Duttons Divers - Anglesey Dive Centre

I signed up for an Oper Water course in preparation for a holiday-of-a-lifetime trip to The Maldives but the experience has been appalling pretty much from the start to end.To help others who may be considering going on one of their courses, you should bear the following in mind:- This is quite probably the most shambolic company that I have ever come across. Communication is virtually impossible by any method other than email and even that is hit-and-miss; it once took more than a week to get a reply to query.- In the first communication I had after signing-up, I was asked to send my personal details, including my date-of-birth, on an un-encrypted email; that is unacceptable if you value your online privacy! This was resolved (eventually) by signing-up to the SSI app and then being assigned to Dutton’s as my diving centre.- Do not try to learn to dive in Winter. The facilities at the Vivian Dive Centre are rudimentary at best, comprising a poorly-heated Portakabin for changing and a small, stone-built office; getting changed (especially when you get out of the water) is not a pleasant experience. You will also have to pay £5 every time you go for parking.- Your experience will be nothing like the glossy videos you will watch on your online course. You be diving in a dry suit (which is only briefly mentioned in the online material and is described as a “speciality” skill) in very cold, murky, unpleasant water that, as far as I could tell, is devoid of any form of life.- Wearing a dry suit means that you should (in theory, at least), stay dry under the exposure suit (I had not appreciated the difference between dry and wet suits because I am a total novice and it is not really properly explained anywhere). You should layer up as best you can; I would recommend full body thermal underwear and at least two thick pairs of walking socks over your normal socks (this is mentioned in the material you get before the course starts). Of course, you are given a thermal suit to go under the dry suit but it is not sufficient to keep you warm, especially your feet (which the thermal suit does not cover).- Take a complete change of clothes and towels.- The advertised opening times for the Anglesey Dive Centre in Llangefni are, at best, an indication of when the shop might be open. I visited on a Wednesday at 11:45am and it was closed; after waiting for 45 minutes, I gave up. This is not an isolated incident; having spoken to their exasperated neighbouring businesses, this happens frequently. Unfortunately, there is no fixed landline number (not that I could find anyway), so there is no way to phone in advance to make sure they are open.- Sign-up for a trial dive before you commit to a full-blown course to be certain it’s something you wish to pursue.If you have read this far, congratulations! You may be wondering why, given the above, I have given two stars (as opposed to one). Well, the one thing that did stand out was my instructor (who was not the proprietor), who on the whole was excellent. I did not complete my course and that is because of the experience on my second (and last) dive…We got into open water, and I became disorientated due to the gloom and lack of visual references; I tried to correct my buoyancy but became further confused as I did not operate the BCD correctly. I don’t remember much after that but I do know that I hit the bottom of the quarry. The instructor rescued me and got me back to the surface safely; he literally saved my life.In conclusion, I am strangely glad that I had the experience here as it showed me that diving really is not for me (despite everything that happened, this is not directly the fault of this firm) and I will stick to snorkelling in the future. Sadly, I could not recommend this firm due to the experiences that I’ve had.

Under no circumstances give these crooks any money. We booked a weekend's diving with them on their boat, Seaquest.They tried to talk us into postponing for spurious reasons of visibility and weather. We insisted we wanted to keep the booking.The day of the booking came and they arrived late. They had is load the boat, then put on a pantomime about the boat not starting.I have subsequently found out the boat has had multiple engine failure issues, and I believe they knew this before our booking. Rather then be honest about it and refund our money, they had us drive all the way from Cheshire.Clare agreed to a refund, but has since reduced that offer to an 80% refund. This is immaterial though, because over a month later, multiple emails, voicemail messages, and a letter before court action, she has still not given us a penny.They recently had a Coastguard and RNLI incident with a children's activity group on board, that has resulted in the boat being hauled out of the water.They are incompetent crooks - avoid at all costs.EDIT FOLLOWING CLARE'S RESPONSE:Clare did not restart the boat while we were there. We were taking kit away from the boat. When we returned, she told is she had got it started. Not a single member of our group of eight witnessed this.We asked about the possibility of getting out; Clare said she was not comfortable taking divers out until it had been checked, so we did not have an opportunity to dive that day.Regarding one of our group forgetting equipment - she forgot her BCD. This is completely irrelevant to the fact Duttons did not fulfil our booking.My review did not take ages. Ages is how I would describe the time taken to get a refund, which we still do not have.I would also add that the time I take to voice my opinion on review sites is none of your business. You have voluntarily put your business details on these sites and clearly want people to leave reviews. It demonstrates your utter contempt for your customers when you get shirty over a negative review.If you do not like receiving negative reviews, I strongly recommend you start being honest with your customers and issuing refunds promptly when due, and not quibbling over the amount and lying about when they will be made.

Cant wait to do more dives!!!