Hi all,
A question that has been puzzling me for a while now. I work in a divecenter/resort that organizes daytrips (located outside of the US) and we have a pretty strict policy regarding Scuba Review/ Refresher which causes the occasional discussion with customers. Simply stated, we require proof of recent diving experience, and if someone hasn't been diving for more than 6 months* we ask of the customer to do a Scuba Review before joining the divetrip. They can either do the refreshere here before trip departure or on another location, whatever is most convenient for them.
For me, this seems like a very reasonable policy especially considered the fact that our dives are unguided (in the water, of course there's a DM/Instructor at hand giving a detailed briefing and helpin with dive planning if needed) so we need to be reasonably sure that everyone is up-to-date with their skill and knowledge about procedures.
What baffles me is the amount of people that insist that they do not need a refresher and refuse to do one. Interesting enough, it's mostly people with 10-20 dives and a gap of 8 months to 2 years (!) that feel like they don't need to do a scuba review, whereas that's the demographic that probably will have the most benefit from it.
I'm curious to know what the objections are against doing a Scuba Review and hope you can enlighten me. I really feel that we're not being unreasonable in our request (especially considering local liability policies which are quite different than, let's say, the US) and we're not asking an outrageous amount of money for a scuba review either. Any of you has been presented with this issue from a customer's perspective? What did you think? Do you refuse to do a refresher? Why?
*Of course we take experience level into account, there's a very gray area here that we have to take into account.
A question that has been puzzling me for a while now. I work in a divecenter/resort that organizes daytrips (located outside of the US) and we have a pretty strict policy regarding Scuba Review/ Refresher which causes the occasional discussion with customers. Simply stated, we require proof of recent diving experience, and if someone hasn't been diving for more than 6 months* we ask of the customer to do a Scuba Review before joining the divetrip. They can either do the refreshere here before trip departure or on another location, whatever is most convenient for them.
For me, this seems like a very reasonable policy especially considered the fact that our dives are unguided (in the water, of course there's a DM/Instructor at hand giving a detailed briefing and helpin with dive planning if needed) so we need to be reasonably sure that everyone is up-to-date with their skill and knowledge about procedures.
What baffles me is the amount of people that insist that they do not need a refresher and refuse to do one. Interesting enough, it's mostly people with 10-20 dives and a gap of 8 months to 2 years (!) that feel like they don't need to do a scuba review, whereas that's the demographic that probably will have the most benefit from it.
I'm curious to know what the objections are against doing a Scuba Review and hope you can enlighten me. I really feel that we're not being unreasonable in our request (especially considering local liability policies which are quite different than, let's say, the US) and we're not asking an outrageous amount of money for a scuba review either. Any of you has been presented with this issue from a customer's perspective? What did you think? Do you refuse to do a refresher? Why?
*Of course we take experience level into account, there's a very gray area here that we have to take into account.