Watch out for Divers Down / Cayman Diving College

[Zephrant]

I had a few poor experiences with Divers Down on Grand Cayman, and wanted to share. Our family snorkel trip to the Sand Bar to see the Stingrays on 10/17/07 started with us following the directions to get to the boat, which turned out to be impossible because of a gate that was locked (and had been locked for days). We back-tracked a few miles to get around the locked gate and made it to the resort on time. No signs, nothing to indicate a trip was going to occur other than some other people standing around with the same vacant look. The boat showed up at the dock over a half hour late. When we finally got on the boat we were told that we should have checked in at the shop inside the resort (that we did not even know existed, as we had signed up at another location). Back off the boat, down the long pier, 100 yards across the resort to the hole-in-the-wall dive shop, then back to the boat.

The rest of the trip was good- Nice captain/guide, and a fun trip. Definitely worth getting up early for the morning trip- we were the only boat there.

Thinking that the issues were a fluke, I scheduled a night dive for ... now. I should be in the water not typing here. I signed up at the shop in the resort right after the Stingray trip. They called to confirm twice the next day to make sure I was coming, and to remind me to bring my card. I showed up at the meeting location at 5:30 (15 minutes early), and found the shop closed. After the appointed meeting time arrived, I started calling the numbers I could find for them. I talked to the person I booked with (William Jones Jr.) several times, told him where I was, and asked them to send someone to pick me up. While he was not working today, he promised to get it figured out for me. When 6:00 came around I called the main shop again, and this time Nichole answered. She knew nothing of the issues of course, and asked me to call her back after she called/radioed around. When I called back, it turns out that the boat with the three other divers was now on the buoy, and couldn’t come pick me up at a dock because it was “too dark”.

OK, it’s a night dive, if they can’t drive a boat in the dark, exactly how are they going to get back to shore?

Basically they forgot to pick me up, then ignored my repeated calls to either come get me, or tell me where the boat was docked so I could drive down and meet them.

So here I type, scratching mosquito bites I got from standing in the parking lot for an hour, net-diving instead of doing my only chance for a night dive on Seven Mile Beach. I leave the 7MB area in two days, and they only run dives on Tuesday/Thursday. Even if I can find another outfit that would go out in the next two nights, I’ve already committed to plans with the extended family that I’m not willing to break.

So thanks for wasting my time, $10 worth of cell phone calls, and my only chance for a night dive.

Watch out for Diver’s Down!

Zeph

 

[almitywife]

it sucks when things are so un-managed that you are left with a bitter taste as a result

for them it may have only been the one diver or they may think for you its just the one dive but we all put so much planning and anticipation into our dive trips!

hopefully the rest of your trip is more positive

 

[Alex777]

Zeph, that's a miserable experience and I sympathize. If you would like to do a night dive tomorrow (Friday) at, say, Turtle Reef, PM me right away. I'm not in the dive business, but I do a lot of night diving and would be happy to take you.

Alex

 

[Zephrant]

Thanks all- I mostly needed to vent. I planned this trip for 9 months, included my parents along with my family so I’d have baby sitting help as needed, and my Dad could dive with me, etc…

So yeah, I’m just frustrated at their apparent lack of concern- As you said, for them it was just a single dive for one diver, out of thousands. For me it was a single chance to night dive off of 7MB.

I don’t need everything to go perfectly, but I do expect a dive shop to go way out of their way to fix their own screwups.

Nicole at their shop was very nice and apologetic, and offered to help me find another shop to dive with, but I figured I’d give Danny at Off-the-Wall a chance.

Alex- I’d love go out with you, but am on pretty restricted time now. I’ll PM you a number and maybe we can talk tonight.

Zeph

 

[redrover]

I think I’d be a lot crankier than you sound.

 

[Divers Down Cayman]

The old adage "you can't please everybody all of the time" seems appropriate here. After speaking to the staff involved a feel compelled to write a response to Zeph's comments. Firstly, I will refer to the Stingray City snorkel trip; Zeph was given detailed directions to the Grand Caymanian Resort, which is located off Seven Mile Beach on the North Sound. Unfortunately he took a wrong turning and ended up in a private housing development which is a gated community. I'm not sure how any of my staff can be blamed for that. Secondly, he was asked to report to the the dive shop (hole-in-the wall), which is located in the lobby of the resort at 7.30 am. Strangely all the other guests "checked-in" and were "waivered" except Zeph's family who made their way directly to the dock. Again not really the fault of any of my staff.
As for the night dive incident; this was a total miscommunication for which my staff will certainly take some responsibility. It appears that when Zeph spoke to William he mentioned that he was outside "Calico Jack's" - this is a bar/restaurant on Public Beach only 100 yards from where the boat was due to depart from. The "Calico Jack's" Zeph was at is infact the bar's administrative office located above our operations department.
My Boat Captain spent time looking around the bar area for Zeph but obviously couldn't find him. By the time Nicole got involved and the confusion was sorted out the boat had already left the beach and was on the mooring preparing for the dive. I can certainly understand Zeph's frustration; both Nicole, William and the rest of the staff involved feel really upset that he had missed his night dive and of course for that I personally apologize.
Unfortunately on rare occasions mistakes do happen; I pride myself on my company's excellent reputation for customer satisfaction and whilst the staff at Divers Down strive for excellence it is an impossiblity to please everybody all of the time.
Steve Surrey
OWNER/OPERATOR

 

[Doc Harry]

Seems to me that directions should anticipate missed turns and should give enough information such that someone would realize they've made a wrong turn when they reach certain landmarks.

Giving poor directions is cause for complaint.

 

[Zephrant]

Hi Steve- Welcome to ScubaBoard.

The young man at the shop did indeed tell my family to go miles down the wrong road, which led to the gate. In fact I mentioned it to William so he could instruct that employee to give correct directions. As for the gated community idea, the correct route goes down back roads to show up about 20’ past the closed gate, ending up on the same road. But not a biggie, we made it on time.

There were two families at the boat that did not know to check in at the dive shop. Interestingly enough, it was the only two families that did not book the trip though the on-site shop at that resort. You might want to look in to that.

The was some “Calico Jacks” confusion. I said I was at your shop as instructed, next to “Neptunes”, underneath a 2nd floor “Calico Jacks” sign. Somehow that got interpreted as “I’m on the beach at the Calico Jack bar”. Blame it on the cell phone, interference, or whatever. The fact remains that I was at the place I was told to be at, and your guys were not. Have you addressed that with your crew yet?

Things I’d like to see:
Signs- Something on the main road, something at each major turn. Make it easy to find your boat. Also some kind of a sign on the dock that indicates that you do trips from there would be nice.

Be on time- If you can’t get the boat to the dock on time, at least send someone down to tell the tourists what is going on. We’ve never been to your dock before, and don’t know for sure if we are even in the right place. Letting us wait in the dark for a 1/2 hour is not a good practice.

Communication- If you were really concerned about this incident you would have tried to contact me at my condo to hear from me what went wrong, so you could see if there was any improvements that you could make with your crew.


The actual trip was great. I highly recommend it, and recommend that people do it in the morning as well- we were all alone with the rays, although several other boats showed up just as we were leaving.

Thanks for posting your side. I hope you take this constructively though, and not blow it off as just another whiner.

Good luck-

Zeph

 

[Zephrant]

For anyone still following the saga, I do want to thank Alex and his wonderful wife for the extremely nice night dive they took me on Friday night.

Alex gave me a call Thursday night, and offered to take me out late the next night after my planned family dinner. He and his wife picked me up exactly at 8:00pm as agreed upon, and treated me to the best dive I’ve ever had, by far.

We went up to the “Cracked Conk”, parked, and went though a short but comprehensive pre-dive briefing. The entry was relative easy with a little surf, but nothing that made it difficult to get down the ladder. I did a quick weight check, decided that I had enough extra to compensate for the AL80 if I ran it down low, and we were off.

The wall there runs from 20-60 feet or so, and is full of sponges, corals, gorgonians, and all sorts of life. Seeing the corals with their tentacles out feeding was great. Alex found an octopus out hunting that we followed for a short while, and I found a spotted moray hiding in the rocks.

My computer claims that it was nearly a 50 minute dive, in 79 degrees water.

Apologies for the rough pictures- I don’t have photoshop with me, and this was my first real night dive with a camera. I just have the on-board strobe, so the bottom corner of the flash is being blocked.

It was just a very nice dive, and in itself, made the whole trip worth while.

Thanks Alex!

 

[CLEAR BLUE]

Glad things worked out for you!