funrecdiver
Contributor
As a dive customer without any financial relationship to any dive shop (except paying for fun dives and classes of course), and having just completed my 50th dive in the Pattaya area, including completing my AOW, Wreck and Nitrox Specs, I am writing a glowing recommendation for Adventure Divers.
I have taken classes and enjoyed diving with a number of dive centers in the Pattaya area. There are a number of good shops here and I have had both good and bad customer service experiences. My personal "policy" is not to publicly "name names" of the bad experiences (only mention the experience in general terms) and to only "name names" of the good ones. So, here is a "great one" worth mentioning, Adventure Divers.
Although Adventure Divers is bit smaller than the largest dive centers in Pattaya, they have the best dive boat, hands down, in my opinion. Robert Camp, the active owner-partner and everyday-diver of Adventure Divers, designed the dive boat from the ground up, taking an existing boat, stripping it down to almost nothing, and rebuilding it.
The result of this effort is a very nice boat with a comfortable, and mostly shaded upper deck, with comfy cushions and stable tables. Here on the upper deck, it is easy to relax, eat lunch, socialize and enjoy writing your dive log entries. In fact, one of the loudest snoring sleeping divers I have seen was comfortably sleeping on the upper deck one day (hahahaha, shows how comfy it can be). The main diving deck is well designed with two western style toilets with showers in each toilet and a holding tank below (so you can flush anytime and they dump later), the captain's area, the kitchen (galley), enclosed (sheltered from harsh weather) sitting area, and of course the dive platform. Below is the "rental gear" so most customers don't even have to haul any heavy gear back-and-forth.
The Adventure Divers diving area is a bit smaller than some of other boats of the same size in the area (due to the addition of the sheltered area and extra toilet), but this is not a problem at all. The main reason for this is the relaxed nature of the boat, where the "main man" behind Adventure Divers, Robert Camp, works hard to meet the needs of each and every dive customer in a relaxed, high quality, value-added way.
Enriched air can be blended on board, and of course regular air can be filled on board; so the result is "good tasting" air and "all you can dive" (three dives, generally) on many days. This sets Adventure Divers head-and-shoulders above many other dive shops because you are not "tank limited" on your diving trips. This means that if you are out fun diving and doing a Khram wreck dive with Robert and crew on one day, and there is an earlier and/or later OW course on the boat the same day, you are welcome to dive those sites at no extra charge. This means that many divers often dive three times a day on the AD boat. In other words, you are never left sitting on the boat and not diving because you did not pay for a third tank of air. This is great customer service and an example of superior value for the customer and I highly commend Robert and team for adding such value to a day's diving. Instead of competing with other dive shops on price, better to compete on value, and Adventure Divers fits that business model well.
I could go on-and-on about Adventure Divers, their exemplary attitude toward customer satisfaction, their well designed dive boat, and their fun and friendly attitude; but I thought I would jot down some thoughts from a "reef watching" professor I ran into the other day. He travels all over Thailand working (marine biology, reef management) and has visited around 100 dive centers.
He told me that of all the dive locations in Thailand, Pattaya has, by far, the largest community of expat-divers. In other words, there are many great dive locations in Thailand, but most have dive professionals (owners, instructors, interns) and tourists. However, Pattaya has the addition of a large expat-diver community (much larger than the "southern dive cities") according to this marine biologist who has been all over Thailand, visiting hundreds of dive centers. In the same conversation, this professor mentioned that Adventure Divers had, by far, the largest number of repeat expat-diver customers, than any dive shop he had seen in Thailand.
So, is it any wonder why so many independent instructors, and small dive centers without a boat, also are Adventure Diver customers? I have met some really great people on Saifon (Adventure Divers' boat) and many were there with other shops or were independent instructors with a lot of knowledge to share. Adventure Divers is an "open community" where everyone is welcome, it seems.
In closing this mini-review, I am not writing anything negative about other dive centers. Every dive center has "good days" or "bad days" and there are nice people everywhere; and we can meet them at many dive centers. What I am writing here is that I have just completed 50 dives in the Pattaya area with a number of dive shops, and my experience is that Adventure Divers has a great boat, a fun and friendly atmosphere, and provides excellent value-added services. I particularly liked the extra dive offered on most days.
At Adventure Divers, a diver will not be asked to sit out a dive because another DSD or OW student(s) are training in a sheltered bay. All qualified divers will be given the opportunity to dive (without further cost) instead of sitting on the boat (dive computer and profile permitting of course). This is but one example of a great value-added service that keeps AD customers, including funrecdiver, coming back for more. There is more "good news" to this story, but to keep this post from being too long, I'll stop now
Safe Diving!
I have taken classes and enjoyed diving with a number of dive centers in the Pattaya area. There are a number of good shops here and I have had both good and bad customer service experiences. My personal "policy" is not to publicly "name names" of the bad experiences (only mention the experience in general terms) and to only "name names" of the good ones. So, here is a "great one" worth mentioning, Adventure Divers.
Although Adventure Divers is bit smaller than the largest dive centers in Pattaya, they have the best dive boat, hands down, in my opinion. Robert Camp, the active owner-partner and everyday-diver of Adventure Divers, designed the dive boat from the ground up, taking an existing boat, stripping it down to almost nothing, and rebuilding it.
The result of this effort is a very nice boat with a comfortable, and mostly shaded upper deck, with comfy cushions and stable tables. Here on the upper deck, it is easy to relax, eat lunch, socialize and enjoy writing your dive log entries. In fact, one of the loudest snoring sleeping divers I have seen was comfortably sleeping on the upper deck one day (hahahaha, shows how comfy it can be). The main diving deck is well designed with two western style toilets with showers in each toilet and a holding tank below (so you can flush anytime and they dump later), the captain's area, the kitchen (galley), enclosed (sheltered from harsh weather) sitting area, and of course the dive platform. Below is the "rental gear" so most customers don't even have to haul any heavy gear back-and-forth.
The Adventure Divers diving area is a bit smaller than some of other boats of the same size in the area (due to the addition of the sheltered area and extra toilet), but this is not a problem at all. The main reason for this is the relaxed nature of the boat, where the "main man" behind Adventure Divers, Robert Camp, works hard to meet the needs of each and every dive customer in a relaxed, high quality, value-added way.
Enriched air can be blended on board, and of course regular air can be filled on board; so the result is "good tasting" air and "all you can dive" (three dives, generally) on many days. This sets Adventure Divers head-and-shoulders above many other dive shops because you are not "tank limited" on your diving trips. This means that if you are out fun diving and doing a Khram wreck dive with Robert and crew on one day, and there is an earlier and/or later OW course on the boat the same day, you are welcome to dive those sites at no extra charge. This means that many divers often dive three times a day on the AD boat. In other words, you are never left sitting on the boat and not diving because you did not pay for a third tank of air. This is great customer service and an example of superior value for the customer and I highly commend Robert and team for adding such value to a day's diving. Instead of competing with other dive shops on price, better to compete on value, and Adventure Divers fits that business model well.
I could go on-and-on about Adventure Divers, their exemplary attitude toward customer satisfaction, their well designed dive boat, and their fun and friendly attitude; but I thought I would jot down some thoughts from a "reef watching" professor I ran into the other day. He travels all over Thailand working (marine biology, reef management) and has visited around 100 dive centers.
He told me that of all the dive locations in Thailand, Pattaya has, by far, the largest community of expat-divers. In other words, there are many great dive locations in Thailand, but most have dive professionals (owners, instructors, interns) and tourists. However, Pattaya has the addition of a large expat-diver community (much larger than the "southern dive cities") according to this marine biologist who has been all over Thailand, visiting hundreds of dive centers. In the same conversation, this professor mentioned that Adventure Divers had, by far, the largest number of repeat expat-diver customers, than any dive shop he had seen in Thailand.
So, is it any wonder why so many independent instructors, and small dive centers without a boat, also are Adventure Diver customers? I have met some really great people on Saifon (Adventure Divers' boat) and many were there with other shops or were independent instructors with a lot of knowledge to share. Adventure Divers is an "open community" where everyone is welcome, it seems.
In closing this mini-review, I am not writing anything negative about other dive centers. Every dive center has "good days" or "bad days" and there are nice people everywhere; and we can meet them at many dive centers. What I am writing here is that I have just completed 50 dives in the Pattaya area with a number of dive shops, and my experience is that Adventure Divers has a great boat, a fun and friendly atmosphere, and provides excellent value-added services. I particularly liked the extra dive offered on most days.
At Adventure Divers, a diver will not be asked to sit out a dive because another DSD or OW student(s) are training in a sheltered bay. All qualified divers will be given the opportunity to dive (without further cost) instead of sitting on the boat (dive computer and profile permitting of course). This is but one example of a great value-added service that keeps AD customers, including funrecdiver, coming back for more. There is more "good news" to this story, but to keep this post from being too long, I'll stop now
Safe Diving!
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