area stores.

-Steve

 

[Solitude Diver]

There was a similar thread started not too long ago, that had reviews of the same stores. Can (or should) that be merged (if possible) as well?

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=120495

 

[kalvyn]

I'll post my experience, but in the form of a couple questions: Why is it important to people that they be loyal to any particular dive shop? Why do some shops have that expectation of their customers?

I personally go to the shops that have what I'm looking for. I don't settle for something else because "my LDS" doesn't carry the brand I'm looking for. I go to the shop that has the brand I want. This has meant that I've bought from a few different shops in the area, since no one shop has everything I'm looking for gear-wise. It also means that I sometimes have to drive quite a ways from my house to get what I want, unfortunately.

The shops I have bought at: Underwater Sports in Lakewood, Lighthouse in Tacoma, Fifth Dimention in Kent (RIP) and Issaquah and Silent World in Bellevue. I have had good experiences in all the above, although I've not gone into Lighthouse Tacoma since Tim left there. Mike at the Lakewood UW Sports is a great guy and makes sure your needs are met. This is where I get all my fills, and it is the closest shop to my house. I totally disagree with the "$99 weekend specials" training classes they offer, but that's just my opinion and I don't hold it against them.

I bought my first drysuit from Lighthouse, as well as almost all my tanks. I really enjoyed Tim there; I would just drop by sometimes and shoot the breeze with him. I've really not been back since he left, which shows how much "customer service" can play into one's shopping decisions. Oh yeah, and the instructor that certified me worked through this shop at the time, though I did private instruction with him.

When I was shopping for drysuits when I was a really new diver (well, rank n00b!), I went into the Kent FifthD to look at their suit selection. Sonya Tittle spent a long time talking to me about my options, diving in general and really went a LONG way towards making me feel welcome. I know this shop has a "rep", but I've never experienced it first-hand. I know that it happens sometimes, which is unfortuante, but it didn't when I was in there with Sonya and Eric that first time. I ended up going there to buy my regs and my Halcyon Pioneer as a result of the positive experience I had with Sonya.

I bought my latest drysuit at Silent World. I went there because they sell Andy's and that was what I was looking for. I was impressed with their service, and am very happy with my drysuit. I would reccommend that shop to anyone in the area based on my experience, though I dount I would get up there myself very often since it's an hour drive from my house.

I miss ScubaSET.

Jimmie

 

[TSandM]

This shop loyalty thing is a good question, probably deserving of its own thread.

I also ride horses, which, like diving, involves large amounts of very expensive equipment. But unlike dive shops, tack shops do not expect ANY loyalty from their customers -- they expect us to shop all the shops, and buy the brands we want from the people who carry them. Yes, they'll recommend the brands they carry and explain why, but they know the choice of saddle, for example, is a personal one, and some people buy one thing and others another. No hard feelings, and they're happy to sell you something else the next time you come in. Why are dive shops different?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob, I think we lost some valuable reviews in the pulled thread.

Could you possibly transfer (at least) some of the more non-biased reviews? Perhaps even consider re-posting all that did not attack other stores?

If nothing else, I’d be in favor of at least posting your review which was pretty fair to several of the area stores.

-Steve

I think one of the mods is working on recreating the useful info to include here ... I'll wait a while to see how it turns out.

In the meantime, I want to add another shop to the list ... and my review is not favorable.

ISLAND DIVE AND SPORTS

This shop is in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island ... and unfortunately if you want to dive the San Juans and stay in the islands they are your only option.

I had an experience with them last year that was extremely negative. I was on a 3-day dive trip that included a day of diving the outer walls, so the boat was leaving very early in the morning. The dive shop was in charge of filling all of our tanks and getting them back onto the boat for a 7 AM departure.

That morning we got on the boat, and doing a quick check I noticed one of my tanks was missing. I asked Cap't Rick about it and he said that the guy at the shop had blown a burst disk on my tank while filling it the previous evening ... but the shop had supplied me with a replacement tank. OK ... not too thrilled about the blown disk, but accidents can happen. So we headed out.

I hooked up my first tank ... an E8-119 ... turned it on ... and the pressure gauge read 2,200 psi. I'm paying over $500 for a week-end of diving these walls, and they give me a really short fill. Of the three tanks I had available, none were filled to spec. A few other folks on board also got short fills ... one HP80 had all of 1,500 PSI in it. That's pretty bogus.

We got in our dives ... several of them rather short ... and went back to Friday Harbor. Since we were diving the next day, I decided this time to hang around the shop and watch them fill my tanks ... to make sure they got it right. I wasn't too happy about the short fills, and told them so ... but I was reasonably polite about it. Heck, I even bought a mask strap while I was waiting. When the guy brought out the tank that they had blown the burst disk on ... now repaired and filled ... I asked him if they'd pulled the valve and dried out the tank before filling it. His response was to tell me that he was PSI trained and knew what he was doing. I didn't ask that ... I asked if he had pulled the valve and let the tank dry out before filling it. He said that yes, he had.

After the trip was over, I took the valve off and looked inside ... and the tank was already starting to rust. They hadn't pulled the valve off, and the condensation inside the tank was still evident. I brought it up to Starfish and had it tumbled.

A few months went by and my accountant was going through my credit card statements and asked me why I had two identical charges from Island Dive and Sports on my statement ... they had double billed me for the mask strap. I sent them an e-mail ... and followed it up with a couple more ... asking them to please credit my VISA card for one of the charges (about $15). I never heard back from them.

I won't do business with them again ... in fact, I just turned down an invitation to join next year's trip because there is no choice but to do business with them. They are the embodiment of the adage ... "when you're the only show in town, you don't have to be good".

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well, that last story brings to mind another shop I can talk about ...

ANACORTES DIVE AND SUPPLY

Something about this shop that just puts a smile on my face ... Bob and Kelly run a really nice, friendly business. After the experience I described in the previous post, I decided to get my San Juan Islands fix by staying in Anacortes and diving with either Lu Jac's Quest or Deep Sea Charters ... both very good outfits to deal with.

I don't really buy a lot from Anacortes D & S ... but I do get air fills there. I would get nitrox fills there, but they are one of those shops that won't do a nitrox fill unless your tank's got one of those big tank wraps on it. Their policy, and I respect it ... but I don't want those damn billboards on my tanks. But to me, diving is a very social activity. Obviously ... since I spend so much time on ScubaBoard ... when I'm not diving, my favorite thing to do is get together with other divers and talk about diving. This shop is a very sociable place to spend that kind of time. Bob and Kelly love to dive ... Kelly also loves to take pictures and she's got lots of them in the shop. They run regular dive trips, and if you want to dive Skyline wall with someone who knows the site really well, they're the folks.

I make it a point to stop in the store when I'm in Anacortes ... even if I don't need to ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)