Buoyant1
Contributor
I think a point that has been overlooked, in all of this discussion on the price of the dives is that over the past several years the dive ops in the lower keys have been hurting. We have seen several go under (no pun intended). Those that have manage to stay afloat have been very reluctant to raise prices in a shrinking market, despite the cost of fuel, dockage and insurance increasing substantially. Now that they are raising their prices with the Vandy everyone is freaking out. As others have said, in a free market a fare price is what ever the market will bear. Having dove in Cozumel, and Roatan last summer (where liability is more a theoretical entity than a reality) $100 does not seem out of line. I will not begrudge anyone that makes what they can. The opporators are not charging for a life sustaining commodity, dive the Vandy or not. It is up to you.
What can I say, I believe in capitalism, and I won't even charge for my $.02 worth.
Safe dives
trtldvr
www.divealive.org
Right..but you'd think that VOLUME would be the key!
In some ways, I can see BWD's point, because for the tech community, most op's would charge an arm and two legs to take you to the places that are worth your while, but since this is going to be a mainstream location, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around some charging X and some charging XX...
Personally, when I'm down in October, nothing is going to keep me from getting on that bugger, and I'm going with a decently priced op. Cattle boats be damned!