Just came back from a week at Unique Sports Aruba. Dived with them based on SB reports. Completed eight dives in four days.
Shop: About as unfriendly as they come. It's immediately obvious from the unfriendly and "get you outta there ASAP" attitude that this is not a diver friendly operation. Contrast that to JADS on the other side. Amazing difference. USA is 100% focused on the beginner and resort diver. I guess that's where the big bucks are. Get used to it.
Day one: I select the south side dive boat. According to the shop, you have to have be a very experienced diver or AOW in order to do the south side boat. There are four of us on the boat. A real experienced lady with whom I buddy up - and two brand new OW certs. First dives. I swear. Divemaster shrugs his shoulders. Economics he says. We gotta fill up the boat. (Note: There is a boat one hour later that does easier profiles). We're diving three fingers reef. Plan is to go to 115 feet and work our way up gradually and ascend after 45 minutes. We splash; the newbies can't get off the boat. We're drifting so the boat follows us and drops them in after five more minutes. One of them cannot descend. Finally she holds her husbands hand and they drop down together. We get to 110 feet and...they're done. The DM has to hold onto one the divers because she is adding air to surface. Dive time: 21 mins. And no, the DM was under strict instructions not to let my buddy and I dive as a pair separate from the others. We tell him that we don't give a damn and on the second dive, splash in separately.
We complain to the shop about the "experienced" clause for the south side. They apologize. Their mistake. Next day, we're back on the South boat and guess who is back on board? Both of them. Unbelievable.
Without going into much more detail, here's my take on Unique Sports: Cattle shop operation without much regard to safety or customer satisfaction. My dive buddy say that it wasn't always like this but there have been changes in the last year refocusing on resort courses and certs. This is DEFINITELY NOT an operation for anyone with more than 50 dives. I would never go back and dive there again. Stay away !
(Oh yeah, the Friday boat featured 20 divers, most of whom were newly minted - moo!).
Shop: About as unfriendly as they come. It's immediately obvious from the unfriendly and "get you outta there ASAP" attitude that this is not a diver friendly operation. Contrast that to JADS on the other side. Amazing difference. USA is 100% focused on the beginner and resort diver. I guess that's where the big bucks are. Get used to it.
Day one: I select the south side dive boat. According to the shop, you have to have be a very experienced diver or AOW in order to do the south side boat. There are four of us on the boat. A real experienced lady with whom I buddy up - and two brand new OW certs. First dives. I swear. Divemaster shrugs his shoulders. Economics he says. We gotta fill up the boat. (Note: There is a boat one hour later that does easier profiles). We're diving three fingers reef. Plan is to go to 115 feet and work our way up gradually and ascend after 45 minutes. We splash; the newbies can't get off the boat. We're drifting so the boat follows us and drops them in after five more minutes. One of them cannot descend. Finally she holds her husbands hand and they drop down together. We get to 110 feet and...they're done. The DM has to hold onto one the divers because she is adding air to surface. Dive time: 21 mins. And no, the DM was under strict instructions not to let my buddy and I dive as a pair separate from the others. We tell him that we don't give a damn and on the second dive, splash in separately.
We complain to the shop about the "experienced" clause for the south side. They apologize. Their mistake. Next day, we're back on the South boat and guess who is back on board? Both of them. Unbelievable.
Without going into much more detail, here's my take on Unique Sports: Cattle shop operation without much regard to safety or customer satisfaction. My dive buddy say that it wasn't always like this but there have been changes in the last year refocusing on resort courses and certs. This is DEFINITELY NOT an operation for anyone with more than 50 dives. I would never go back and dive there again. Stay away !
(Oh yeah, the Friday boat featured 20 divers, most of whom were newly minted - moo!).
