One of the defining quality characteristics of a dive shop is how they handle problems. Problems will come up both due to the individual divers and the shop itself. It is important whether they work to correct the problems regardless of who is responsible.
In this case, our pick up boat was a half hour late picking us up. When we did finally reach the diveshop everyone on our boat was waiting for us to set up our gear. I was feeling a little stressed. This was compounded by the fact that the weights left were mostly 2 pounders. This is a problem as I was diving in a drysuit and needed 30 pounds of weight in a particular distribution on the BCD. The situation worsen as I realized my pouches were in my weight bag back in Houston. I was about to abort the dive as it appeared that an accident chain with three problems already was developing. Rather than wear a weight belt, I decided borrow a weight pouch if I could get the right weights. Pelicano came through by digging up a few four and five pounders off of some weight belts so that I did not have to use 15 two pound weights. Since the accident chain seemed temporarily broken, I decided to dive.
Pelicano came thru again when we went to Catalina Island. Since they knew the operation there did not have five pounders, they arranged to bring six five pounders with us on the excursion. The owner of Pelicano, Peter actually helped carry the extra 30 pounds down the steep steps to the boat as I was already carrying my gear and some of my wife's gear.
In both these cases, the point that I would like to make is that a lesser dive shop might have said tough, take the twos or leave them or use whatever is there on the other end, we already have your money. This was actually the case in Costa Maya on one trip where the staff at Dreamtime refused to remove weights from weight belts because it was too much trouble for them.
As a last point, we had a few billing issues that needed to be resolved, but in all cases Pelicano permitted us to dive first and straighten out the billing issues afterwords. Six of our party of eight actually went on the Catalina excursion without paying in advance due to time constraints. Again, many diveshops would not be so cooperative.
In the case of Marianna, the Majestic Elegence staff operators insisted on cash payment up front even though they made no effort to establish the diving arrangements for my sister and nephews certification. Go talk to the instructor at the Majestic Colonial after you pay was their response. In that particular case, Marianna did not do the training as agreed. Iinstead of doing all the confined water skills on the first morning as the instructor stated would be done, they spread them out over two days. Apparently there was only one instructor and he needed to do a number of discover scuba students instead. By the time the next and only opportunity came about to do the last two dives, my sister and nephew opted out for a variety of reasons. Let this be a lesson in advance to anyone wanting to do or complete an open water certification.
We did have a few bumps with Pelicano including the late pickup and some delayed/missed communications due to the Christmas season. However, as an instructor and dive shop owner, I think on the whole that Pelicano Watersports goes above and beyond the norm for any dive shop and in particular for one in the Caribbean. It is definitely worth the inconvenience of not using the house dive shop and going with Pelicano instead.
In this case, our pick up boat was a half hour late picking us up. When we did finally reach the diveshop everyone on our boat was waiting for us to set up our gear. I was feeling a little stressed. This was compounded by the fact that the weights left were mostly 2 pounders. This is a problem as I was diving in a drysuit and needed 30 pounds of weight in a particular distribution on the BCD. The situation worsen as I realized my pouches were in my weight bag back in Houston. I was about to abort the dive as it appeared that an accident chain with three problems already was developing. Rather than wear a weight belt, I decided borrow a weight pouch if I could get the right weights. Pelicano came through by digging up a few four and five pounders off of some weight belts so that I did not have to use 15 two pound weights. Since the accident chain seemed temporarily broken, I decided to dive.
Pelicano came thru again when we went to Catalina Island. Since they knew the operation there did not have five pounders, they arranged to bring six five pounders with us on the excursion. The owner of Pelicano, Peter actually helped carry the extra 30 pounds down the steep steps to the boat as I was already carrying my gear and some of my wife's gear.
In both these cases, the point that I would like to make is that a lesser dive shop might have said tough, take the twos or leave them or use whatever is there on the other end, we already have your money. This was actually the case in Costa Maya on one trip where the staff at Dreamtime refused to remove weights from weight belts because it was too much trouble for them.
As a last point, we had a few billing issues that needed to be resolved, but in all cases Pelicano permitted us to dive first and straighten out the billing issues afterwords. Six of our party of eight actually went on the Catalina excursion without paying in advance due to time constraints. Again, many diveshops would not be so cooperative.
In the case of Marianna, the Majestic Elegence staff operators insisted on cash payment up front even though they made no effort to establish the diving arrangements for my sister and nephews certification. Go talk to the instructor at the Majestic Colonial after you pay was their response. In that particular case, Marianna did not do the training as agreed. Iinstead of doing all the confined water skills on the first morning as the instructor stated would be done, they spread them out over two days. Apparently there was only one instructor and he needed to do a number of discover scuba students instead. By the time the next and only opportunity came about to do the last two dives, my sister and nephew opted out for a variety of reasons. Let this be a lesson in advance to anyone wanting to do or complete an open water certification.
We did have a few bumps with Pelicano including the late pickup and some delayed/missed communications due to the Christmas season. However, as an instructor and dive shop owner, I think on the whole that Pelicano Watersports goes above and beyond the norm for any dive shop and in particular for one in the Caribbean. It is definitely worth the inconvenience of not using the house dive shop and going with Pelicano instead.
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