Lake Rawlings...WTF?

[dallaskincaid]

So, I had the fortune of going to Lake Rawlings Thu, Fri, Sat of this week. My girlfriend was getting her open water certification so I tagged along, worked as her tank slave, and got a few dives in myself. Visibility was good on Thursday, little worse on Friday, and about 20' yesterday. (They had a lot of rain on Friday night) Those thermoclines take your breath away as well! I'm of the opinion though that any day under the water is better than a day above, so I had a great time and it was fun watching my girlfriend go through her skills and watch her improvement over the three days.

However...

I was appalled at the rudeness of the staff. Diving is supposed to be fun and there is absolutely nothing fun, cordial, or polite about the staff. As a business owner myself, it pains me deeply when I see an organization run this way. Judging from comments on trip advisor, yelp, etc. I'm absolutely not the only person who feels this way. Most of the review headlines say something similar "Great Dive, horrible staff." Everyone in my GF's class had some horrible interaction with a staff member of Lake Rawlings. Let's be honest, most of the people that are diving there are getting some type of certification, mostly OW from the looks of it. A rude staff just makes something that is already a stresser for new students into an overall miserable experience for everyone. It doesn't seem right.

It seems to me that Lake Rawlings makes a lot of money from LDS's doing classes there. It baffles me why the ownership of Lake Rawlings hasn't made this right. It's clearly a well known issue and it felt ridiculous for me to have to insist to my girlfriend that it's not always like this and that diving is actually such a great time.

I'm sure lots of people threaten it, but I can honestly say I will never go back and it's doubtful that based on my experience any of my other diving friends will go either.

Sorry if I'm bashing Lake Rawlings. I really had a great time DIVING, just not interacting with anyone that was a staff member there.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Sometimes I get the feeling the staff person(s) on duty don't want to be there that particular day. I have also had great experiences at lake Rawlings, as in when 2 to 4 of us call in advance to open the quarry, rent a cabin for the night and have the place to ourselves with incredibly polite staff.

My worst experience at Rawlings has been related to gas fills. I had a set of doubles filled and a more experienced staff member was showing a new staff member how to fill tanks off their bank. I saw him spin a couple valves and heard gas moving through lines for maybe 30 seconds and figured they'd screwed up the order on cascade tanks with all the rapid turning on and off of valves. No...that wasn't it, they'd actually slam filled my doubles in about 30 seconds. It was my first and last fill at Rawlings.

In my experience once you sign in, everything's golden as you have no reason to stop back at the shop at all and are free to enjoy the diving.

 

[TartanFrog]

That is really unfortunate.

I have been diving at Lake Rawlings many times and can honestly say that I have never had a problem with the staff there. Of the dive sites that are somewhat local to the DC area I would say Rawlings is by far my favorite place to get wet when I can't go on a trip to FL or somewhere else.

Maybe it was just a really stressed day for them for some reason.