Did my open water diving certification through this team. Whilst my dive instructors were great at passing on their knowledge and building my confidence in the water, the overall customer service of the business and how it operates is what brings this review down.
At the time of booking the dates to complete my course, the 1st day of pool diving was advertised as 5-8pm on Friday evening. I work Fridays and normally finish at 5pm, but figured taking 1 hour of leave would be fine. After paying for the course and confirming the booking, I received details for pool diving starting at 1pm on Friday.
I emailed them to clarify, and advised what they had sent was not what was advertised. They didn’t respond/acknowledge the false advertisement and confirmed 1pm start. So my 1 hour of annual leave turned into 5.
I then had to contact them multiple times in regard to gaining access to my eLearning. Which thankfully, I did early. As there was far more than I had anticipated. Upon arrival for day 1 of diving, I was told the other people booked with me hadn’t turned up, and we would have to reschedule. I politely told them I would not be rescheduling due to the a) false advertisement of the session time and b) the hours of leave I had to take to attend. Thankfully, the instructor was lovely and did the pool session with me, but we did post-pone the 2 days of diving, which was fine.
Upon arrival for the first day of ocean diving, I was provided with an expired oxygen tank. They later tried to pass this off as test for learning divers. But the initial shock on the woman’s face when I pointed it out and refused to use it, shows otherwise.
Due to the dive boat being filled to capacity with gear and guests, minimal personal items were allowed on board, which at the time was understandable. However, the boat died on the back in. It was cold and overcast, and the person they contacted to collect us took over an hour to do so (despite the boat trip being 10 minutes to where we were). I was shaking with blue lips, and no way to get warm. And ended up having the flu on and off for 2 weeks afterwards (and prior to this I hadn’t been sick since Xmas 2022).
All their equipment throughout the experience appeared poor. Held together with zip ties, regulators and tanks leaking, to which their solution was to smack them multiple times until they stop. But at that point, my dive experience was minimal. So how was I to know any better.
However, I just completed 6 dives, over multiple days, in a third world country. And this confirmed that none of that experience is normal, nor up to par. If a third world country can do it, I certainly expect better on the Gold Coast.