Dive Kauai 3417 Poipu Road, Koloa, HI 96756

"tl;dr: Don't do your scuba introduction with Dive Kauai. Dive site too advanced, combined with an extremely rushed dive instructor resulted in a terrible first experience. I am a CMAS dive master with 175+ worldwide dives. I am experienced in assisting divers in training and planning out dives. My wife never scuba dived before and wanted to try it during our honeymoon in Hawaii through an introductory experience. I carefully researched the diving companies and Dive Kauai seemed the most serious. I noticed one bad review by an experienced (200+) diver. The introduction dive is advertised as a shore dive. Generally with shore dives you enter from shore, gradually submerging deeper following the ocean floor bed. The website description did not state the inaccessible entry that requires you to swim to a buoy 60-70 ft from shore. From there, divers are expected to show DSD skills before submerging in a free fall to 32-40 ft. For any first diving experience, this is very challenging! Intro divers aren't used to having all the gear on. Swimming the distance is exhausting, especially in wavy water, making the dive site very weather condition dependent. The free fall makes gradual equalization of the nose challenging, especially for intro divers, and could result in serious injury. All in all, I would have never chosen this dive site for an intro diver. What went wrong? There were 3 introductory divers, plus me and the diving instructor Carlia. I agreed that I would attend like an introductory diver without doing the DSD skills, and I was not allowed to provide instructions. I agreed. Carlia seemed very relaxed during the briefing. We got excited. During the briefing was the first time we heard about the swim to the buoy. I was getting second doubts for an intro dive, but trusted in Dive Kauai. Carlia promised if we wouldn't see turtles, she would reschedule the dive or provide a refund. The briefing was unnecessarily long and when Carlia checked the time, her attitude took a 180 degree turn to very rushed. Shouting "there's no time", "we have to hurry or no dive is possible", "we don't have time for this/that". Rushing is a TERRIBLE attitude for diving, especially with first time divers. people are excited and maybe a bit scared, rushing will amplify what little fears there are. What followed was chaos, intro divers in the water, NO FINAL GEAR check, which resulted in my wife losing her dive mask in the waves as it wasn't properly secured, Carlia frustrated ; "Will have to charge you for that mask ma'am" (save those comments for after the dive!). I helped my wife, as any buddy should, in making sure her fins and the second dive mask were well secure. Trying to calm her down from the rushing Carlia, who was already at the buoy shouting we should swim as time was running out. We make it to the buoy, luckily getting some time to catch a breath, my wife is calming down. Carlia does the DSD skill check and my wife that has trouble submerging, Carlia assumes it is due to inexperience with LPI, and pulls my wife to depth. DSD skills pass. We're going down. My wife stuck at 16 ft. Carlia is already down. I'm sticking with my wife to figure out what's wrong, see her panicking/confused. Signing to her to breathe relaxed. I'm realizing her weight is not heavy enough. Carlia cancelled the dive, we surfaced. She cancelled the dive as I gave instructions (to breathe and calm down). Carlia doesn't have time to communicate. Carlia proposed I can finish my dive but my wife cannot. My wife is close to crying, of course I cancel. The experience with kauai diving was terrible and resulted in my first cancelled dive ever. Even worse it resulted in a horrific first experience for a prospective diver that can truly kill enthusiasm to continue diving. Major issues: 1. Dive site not okay for introductory divers 2. The instructor was rushing. That's a HARD NO with introductory divers 3. No gear check in the water which resulted in the loss off dive mask and a cancelled dive due to led weights too low for wife"

"Had a fantastic experience doing my Scuba Refresher with Jill & Micah. They were both very friendly, fun, and informative. They made me feel very comfortable throughout the entirety of both of my dives and made sure I felt confident diving for the first time in 8 years. Would absolutely recommend and can't wait to dive with them again!"

"Great experience from the beginning to end. Elaine, in the office was super helpful and friendly. I dived three different days and each captain and dive master was top notch. The boats were in great shape and all the rental gear was perfect. All the dive masters were wonderful and they were fun to be around, thanks Jill, Claire, and Dom!"

"Great trip! We had the pleasure of diving with Josh. He did a throughout run through of the dive plan and encouraged feedback before the dive. We are fairly new divers and only have a handful of dives. Josh did a great job and eased any concerns we had ahead of time. We saw TONS of sea turtles and other wild life and really enjoyed our experience. The gear provided was top notch and so was the dive spot. Highly recommend booking with these folks in you're in the area!"