"Booking and overall customer service left a lot of room for improvement"

My review is broken down into (1) initial contact/booking online (2) payment (3) customer service prior to arrival (4) the diving experience.

Overall if we hadn’t had the significant problems with 1-3 then based on 4 alone we’d have rated 4* but as it is the grading is a 2*.

(1) Pro Dive have a good website with plenty of information. Don’t be fooled into thinking their live team who you can chat/email will do you anything better than rates offered on their site. I initially emailed a few months before our trip, was quoted for sixteen scuba tanks - effectively eight dives for my wife and myself. There was an intention to book more once we had used these up as well as a trip to Cozumel and some cenotes. I received a payment invoice and this is where things started to go wrong.

(2) Their credit card processing is done via a company who insisted on converting the USD into my local GBP currency at a very poor exchange rate. I asked to pay in USD but was told Pro Dive were calling the shots on that but they denied all knowledge. The monetary value was about $40 worse - more of a principle I guess but why issue me an invoice in USD if you want payment in GBP? Although I paid promptly it took over a week for the funds to get ti Pro Dive.

(3) To make matters worse a few days after we had paid/before our trip we were told that both engines on the dive boat were faulty and we would need to get to their other dive centre about forty minutes drive (each way) away. The cost for this was ours to sort out! No apology, no initial offer of a refund but instead a short and poorly positioned email saying there was nothing else that could be done. Very much “our boat problem is your time/financial problem”. We came very close to cancelling at this point but faced with navigating the payment company again we resigned ourselves to spending hours in a taxi and $$ on taxi journeys. Then the day before our trip we had another email saying the boat was fixed! What sort of customer service proposition is Pro Dive offering? This should have been a relaxing vacation and instead it was hassle and concern that with better communication could have been reduced.

As it is we booked a bunch of additional dives with another centre in Puerto Morelos where the experience couldn’t have been more different. Friendly/helpful/accommodating with payment at the end of our trip!

(4) All of the dives done with Pro Dive were using a twin engined skiff with room for probably twelve divers and tanks. You need to wade out and then climb on board which was OK but you would struggle if you have weak upper body strength. We did four dive sites so although others were available there was a degree of repetition which wasn’t ideal. The dive team are well organised albeit if you are diving EANx free if you are qualified) then bring your own analyser as we had two occasions where you couldn’t test the gas you would be consuming.

**OVERALL**

Would we book Pro Dive in any country/town/resort again - no. Their customer service prior to arrival is that of a large business with no real idea of how to meet the needs of divers who should be easy to look after and then upsell more trips. Instead they operate a “tough luck” attitude which leaves you feeling like their problems are yours to try and fix.

The dive team were safe (two EANx tank analysis opportunities missed aside) and helpful enough. The repeated dive sites when others are available wasn’t great albeit all dives were 50+ minutes so no short changing there.

If you intend to use Pro Dive then I’d suggest bypassing their online team and booking face to face so you can see what you are getting for your money. This will also remove their payment company from the process who were terrible!

"bad bad bad"

So first let me start by saying that the dive masters with this group and the boat captains are all fantastic, very knowledgable, safe, friendly, and a great group. The administration and policies of the group leave a lot to be desired.

1. DO NOT book a Cozumel trip with them anywhere in Playa. They are around 50$ more than dive shops in town and it is an entirely too long excursion. You have to take a van to the ferry to a taxi to a resort to the boat to dive. We only did two tank dives and the process took from 9am until 730pm. Several operators in town have boats that take you direct and you are home by 3pm.

2. Also for Cozumel they make you book a local dive with them to verify your skills, which is understandable as Cozumel can have some deep wall dives. The Santa Rosa Wall is a favorite. So I did this. I booked two local dives so that I would be able to dive these sites in Cozumel. Well after spending this money... turns out we had two snorkels on our boat so we did NO wall dives. Thats right they catered the entire trip to two snorkelers rather than the boat full of divers. And the dives were relatively shallow so I did not need to book those local dives after all. Of course we were not informed prior that this would or even could occur and of coarse no explanation or apology was made.

3. Oh and did I mention that their dives are nonrefundable. Yes that is right, if you book with them and weather prevents the dive from happening they WILL not refund your money. The reason I dove with them this time was that my dives were canceled last Dec due to weather and they refused to refund my money. Now I will say that their policy says that "arrangements' will be made if dives are canceled due to weather. I am at fault for not asking more questions about this "arrangement." I live in Texas so this was not as huge of deal as it could have been.

Take it from me the only reason they have received positive reviews has to be that people do not know any better. Go into town. I dove the Cenotes with Tank ha and they were fantastic. I tried to dive with Prodive but fortunately for me they screwed that up too.

Visited November 2016

"Great diving holiday in spite of storm"

We stayed at Playa del Carmen in September 2014. Our main objective was to dive. Unfortunately a storm closed the harbor for 4 days which meant that is wasn't possible to dive from Playa. The centre was really flexible about finding alternatives so that we got as much diving in as possible. We were lucky enough to have Gustavo as instructor for 3 of the days we were there - he was great.. He made us feel so safe and really went out of his way to give us the best possible experience.. We can only recommend the place and the staff there.. And of course Cozumel is such a great place to dive!

"Fantastisk!"

Min mand og jeg var i efteråret 2013 på ferie i Mexico, i byen Playa del Carmen. Da vi er glade for livet uder vandoverfladen, tog vi et advance PADI catefikat hos det lokale Pro Dive center.
Det var en fantastisk oplevelse!! Dygtige og søde mennesker og utroligt undervandsliv.
Jeg kan klart anbefalde dette dykker center til andre, de er utrolig profesionelle og man er i sikre hænder hos dem.
Senere på efteråret har min far (60år), på vores anbefaling, dykket hos samme center i Playa, og oplevede ogsåen fantastisk service og gode oplevelser.
Tak for en masse gode ture under vandet - særligt tak til vores instruktører Juan og Babtist.