Sorry Julie I have to disagree with you on the Red Sail thing. Here's some info you migt want to read before considering diving with them......
The Manager is not a diver, never mind an instructor . He has no interest in safety, but just filling the boats with as many customers as possible, hence lining his own pockets. The company advertise themsleves as an Instructor Development Centre, but do not meet the necessary pre-requisites to do so, i.e they do not have a Course Director.
There are always more divers arrive than planned, and way more than is comfortable and safe for the instructors. Due to staff shortages you may start a course with an instructor but the next day be scheduled to have a different instructor, and yet another instructor the day after that, hence there's no consistency.
When reservations are taken for the cruise ship divers, and resort Divers their sizes are never obtained. Consequently staff have to guess the sizes, which are mostly wrong. This delays the schedule and upsets the customers, making the staff appear completely disorganised. Recently, cruise ship divers have been collected by the dive boats at the cruise ship terminal in Oranjestad, therefore staff have to collect all the equipment (guessing the sizes), get the equipment on board and then go to collect the customers. Once the customers are on board, the equipment is then distributed. At this point it is generally discovered that the sizes do not fit, there are not enough weights etc etc. The boat then has to return to the equipment room at the Hyatt, to collect more equipment, and rectify these errors. The journey takes 25 minutes either way. Meanwhile, the customers become anxious and angry for having to wait. Many times the customers have arrived extremely late back to the ship.
The ratio of certified divers to Instructors or Divemasters can be as high as 17:1, far to high to get any proper attention from them. Certified Divers who have not been diving for two to three,( in some cases even fourteen years) are being booked onto dive sites which are far too deep for them. This is a safety issue. More importantly, divers have been booked onto sites which are far too deep for their certification level and experience. Consequently, the divers get into the water and panic, then refuse to dive, or they have problems during the whole dive, thus risking their safety. They have a bad experience and it puts them off of diving again.
Courses are being taught in time which is well below the recommendation, i.e. 31 hours are recommended for an open water course, (three to four days). The courses at Red Sail are being conducted within 2.5 days, due to the constraints placed upon instructors in the scheduling, hence important skills are being skipped. Open Water students are also being scheduled to do training dives at sites which are too deep i.e. Star Gerren is a wreck at 60 ft. This is 20 ft deeper than the maximum depth limit for the second training dive.
Instructors have had to complete skills on the top of the wreck, which lies at 36 ft. However, the wreck is a a small ship which is upside down, therefore the underside of the boat is at a peak and slopes on both sides. It is impossible to complete skills such as a fin pivot, regulator recovery and mask removal on an uneven surface with a student who has only dived once in their life, and are unable to maintain their bouyancy. Clearly they become terrified.
It is not uncommon for Instructors to have to conduct Open Water dive two with some students and Open Water Dive three other students at the same time. Both dives require different skills. Therefore none of the students get the attention they deserve and have payed for, for the sake of having to wait for others to do skills. How is all this possible to achieve when Red Sail only allow forty minute dives due to their chaotic schedule. Bear in mind students are also supposed to have a tour portion of a dive so that they enjoy their experience, and develop a desire to dive more.
Open Water and Advanced Open Water Students are being placed on boats at the same time as many certified divers, and Discover Scuba Diver Students, and it is not uncommon for one instructor to have to guide bwteen ten and seventeen certified divers and teach students on several different courses at the same time. I hope you can see, as I can that this is a major safety issue. Not only does it raise safety concerns it also provides a very poor image of the company to paying customers. Many of whom leave extremely unhappy.
There are restrictions on when the instructors are able to use the Hyatt Pool ( i.e. one hour per day between 9 am - 10 am) - weird considering the owner of Red Sail is also one of the owners of the Hyatt corporation. So, when the resort course students are collected from the cruise ship, they do not arrive at the Hyatt until 9.30 am. It is difficult to teach a resort programme safely within 30 minutes to large numbers of people.
Resort courses conducted in the afternoon, have to be done at the Marriott. This involves guests having to be picked up from teh Hyatt then taken to the Marriot, for the pool session, and afterwards having to go back to the Hyatt for the boat dive portion of the course. Once again the instructors have to guess the sizes of the equipment for the customers.
Due to the poor scheduling, the morning dive boats are always late arriving back at the Pier. This has a knock on effect. Staff do not arrive at the Marriott sometimes upto thirty to forty minutes late. Again, leaving customers waiting.
Due to the poor working conditions at Red Sail there is always a high turn over of staff. When new staff have arrived from various parts of the world No one gives them an orientation to the dive sites, and they do not get a suitable training period. Consequently, when having to guide divers they do not know the site and frequently get lost.
Two of Red Sail's boats only have one engine. Another boat keeps losing it's steering, to the extent that steering fluid has to be poured into the steering column whilst customers are on the boat, and sometimes the steering just does not work. One of the boats' ignition does not work, and has to be started by lifting the engine hatch, in front of all the customers and starting the engine by sticking to wires together.
Reservations constantly give customers the wrong departure time of boats, to the extent that having arrived at dive sites, staff are having to return to the Pier to collect waiting, angry customers.
It is only a matter of time before there is a diving accident due to sloppy standards, and scheduling.
If you care about your life, do you really want to be diving with Red Sail ?????
