Emperor Divers' Red Sea Forum

I just did three days with Emperor in Sharm, disappointed to say the least!

Day One, a try dive, 18m on the local reef, then informed that second and subsequent dives of the day have to be to lower depths, so 2 more 18m reef dives. We did have divers of differing abilities in our group, so no problem with some of them doing a try dive, but this should be sorted out the night before, and 8am meeting to plan the day is too late if some of the trips leave at 6:30!

Day Two, the big dive day? No! Some of our group of 12 decided to do their Advanced Open Water, fair enough I hear you say. But what we were not told was that as they were training they could not go to Ras Mohammed, and as we were all on the same boat, neither could we! I asked about swaping boats as all I wanted to do was wreck dive, but after much prevarication the answer was no, my kit was on the boat, there was no Thistlegorm boat that day, tough! So what did we do, you guessed, 3 more 18m reef dives, underwater bird watching!

Day Three, to Dahab, 2 nice dives, the canyon and the blue hole, finally hit 30m! But only 2 dives as we were made aware of more restrictions, a 24 hour no fly rule, even though my amazingly conservative computer said 17 hours was fine, and something about getting bent going back over the ‘mountain’.

No night dive was offered, some excuse about the Eid.

All in all, 3 days, 8 dives, of which 2 were good. No wreck dives at all!

I was even told that if I dive with Emperor again I will have to waste the first day on try dives, if the second day isn’t a ‘Thistlegorm’ day and day three is you last dive day, your stuffed!

Not impressed! Rob

Try Dive - 18 meters !!!!!!!, did you mean a check dive?

sorrry should have been check dive, it's been a long time since I did one!

Dear Rob,

Whilst I am sorry to hear of your disappointment of your 3 days with Emperor, as you have decided to go on the open forum I believe it is only right to put the other side of the events from our own perspective as you have been quite critical in your comments.

In the first instance our main concern is for the safety and well being of our guests and as such guidelines have been put in place to safeguard our clients and follow well known and practiced procedures from the world’s diving organizations.

You have written from a very individual point of view whilst you were part of a group of 12 divers, and therein lies part of the problem. It is my understanding from the group leader (Rob Lowe) that the rest of the group had really enjoyed their visit here and that you were the only one who had not been particularly happy. This I know as I spoke to him on the final morning personally and once before that.

The group itself was not that experienced with only one really experienced diver being the instructor Mike Keep. From the other 11, there were 7 Open Water divers with an average of less than 15 dives each, one member had not completed her Open Water course, leaving only 3 Advanced Open Water divers with less than 50 dives each. You being one of the latter category.

Let me now address your comments one by one.

Day One. It is common practice amongst all the main dive centres in Sharm that all divers complete a check dive and go to local dive sites on the first day, especially if you have not dive here before, which your group had not. The guides had spoken to your group leader and your own instructor and it was Mike Keep’s wish that the relatively new divers were buddy paired with the more experienced divers i.e. An Advanced diver with an Open Water diver where possible. Therefore, this was your own group’s decision and the buddy pairs picked by you own instructor.

Secondly, as you will be aware from your own training the recommended depth limit for Open Water divers is 18m and as you were all paired with an Open Water diver the profiles as such reflected the buddy pairs. Again, I would point out that 8 out of 12 of you were at this level.

Your actual dives that day were to 21m, 20m, and 20m and not 18m as you have suggested. You have also signed the manifest to confirm this. Further, these sites do not require additional depth and the best parts are at 18m or shallower. You will also recall from your training that reverse profiles are potentially hazardous and therefore following good diving practice we do not allow this at Emperor.

During your first day our guides spoke with both the group leader (Rob Lowe) and your instructor about the Advanced Open Water course and they were indeed informed that the Deep dive and Navigation dive for this course would be done at local sites, as they always are. Knowing this they still choose to complete the courses. Therefore, the group leader and instructor were made aware of this before day two. If they did not pass on this information it is unfortunate.

Day Two. There was indeed a discussion in the morning between the guides and the instructor and group leader about splitting the group, as you had made your feelings known about not wanting to go local again. I have been assured that an offer was made to allow people to move boats but that the group leader stated that he wanted to keep the group all together. It is again common practice for groups to stay all together and this was the wishes as given to us by the group leader. Further, as you know we didn’t have a trip going to a wreck that day in any case. The wrecks are two hours and four hours travel distance from Sharm and therefore special trips have to be arranged with minimum numbers. Discussions were had over the possibility of going to the Dunraven, but this had been dismissed by the group leaders. Again you stated that you were limited to 18m. Your dives that day were 27m, 19m and 18m, again confirmed by yourself on the manifest. At no time in any discussions were you informed that it was tough as you indicated. Indeed the group leader himself informed our guides that you should understand that you were here as part of a group and not as an individual.

On day 2 of the trip our guides were informed of your intended fly time on day 4, and again following good diving practice as taught on your Open Water course when doing multiple dives over a few days it is best not to fly for at least 18 hours plus, with additional hours giving a better safety margin. In Egypt we operate under the rules and policy of the Chamber of Diving and Watersports (CDWS) and it is their requirement that we do not allow diving within 24 hours of flying. In these circumstances our policy is governed by the Egyptian Authorities. This information is on public display on our notice boards in the dive centre and form part of our Terms and Conditions. This is a common restriction within the dive industry and should not have come as a surprise to any well seasoned diver.

With regard to Eid, as you work in Qatar you will be aware that this is their equivalent of our Christmas and falls just after Ramadan and they take this very seriously. No-one was sure which night Ramadan would end and their feast would begin, as it was to end at different times in different parts of the Middle East and is declared by the senior cleric in each country at night fall and not before. Therefore the two nights that you could have done a night dive had to be left open for the Egyptian staff to end Ramadan and have their feast. I am sorry that this did not allow you to do a night dive, but as all our staff are Muslims hope that understand the predicament we were in over that period.

Day Three. The only day you seemed to enjoy, but again you seem to think that we limited your diving by restricting you to only two dives. Again, it is common knowledge that you should not ascend to altitude after diving without an extended surface interval. It would appear you have forgotten this from your training.

The first limitation is that you were flying at 1.00 pm the next day and therefore all dives had to be finished by this time on day 3 not really giving time for 3 dives. Secondly, as the journey between Sharm and Dahab requires an ascent to over 750 meters an extended surface interval is required before traveling back to Sharm, and you should restrict your diving to 2 dives to avoid the increased possibility of decompression sickness. You would have been advised by your guides to monitor each other on the way back for this very reason.

On the forum you have given the impression that this would be the case for everyone diving with Emperor, however I would make the point that you were with a group and that your individual requirements seemed to be at odds with the rest of that group.

I believe I have addressed all your points showing that we have acted in line with the wishes of your group leader and instructor. Further, that we have followed good diving practice in line with CDWS and general diving procedures as taught by PADI.

Regards


Duncan McAllister, Dive Centre Manager,
Emperor Divers Sharm El Sheikh
Mobile: + 20 (0) 122 340 998
Email: duncan@emperordivers.com
Hurghada, Marsa Alam, Nuweiba, and Sharm el Sheikh
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Hi Duncan, thanks for the reply. I think one key thing which Emperor did not do was to meet our group on the Friday evening when we arrived and simply ask the customers what sort of diving they wanted. This is basic customer care. If someone from Emperor has asked what sort of diving I wanted to do I would have made it clear that I was only interested in wreck dives. I did ask Alison at Scuba Travel, when I booked the holiday, if I could dive separately from the group and she said this was no problem.
I had no problem buddying up with the less experienced divers on the first day, it was doing exactly the same thing on the second day which annoyed me. When some of the group opted to do their Advanced Open Water course Emperor should have made it clear to the rest of the group that doing so would exclude the rest of us from going to Ras Mohhamed. This was not explained to us.
I'm not quite sure where you get the idea that I'm limited to 18 m! I've been Advanced Open Water qualified for over 10 years and started diving in 1967.......Rob

Dear Rob,

With regard to your reply as stated in my previous correspondence, all divers have to go local on the first day and therefore we know exactly what will occur on day 1. This would have been explained to your group leader at the time of booking. This means there is no requirement to meet anyone the evening before as this is a standard procedure within Emperor. This then allows the instructor/guide on the first morning to discuss the client’s requirements.

In this case whilst we were aware of your preference for wreck diving, your group leader had told us he wanted to keep the group together and we did not have any trips organized to the wrecks for those two days, and they only run with a minimum number of 6. This was therefore not an option that would have been open to you I’m afraid, unless 5 others from the group had wanted to go wreck diving, which I understand they did not.

As I mentioned before, in discussions with your own instructor and group leader we did actually inform them that the decision to do the Advanced Open Water courses would mean that the boat would be limited to local sites on the first day of the course. They still choose to do the courses. We are sorry if the group leader and instructor did not pass on this information to you.

I am sorry that being buddied with a less experienced diver annoyed you on day 2, but as you were both doing your Nitrox course with our instructor Matt I would imagine that this seemed appropriate.

Lastly, I think there is some confusion over the depth limit of 18m. I was not trying to say you were limited by qualification to this depth, but that in your first statements on the forum you gave the impression that you had been limited to 18m on the dives you did, which obviously was not the case.

Anyway, I am sorry for any disappointment you may have had, but we were acting on the requests of your own group leader and instructor.

Regards


Duncan McAllister, Dive Centre Manager,
Emperor Divers Sharm El Sheikh

Hi Duncan, Shaun and the Emperor crew. So, I came back to Sharm, went to the Emperor bar and Shaun welcomed me immediately and offered to fix up a dive on Thistlegorm! Many thanks! So, after a bit of bitching and bleating, I've dived the Thistlegorm, without doubt the best dive of my life!

For those who want to dive the Thistlegorm as much as I did, here are few tips;

Allow yourself at least 5 diving days, that's 7 days in all. All the dive operations ask you to do a check dive the first day, all say 24 hours before flying, so you loose the last day, and all the operators wait until they have enough people before they commit to doing a day on either Thistlegorm or Dunraven, so you may have to 'work the bar' to drum up enough other divers to make critical mass. Once you get there, enjoy!

Many thanks to Steve, who led the dive despite receiving a nast cut to his thumb while securing the bow line, I hope you're all right!

So; one happy bunny. Would I dive with Emperor again? YES!

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your forum post.

It's great to hear that you enjoyed your diving with us recently.

I will of course pass your thanks on to those that you have mentioned as well as the Dive Centre Managment.

Look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Kind Regards

Carmen

Central Reservations