Corporate Foreign Diving ousts Dive Palancar

[DandyDon]

Quite a different and entertaining thread, whatever one chooses to make of it...

 

[scubajackson]

Do you know what a win win situation is? Its what probably you try to create with your clients when running your dive shop, and its the same i did when i brought my dive groups. I have never ripped of anyone, this is just yet another assumption, this thread really seems to be full of these things. To the contrary many of my diving friends kept coming back travel with me over and over again, that sure happened because rhey thought i ripped them off.

I was also not saying that hotels dont make use of maids counting for staff/foreigner quota or whatever, but we are not talking about the hotels since you are accusing certain dive ops, which are not hotels and therefore different companies, and these dive ops, no, they cant make use of maids as they dont employ any!

So yes i agree lets leave it at this to not dig ourselves deeper into the senseless right? :blinking:
Good nighty now!

---------- Post added December 9th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ----------

Hi christie

i would gladly offer you my consulting services, and even for free ... Anytime, just let me know!
But only if you really mean it haha :grouphug:eace2:eace2:

 

[diving4ever]

To the entire lot of you:

 

[Dr. Lecter]

 

[jfcl01]

diving4ever-you are seriously awesome for working a cat-and-fruit meme into this thread.

 

[Darol]

Last week I was in Key West, it seemed like everything but the U.S. especially the top floor of "The Bull"........ :shocked2:
I really wanted to go to Cozumel, but just didn't have the time.....
Anyway, back to Coz in Feb. if not sooner.....
God I love Scubaboard, and Cozumel.......:cheerleader:

 

[CJ76]

Oh boy....it seems I have come too late, but i'm going to give my $0.02 anyways, her it goes. I returned from Rivera Maya on Nov 4th from a week stay at the occidental grand in Playa and was diving with prodive there, also on Cozumel from the allegro, and i must say, i had some great dives with them. I've been to Coz and playa a number of times and have seen little more then coral, morays and parrot fish, not that i'm complaining about it, I reside in the north Atlantic..... but Prodive delivered for me, i seen just about everything on my Rivera bucket list this past trip, sharks, turtles, rays, scorpion fish and the list goes on and on. I won't argue on the nationalities on some of the staff as it is no different then any other dive op in other countries that i have dove with so far, but to say that they are a bad op in my opinion is just not true. I'm returning to the Allegro in Coz in May, and will probably go with another op, mainly because the don't go to the northern reefs. Prodive required me to do a free refresher in the pool with one of their instructors, before going out with them, and also required me to go on a shallow afternoon dive before i could join them on the early deep dive. I must say i was a little mad at first as I've never had that requested of me before, but in retrospect, it was very professional and i am thankful that they did to ensure that I was ready for the more challenging stuff.

 

[ldyfingers]

Hey Dave,

Is it possible that the young foreign contingent are interns being trained? I have been with a number of PADI places in various destinations in the Carib who do just that...intern trainees who work alongside the regulars.

Just a question...no dog in this fight.

 

[Mossman]

Hey Dave,

Is it possible that the young foreign contingent are interns being trained? I have been with a number of PADI places in various destinations in the Carib who do just that...intern trainees who work alongside the regulars.

Just a question...no dog in this fight.

That's exactly what's going on. The actual training occurs at PADI Career Development Center and PADI IDC courses in Mexico and Caribbean and then they can "intern" at one of the ProDive shops before moving on to explore the rest of the dive world. DMs and instructors have to start somewhere. While I personally prefer a dive op that employs seasoned divers that knows the reefs and its creatures very well, that kind of experience IMO is wasted on newer divers who are just excited about being underwater where it's warm and clear. Finding the exotic stuff and knowing all the secret nooks and crannies isn't as important to a less experienced diver that claims, for example, "I've been to Coz and playa a number of times and have seen little more then coral, morays and parrot fish" The newer diver is more concerned about staying safe and newly-certified instructors are great for that since they haven't yet forgetten most of what they learned in IDC.

It's a shame that large international companies can end up putting smaller local companies out of business, but that's a fact of life everywhere nowadays. In Cozumel, most everyone moved there from somewhere else anyway, so it's not as big of a deal IMO than when, say, a WalMart moves into a small USA town and out-competes the local small businesses into closing their doors.

 

[scubajackson]

That's exactly what's going on. The actual training occurs at PADI Career Development Center and PADI IDC courses in Mexico and Caribbean and then they can "intern" at one of the ProDive shops before moving on to explore the rest of the dive world. DMs and instructors have to start somewhere. While I personally prefer a dive op that employs seasoned divers that knows the reefs and its creatures very well, that kind of experience IMO is wasted on newer divers who are just excited about being underwater where it's warm and clear. Finding the exotic stuff and knowing all the secret nooks and crannies isn't as important to a less experienced diver that claims, for example, "I've been to Coz and playa a number of times and have seen little more then coral, morays and parrot fish" The newer diver is more concerned about staying safe and newly-certified instructors are great for that since they haven't yet forgetten most of what they learned in IDC.

It's a shame that large international companies can end up putting smaller local companies out of business, but that's a fact of life everywhere nowadays. In Cozumel, most everyone moved there from somewhere else anyway, so it's not as big of a deal IMO than when, say, a WalMart moves into a small USA town and out-competes the local small businesses into closing their doors.

Nice website actually..they seem to offer a lot of stuff and look very pro and successful IMHO... but when you read through this site, you will realize that the only interns that they actually offer are for only 3 weeks duration (for newly trained MSDT's), so i doubt that these will actually be selfresponsably guiding divers in cozumels marine park. these are MSDT interns, that means they become qualified to teach several PADI specialty courses...so i would suspect they are rather shadowing more experienced instructors when teaching these courses, and not guiding? (as this is what an MSDT interns should be about?) ...and also, their academy is located in riviera maya and not in cozumel..

the local dive shop dive palancar by the way is (was?) not that "small" as you suggest, I remember they had moored like 15 (!) boats or so, righjt in front of the hotel , that in fact makes a large cozumel operator and no small local fish. so, they have lost the allegro concession a few years back, now they lost the occidental grand as well, and apparently just a few months back they also lost their concession at the wyndham, after they just operated it for a few months only (sanddollar lost it before that after many years of service and was ousted by dive palancar,so it was a similar case i guess) only then THEY were the culprit).

bottomline, i would suspect that maybe its not just foreign corporate shops taking over because of greedy hotel owners as was declared in the beginning of this thread, but maybe there are some other reasons for all this?