Diving with Phantom Divers, PDC

[Tobagoman]

Looks like I'm going to go with Phantom Divers in Playa Del Carmen for my trip in January 05. The little that I could dig out of Scuba Board about them was kind of mixed. The really only bad review was a statement that they made everyone surface when the 1st person got low on air. All I can say about that is that I and my buddy (wife) will show them our SPG's and get the message across that we have plenty of air and my buddy and I are not going up yet. What can they do? I paid for a dive and will stay down till my buddy or I am ready to surface.
Other than that, they sound like a great charter service. We are planning on doing there 4 day package which is 8 dives for $225.00. This includes a 2 tank cenote dive, and a 2 tank Cozumel dive. Doesn't sound like they do the cattle boats either which is another big consideration for me.

Does anyone who has dove with them know if they supply Nitrox?

 

[d33ps1x]

The really only bad review was a statement that they made everyone surface when the 1st person got low on air. All I can say about that is that I and my buddy (wife) will show them our SPG's and get the message across that we have plenty of air and my buddy and I are not going up yet. What can they do? I paid for a dive and will stay down till my buddy or I am ready to surface.

99% of the dives are stronger drift dives Tobagoman. The logistics of keeping the group together are a neccesity in the heavily boat traffic of that area.

The first person low on air is standard down there and your will not be recieved well when you split off from the group and they have to go collect you a mile downcurrent or perhaps never.

The way around this in Playa is to use an operator that has smaller boats and takes out a novice and advanced boat. Even then it is a crap shoot.

Don't worry though. Because the dives are all drifts even the worst hand sculling newbie tends to last a little longer there.

 

[Tobagoman]

99% of the dives are stronger drift dives Tobagoman. The logistics of keeping the group together are a neccesity in the heavily boat traffic of that area.

The first person low on air is standard down there and your will not be recieved well when you split off from the group and they have to go collect you a mile downcurrent or perhaps never.

The way around this in Playa is to use an operator that has smaller boats and takes out a novice and advanced boat. Even then it is a crap shoot.

Don't worry though. Because the dives are all drifts even the worst hand sculling newbie tends to last a little longer there.

Thanks d33ps1x for your response. Didn't realize they were doing that only on the drift dives, but that makes sense.
I'll have to see if they do an advanced boat as opposed to a novice trip.

 

[geraldp]

Looks like I'm going to go with Phantom Divers in Playa Del Carmen for my trip in January 05. The little that I could dig out of Scuba Board about them was kind of mixed. The really only bad review was a statement that they made everyone surface when the 1st person got low on air. All I can say about that is that I and my buddy (wife) will show them our SPG's and get the message across that we have plenty of air and my buddy and I are not going up yet. What can they do? I paid for a dive and will stay down till my buddy or I am ready to surface.
Other than that, they sound like a great charter service. We are planning on doing there 4 day package which is 8 dives for $225.00. This includes a 2 tank cenote dive, and a 2 tank Cozumel dive. Doesn't sound like they do the cattle boats either which is another big consideration for me.

Does anyone who has dove with them know if they supply Nitrox?

Tobagoman:
I dove with Phantom in February. My TS hooked me up with them, and they were pretty flexible re time... I was able to sleep in and catch a 1:00PM 2-tank dive. Phantom Divers is definetely NOT a cattleboat operation. I dove with Ramon. I met his wife Ali at the shop, who treated us well. Their shop is very small (almost no inventory), and about a block from the beach. My buddy who rented from them got fairly poor quality stuff, and had a leaky o-ring on his tank. When he complained about the leak, Ramon just switched out with his tank. Phantom did not have dive computers for rent. The boat was very small (we had to leave most of our non-neccessary gear back at the shop). We had to do a back-roll out of the boat instead of a giant stride. We made 2 stops after leaving the beach to pick up more divers, so we had 5 divers total. Ramon is a very laid back guy. The pre-dive brief was pretty, well, brief - so make sure you ask lots of questions. We dove Tortugas, then Baracudas reefs. Ramon showed us lots of critters, and directed us through a swim-through on Baracudas. And yes they did make us all surface together. I didn't mind too much - however I did spend about 10 minutes drifting along at the safety stop using up air. Soft drinks and water were served after the dives.

I don't know... after diving with AquaSafari in Cozumel a couple of days earlier I just felt that Phantom Divers was a little less organized, but all in all I had a very pleasant experience. I went back and got a cool T-shirt. Next time I go (October) I was planning on going somewhere else, just to try some different operations. Aquasafari didn't make us all surface at the same time, so I know at least some of the drift dive operations don't make you. The DM simply sent up a lift-bag when the first divers started up, then he stayed down with the rest. btw my buddy got cruddy rental stuff from AquaSafari as well, so if you don't own your own gear I would recommend renting from your LDS and travelling with it.

Can't say for sure about Nitrox, as I didn't ask about that. You could email them and ask.

Jerry

 

[Tobagoman]

Tobagoman:
I dove with Phantom in February. My TS hooked me up with them, and they were pretty flexible re time... I was able to sleep in and catch a 1:00PM 2-tank dive. Phantom Divers is definetely NOT a cattleboat operation. I dove with Ramon. I met his wife Ali at the shop, who treated us well. Their shop is very small (almost no inventory), and about a block from the beach. My buddy who rented from them got fairly poor quality stuff, and had a leaky o-ring on his tank. When he complained about the leak, Ramon just switched out with his tank. Phantom did not have dive computers for rent. The boat was very small (we had to leave most of our non-neccessary gear back at the shop). We had to do a back-roll out of the boat instead of a giant stride. We made 2 stops after leaving the beach to pick up more divers, so we had 5 divers total. Ramon is a very laid back guy. The pre-dive brief was pretty, well, brief - so make sure you ask lots of questions. We dove Tortugas, then Baracudas reefs. Ramon showed us lots of critters, and directed us through a swim-through on Baracudas. And yes they did make us all surface together. I didn't mind too much - however I did spend about 10 minutes drifting along at the safety stop using up air. Soft drinks and water were served after the dives.

I don't know... after diving with AquaSafari in Cozumel a couple of days earlier I just felt that Phantom Divers was a little less organized, but all in all I had a very pleasant experience. I went back and got a cool T-shirt. Next time I go (October) I was planning on going somewhere else, just to try some different operations. Aquasafari didn't make us all surface at the same time, so I know at least some of the drift dive operations don't make you. The DM simply sent up a lift-bag when the first divers started up, then he stayed down with the rest. btw my buddy got cruddy rental stuff from AquaSafari as well, so if you don't own your own gear I would recommend renting from your LDS and travelling with it.

Can't say for sure about Nitrox, as I didn't ask about that. You could email them and ask.

Jerry

Jerry,
Thanks for the indepth report on them. We have our own gear, so rentals is not a worry. I like the smaller dive operations, so unless they treat us like crap they sound like they will do fine. Thanks again.

Tobagoman

 

[divekitty]

In February 2004, I checked out several dive centers in PDC and Phantom was one of them. They didn't make a positive impression on me and I chose to go with Tank Ha Dive Center. Later, I heard other divers speak negatively of Phantom so I was glad I went with my initial reaction.

 

[icyman]

We dove with Phantom about a year ago in 7-01-03. The trip was on a small boat and the crew is quite friendly, however we had some issues. The issue was my girlfriend was a newly certified diver and quite unhappy about doing a back flip. When she did her back flip she was disoriented and a bit frightened. She was having some trouble getting down and after two tries the dive master tried to PUSH her down by pushing on the top of her head. I INSISTED he stop and she wanted to just stay out of the water. I told her to get back in the boat.

There was a group of divers from Norway who were being very impatient and were starting to complain. I helped her in the boat and continued to dive. After losing my dive buddy the Dive master assigned one of the guys from Norway as my buddy. We submerged and I had a problem with the rental mask leaking due to a valve. I blew out the sand that was causing the leak and looked for my dive buddy, he was gone. I surfaced no buddy. Instead of quitting the dive I located their bubbles and did a quick dive down to them in 60 feet of water. I found the tail end instructor and stayed with him. The dive was quite pretty and I took some great photos I just thought these guys had the recipe for disaster with their approach to diving.

We then dove another site in 30 feet of water but I insisted the dive master let me be his buddy as the other guys had no ideas of what being a buddy meant. I don’t know if I would ever try these guys again. I found a dive shop south of PDC that was much more professional and I will stick with them in the future.

I hate to blast these guys but it s all the truth and thought you all should know. I don’t often complain as I am a former Recon Marine and nothing much upsets me, this trip did.

 

[Roooter]

yes...nitrox is available

 

[Shader]

I used Phantom Divers a little over a week ago and found them to be respectable and I had a pleasant experience. We had a max of 6 people on our night dive and the other dives there were more like 4 and we were able to choose where we wanted to go. We also got discounts for having our own gear. I would give them a thumbs up.

 

[icyman]

I used Phantom Divers a little over a week ago and found them to be respectable and I had a pleasant experience. We had a max of 6 people on our night dive and the other dives there were more like 4 and we were able to choose where we wanted to go. We also got discounts for having our own gear. I would give them a thumbs up.

I gave them another try this year as well. I wasn't impressed with them.My rental equipment sucked yet again, k valve leaked so once again I was an alkoceltzer diver bubling all the time I was diving.

I would go with the guys from Akumel, much more professional and Organized. Organization, and professionalism are things that can cause an inexperineced diver his life. The dive planning I saw utilized was lacking MUCH, for an experienced diver this place is ok. But for newbies this isn't the place to dive.

Couple of questions for you, did they have a dive plan? They didn't really tell anyone about it if they did on my dives.

You were in a small boat with no safety lines right?

You had to do back flips right?

Did they take their time and make sure everyone was ok once in the water? They didn't when I was there.

As I said before I think I would go with the guys from tank-ha, much more professional and organized. They all are nice thats for sure but with new divers, they need experience and planning so they don't get in trouble.

Just my opinion, and I only have a few thousand dives in so what do i know, I am still learning.