Have you had a GREAT EXPERIENCE with your LDS?

[cwhitpan]

If it weren't for my LDS, I would not have gotten beyond a Mexico Discover Scuba day. They were incredible and helped us in more ways than I can mention, from training to helping with gear, to dealing with an "informed" shopper like me, and letting me try different stuff out.

Indian Valley Scuba, I am SOOO fortunate it is only 15 min from my house.

 

[Doc Harry]

We love my new LDS, Washington Scuba in Washington, Pennsylvania.

We've bad experiences with other local dive shops (Dive Tech & Sports in Charleston WV, Mountaineer Scuba in Morgantown WV, and Splash Scuba in Pittsburgh). If you want to hear about the bad experiences, send me a PM.

The owner of Washington Scuba, Jim Gazica, is really great guy and one of the best and most competent instructors I have met. My girlfriend and I did a rescue course with Jim and it was wonderful. Jim also services out scuba gear and regulators. We have been using his shop for a few years now and are very happy.

Jackey and I strongly recommend Jim Gazica of Washington Scuba to anyone in the Pittsburgh & West Virginia areas.

 

[Tanked]

East coast diving in Northfield, NJ rocks!

 

[gcbryan]

I took my drysuit in to Lighthouse Diving-Seattle to have the wrist seals replaced. They tried but the seals kept falling off so they sent the suit back to the factory. While all this was going on they let me use a DUI 450 CX rental drysuit and I ended up putting more than 50 dives on it and had it for almost 6 months all together.

The problem turned out to be that the drysuit factory (OS Systems) didn't know that their glue supplier had changed the formula which now didn't work with their suits so this problem existed both at the factory and at dive shop repair departments all across the country.

It took a while before anyone figured this out (OS blamed me at first) but my LDS stood by me the whole time and as mentioned I practically wore out one of their expensive drysuits at no cost to me.

That's a good LDS story!

 

[LMM1967]

Not my local shop, but, Amigos inf Ft. White, Fl. We showed up one day to rent tanks etc. We are not cave divers but do like the springs in N. Fl. that we can do open water dives in. Wayne was by far the most accommodating dive shop/air fill station owner we have experienced. He tore double tank setups down, setup different size tanks, made air fills extremely easy and hooked us up with a great place to stay for several days. Offered great information on where to dive etc etc.

Amigos is top notch and an example of what a dive shop experience should be like.

 

[TSandM]

Also not an LDS story, but a great dive shop one: Peter and I went to Maui last year. We had set up some diving with North Shore Explorers and were going to dive doubles, so we brought our doubles regs (which are DIN) thinking that for other diving, we'd just tear them down and use yoke adapters. But, of course, we forgot the adapters. And we knew from past experience with friends that finding a yoke adapter on Maui is a lost cause.

B&B Scuba took the valves out of two Al100s and replaced them with DIN valves, so that we could dive during our trip. I think that's extraordinary customer service.

 

[robint]

yes... our LDS where we got certified!
The group there was soooooo much FUN! We bonded with them, couldn't go a week without stopping by the shop to say hello. My hubby loved them so much he became a DM for them within the first year of our cert. The next year an AI. We did 100+ dives with the group from our LDS. We moved to NM but when my hubby decided to become instructor, he went back there to do it with our old cert instructor who is also a Course Director.

robin

 

[shoredivr]

Deans Sport and Dive Kitcheners full service Scuba Store in Ontario is a great rec/tech store, just picked up my new Fusion and they stayed late for me to pick it up, plus I'm happy with gear servicing, fills and training including tech courses.

Plus Dean has decades of dive experience, and does fun (as in non-training) tech dives.

 

[Splitlip]

i have to echo valhalla, scuba works, jdc, and force-e riviera are all fantastic. So much so...it is hard to decide which one to spend my $$ at!

+2 .

 

[tomboyy]

Bermuda Triangle in Greenville, SC has to get a nod from me. Always gives me a discount.. sometimes steep ones.