Visit Date: March 2012

Did my original PADI OD with Mr Stan Berlin, and it went well using the Intercon Hotel Pool, First few dives were good with Graham, who has moved on as of April 2012.

Now comes the disapointing bit, the owner/divemaster, Stan Berlin, is not only a bit lazy, overwieght and a heavy smoker, so too are his two instructors, fuming away whilst registering divers, including kids. Shocked to be told price increase on day of dive, and abruptuly cancelled by Stan, 37 RO ($100), whereas most Oman dive centres charge RO 30 to 33 RO Riyal Omani. Service is poor with only water and BEEF rolls (what about the non veg and the Hindu who do no eat beef) no soft drinks no photos etc etc..

On the previous dives, it was easy to avoid looking for the wreck and shift to shallower and simpler dives.

Overall, very disappointing with the basic feedback, that if you dont like our prices, that you can F*** off. That's Mr Berlin.

Management Response from Omanta Dive Center

Ramesh had come to us for his open water course and then came back a year later and did one day of fun diving with us. Six months later when he booked in for another day of fun diving, and showed up in the morning, I requested him to go over to make the payment before we left. When he asked how much, I indicated our standard price of OR 37 for diving with equipment. This was not good enough for him and he asked for a discount. When I offered him the day for OR 35, Ramesh had indicated that he only wanted to pay OR 33 and claims that's what he paid 6 months earlier. I told him that he did not pay 33 last time and offered to bring up his bill from the point of sale from before.

Ramesh stormed off claiming that he was going to report me to PADI and threatened to write bad reviews. It is not our oblation to give discounts and you dont go an negotiate on the price of a can of Coke every time you buy one. Since Ramesh was known to us, as he left the dive center I wrote him a mail indicating that him not wanting to pay my rates was his problem, not mine but at the same time I did share the phone number of 2 other dive centers that may meet his financial requirements. I also indicated that it was unfortunate that he left in such a flap and I was sorry the way things were left. I have the chain of mails for anyone who wants to see them.

PADI also contacted me saying that Ramesh had complained but there was no violation of standards but they were sharing the complaint with me for my information. When I sent them back the chain of mails, they laughed and stated that they know that many of these complaints are not 100% factual. Please see other travel boards, like trip advisory, where we are ranked #1 of all activities in Oman.

After our first year and a half of operations and taking out thousands of divers, and teaching over 1000 students from open water all the way up to instructor level and technical levels, to have one customer who got upset because he did not want to dust the cobwebs off his wallet and pay the rates posted on our website and at our booking counter is not something I am concerned about.

Ramesh should also understand that with him writing derogatory comments about me personally, here in Oman, I had the right to charge him with defamation of character which would have screwed up his traveling back and forth to Oman for business, but I chose not to. I have the chain of mails from his booking to his fit that he through while storming out the door because I did not offer him enough of a discount. If any of you have children and have seen them through a temper tantrum, you should see a 45+ year old man do this over not wanting to pay OR 2 (5 dollars).