You can download the map off the newsletter site. I put it there about 6 months ago as was the older one. www.lrnews.homestead.com link is on the main page to the Lake Rawlings site as well.
Lake Rawlings Customer Service
- Thread starter RSL
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
telemonster
Contributor
Last edited:
Fly Girl
Contributor
I love Lake Rawlings. It is so beautiful and peaceful there - sort of like a Walden Pond experience. I love all of the bass and crappie - I see so many fish. The visibility is really good for an old quarry. It sort of makes it worth it to put up with the hostile and very rude staff. I'd like to think that I'm pretty nice to people and go out of my way to be pleasant, and most people return the courtesy, but the guys here won't. Will I dive Rawlings a lot this coming year - YES. Will the staff be nice - probably not. Will I take a shower in the crummy porta-potty of a combination potty-shower room (not unlike places I used to go to the in former Soviet Union) - NO. The water is beautiful and clean. I can wait for a shower for when I get back to Alexandria.
Mountain Dog
Contributor
Rawlings is what it is. It's a somewhat over-priced, but pretty darn good hole in the ground filled with fairly clear water. It's a good place for land locked divers to get wet, and to check out new or rebuilt gear.
The staff can have two distinctly different attitudes on any given day. That's too bad, because if they paid more attention to simply being polite to customers this thread probably wouldn't exist. I have owned my own company and I know how difficult customer service can be. I know the customer isn't always right. But I also know they have other options and that if I want to keep them as a customer, I at least have to treat them with respect as I tell them off. There is no place for rudeness when dealing with customers.
Air fills at Rawlings are my biggest complaint. We dive with HP steel 100's and never get anything close to a full fill. Even mid-week when we have been the only 2 divers in the shop the tanks are pulled off the whip in minutes, in spite of my pointing out that they are HP's. Contrary to what others have said here, I have not been successful at asking them to hold the tanks overnight and top them off in the morning. My request for this was actually met with the rudest treatment I've ever gotten from them. I was bluntly told that I could bring my tank back in the morning and pay for another fill. Not cool, but it won't stop me from going there. I just go with full tanks, leave with empties, and get only the fills I need in between.
The place is overrun on the weekends by dive shops doing ow checkouts. They don't have enough staff to handle it. And the sediment stirred up by students destroys the normally good viz. Avoid the weekends and it's a nice but slightly imperfect place.
Mountain Dog
The staff can have two distinctly different attitudes on any given day. That's too bad, because if they paid more attention to simply being polite to customers this thread probably wouldn't exist. I have owned my own company and I know how difficult customer service can be. I know the customer isn't always right. But I also know they have other options and that if I want to keep them as a customer, I at least have to treat them with respect as I tell them off. There is no place for rudeness when dealing with customers.
Air fills at Rawlings are my biggest complaint. We dive with HP steel 100's and never get anything close to a full fill. Even mid-week when we have been the only 2 divers in the shop the tanks are pulled off the whip in minutes, in spite of my pointing out that they are HP's. Contrary to what others have said here, I have not been successful at asking them to hold the tanks overnight and top them off in the morning. My request for this was actually met with the rudest treatment I've ever gotten from them. I was bluntly told that I could bring my tank back in the morning and pay for another fill. Not cool, but it won't stop me from going there. I just go with full tanks, leave with empties, and get only the fills I need in between.
The place is overrun on the weekends by dive shops doing ow checkouts. They don't have enough staff to handle it. And the sediment stirred up by students destroys the normally good viz. Avoid the weekends and it's a nice but slightly imperfect place.
Mountain Dog
protohuman
Registered
HERE IS A POSITIVE STORY. my dive buddy and I went to Lake Rawlings last fall. I had my 4 mil suit. Manager said I would freeze in it. He rented me a suit. I tried it on at the picnic tables. It was too small in the shoulders. I took it back after having it twenty minutes, never got it wet. Manager said "NO REFUNDS, READ THE SIGN". So I dived w/ my regular 4 mil, no problem. 2 dives, did not get cold. The positive part is that my credit card company refunded the suit rental and both entry fees because his customer service is non-existant.
Spady
Contributor
If you don't like the customer service (and for good reason, this includes lots of folks), why not just go to VA Beach or Nags Head or somewhere else? In the grand scheme of things it really isn't that much farther for most folks - just 2-3 hours (a cup of coffee or two 
) away. Besides, the ocean is far better (conditions permitting) and worth the little bit of extra money IMHO.
) away. Besides, the ocean is far better (conditions permitting) and worth the little bit of extra money IMHO.
Sounds like you haven't visited it enough
(If you need a map)
You know some people have a life and can't always drive up there to dive there! HAHA
RAD Diver
Contributor
If you don't like the customer service (and for good reason, this includes lots of folks), why not just go to VA Beach or Nags Head or somewhere else? In the grand scheme of things it really isn't that much farther for most folks - just 2-3 hours (a cup of coffee or two
Boy if this isn't true. I have never understood the great many threads about all the trips people put together to Rawlings. Now I understand the training & need to check out new gear issues that are better suited someplace a bit more stable than a dive boat off the Va. beach coast, but come on.
By the time I put gas in my truck, food & drinks in the cooler, admission to the Lake, not to mention over 4 hours on the road (total trip there & back), I could & most likely would be diving in the Ocean somewhere.
This has nothing to do with the lack of customer service, as I have said I have never had a bad thing come my way there. But I usually have my yearly sticker & tanks filled for the trip beforehand.
Of course living 8 minutes from the docks our dive boats use might make me a bit biased.
Florida is a 2 hour plane flight and no more than a 2 hour drive to a great dive site......
RAD Diver
Contributor
Plus 2 hours going through security (seems they have never seen scuba regs before, I have to unpack show them & re-pack every time) plus typical airport delays, rent a car, rent tanks, pay for it all.
I have been to the Keys, Lauderdale & a couple of the springs (Blue Grotto & Devils Den) & this is not to demean the experience, but I would rather dive NC. Be it Hatteras, which I can drive to in 2 1/2 hours, Morehead City 3 1/2 hours, or Wilmington 4 1/2 hours, all of which I can use my own steel tanks.
And for the price Va. Beach isn't that bad.
Similar threads
