JonAustin
Contributor
Hello, everyone. I'm a Texas diver, and I want you to know about a really positive experience I had diving in Portland, ME, with Maine Divers Scuba Center.
My family and I go to the Maine coast every year to visit my wife's relatives. We love the food, the sights, and the escape from the 110-degree weather in central Texas. While I love Maine, my experience has been that customer service is not typically a strong point there. When I leave most stores in other regions of the country, I'm often saluted with something along the lines of "Thank you for your patronage, please come again." In Maine, it often appears that the attitude is "We're the only supermarket for 20 miles, you'll be back."
Unfortunately, the latter attitude is all too common for American dive charters. I have often found American dive masters and skippers to be disorganized, unhelpful, and unfriendly, although they never fail to pass around the tip jar at the end of the trip.
So, it was with some trepidation that I decided to organize a Maine dive trip. After attempting to contact several dive shops in the area, and receiving little interest, I finally got hold of Maine Divers Scuba Center. From beginning to end, they were great. Scheduling the boat trip was easy and the price for a two-tank trip was excellent. The shop was both extremely clean and inordinately neat. I had to rent a fair amount of gear (50-degree water is not a common thing in Texas), and they had everything I needed.
The run up to the trip was conscientious and orderly--no sitting around for an hour, waiting for the skipper to get gas. The boat was ship-shape and well-suited for diving.
The dives were great. I'd never considered the idea of diving beneath a lighthouse (I had always thought they were there to encourage people to stay away), but the Portland Headlight was idyllic. In addition, the amount and diversity of life on both sites we went to were far in excess of what I expected.
Upon our return, the guys invited me to eat lunch at the yacht club connected to their slip. Great food. Good company. When we got back to the shop, they even invited me to wash my gear there. That was extremely nice, since I wasn't relishing rinsing my gear in the bathtub at the cottage we had rented.
To top it all off, my snorkel fell out of my bag when I was rinsing my gear. Maine Divers called me that afternoon, and kept it behind the counter until I returned for it.
A great experience. I'm definitely going to give them a call when I return to Maine next year.
JonAustin
My family and I go to the Maine coast every year to visit my wife's relatives. We love the food, the sights, and the escape from the 110-degree weather in central Texas. While I love Maine, my experience has been that customer service is not typically a strong point there. When I leave most stores in other regions of the country, I'm often saluted with something along the lines of "Thank you for your patronage, please come again." In Maine, it often appears that the attitude is "We're the only supermarket for 20 miles, you'll be back."
Unfortunately, the latter attitude is all too common for American dive charters. I have often found American dive masters and skippers to be disorganized, unhelpful, and unfriendly, although they never fail to pass around the tip jar at the end of the trip.
So, it was with some trepidation that I decided to organize a Maine dive trip. After attempting to contact several dive shops in the area, and receiving little interest, I finally got hold of Maine Divers Scuba Center. From beginning to end, they were great. Scheduling the boat trip was easy and the price for a two-tank trip was excellent. The shop was both extremely clean and inordinately neat. I had to rent a fair amount of gear (50-degree water is not a common thing in Texas), and they had everything I needed.
The run up to the trip was conscientious and orderly--no sitting around for an hour, waiting for the skipper to get gas. The boat was ship-shape and well-suited for diving.
The dives were great. I'd never considered the idea of diving beneath a lighthouse (I had always thought they were there to encourage people to stay away), but the Portland Headlight was idyllic. In addition, the amount and diversity of life on both sites we went to were far in excess of what I expected.
Upon our return, the guys invited me to eat lunch at the yacht club connected to their slip. Great food. Good company. When we got back to the shop, they even invited me to wash my gear there. That was extremely nice, since I wasn't relishing rinsing my gear in the bathtub at the cottage we had rented.
To top it all off, my snorkel fell out of my bag when I was rinsing my gear. Maine Divers called me that afternoon, and kept it behind the counter until I returned for it.
A great experience. I'm definitely going to give them a call when I return to Maine next year.
JonAustin
