anchochile
Contributor
So we should just accept a disappointing first dive day out of 5 days? 20% of our diving? Why? When I can just use of the many ops where my dive isn't cut short by someone else's issues and have 5 great dive days?
I didn't say that the first day needs to be disappointing (although it's inevitable that we'll all have disappointing dives from time to time if we're lucky enough to dive a lot).
I just said that in my experience (which is much less extensive than yours, I acknowledge), I have yet to dive with an op that doesn't want to at least see me in the water before placing me with the most advanced divers.
I see that you list yourself as a PADI Pro - is it possible that, by showing your Instructor or DM card, you're getting different treatment? Perhaps as a pro, ops are giving you the privilege of skipping the audition day, while those of us showing an AOW card still have to prove ourselves underwater first (which seems reasonable to me).
Otherwise, if dive ops take everyone at their word on their experience level on day 1, you'd end up with just as many disappointing dives due to all the overconfident, air-hogging coral-kickers who told the op they were "advanced" and ended up on the advanced boat.