Ningaloo Nightmare with Ningaloo Dreaming

I visited Exmouth over Easter this year. This trip was partly organised by Creative Holidays. They booked accommodation, WA flights, whale shark cruise and navy pier dive. When I enquired about doing a dive, I was told by Creative Holidays that all I needed to do was give the boat operator an extra $50. This sounded a little suspicious to me so I contacted Ningaloo Dreaming by email to confirm that I was booked in for a dive, not just a snorkel on the whale shark cruise. I didn't get a reply so I rang them to confirm. I was told that everything was organised.

When I arrived at Exmouth, all accommodation and transfers worked very smoothly but Ningaloo Dreaming was a nightmare to deal with.

To start, on the Saturday I was booked in for a 7.15am pickup. They didn't arrive until 8am and no-one phoned to let us (myself and another man from the same accommodation) know that they were running late. While I was waiting for the bus to pick me up I was speaking to some people who had been on the Navy Pier dive the day before. They said that the company was also late picking them up. They complained that when they got to the pier they stood around for an hour then were taken up to the dive site where their gear was assembled. When the man checked his tank it only had 100 bar in it. He said they went through 5 tanks before they found one that was full!

The female driver greeting us appeared quite ingenuine - like she was reading out a speil in a forced cheerfulness. A clipboard was handed out as we were about to arrive at the boat launch site asking us for our next of kin information and our dive qualification. No-one asked to site this qualification or any identification. As we were getting off the bus I asked the lady to confirm that I was going on a dive. She said that only 3 people were booked in for a dive and that myself and the other man from my accommodation were only booked in for snorkelling. After contacting them twice to confirm that they had me booked in for a dive they got it wrong. I was furious. I wanted this sorted out before I got on the boat but the bus driver said that there was nothing they could do - basically too bad. I went to the other dive operators who were all loading up their customers and asked whether they had any spots on their boats but unfortunately they were all full. The woman was angry that I had approached the other operators. All she wanted me to do was to get away from them so that she could talk to me. When I did she didn't have anything to say except there was nothing she could do. She didn't even try to contact the office to get more gear sent up.

Once on the boat the woman said that two of the people booked in to do a dive today forfeited their dive so the 2 people who missed out could do a dive. I was speaking to another person on the boat who was an ex-employee who said that this sort of thing happened all the time and that the owner was very disorganised. When something went wrong he yelled at the employees and that this is why she left.

When it came time for the dive I wasn't even called down for the dive brief so I had no idea what was going to be happening. When one of the other customers said that I should go down they were getting ready for the dive I wasn't filled in and wasn't shown the gear I was to use - I had to ask. There were only 3 people diving so it wasn't that they were busy. None of the staff helped me with my gear and the same lady kept on ignoring me. When we were on the dive we were under for 40min in less than 7m of water using less than 100 bar of air. I was expecting to use the tank of air. The woman didn't buddy us up. We basically went around the same bommie twice and then she ascended. She didn't check our air and wasn't interested in pointing anything out. This was a very unfulfilling dive. The rest of the boat was snorkelling above us and even when we got back in the boat people were snorkelling for at least half an hour afterwards so it would have been possible to continue diving. When we got back on the boat we were asked depth and time but nobody appeared to be writing this down and we were not asked to sign anything.

We weren't offered anything to eat or drink except water until 2.30pm - the trip ended at 4pm.

On the bus trip back clipboards were handed out asking for feedback. I wasn't given one.

That night after 7.30pm I got a call from the owner yelling at me over the phone accusing me of doing something wrong, he was swearing and basically banned me from going on the Navy Peir Dive the next day. I was shocked that first of all the man would be ringing so late (he sounded drunk), that he would be yelling at his customer and that he cancelled my diving for the next day. I had the TV on and moved to turn it off which unfortunately disconnected the phone. I phoned the shop straight back and spoke to Rudolf explaining what had happened. He said to phone back at 11am the next day and speak to him as he would be speaking to the owner David that evening. Rudolf wasn't in the shop at 11am when I phoned but the girl who answered the phone said to come down to the shop at 3pm to check with Rudolf. I did this.

While I was waiting for Rudolf to arrive a lady came in wanting a refund on her son's Navy Peir Dive on that morning. Apparently he was going for a resort dive at the Navy Peir. He didn't bring any ID with him and was kicked off the bus. They were not going to refund his money. As far as the literature on the website says only experienced divers were allowed on the Navy Peir, so I was a little curious to hear that they were allowing him on the dive to start with. They said that he needed ID and that this was in the conditions and again too bad.

David apparently was still yelling down the phone about me at 3pm and still banned me from going on the dive I had booked.

I explained to Rudolf that this was very disappointing as I had come all the way from Sydney to see the whale sharks and do the Navy Peir Dive and spent so much money to get here. To have an encounter with an owner with anger management issues in the tourist business is quite disappointing not to mention the safety issues that were ignored. I spoke to another dive operator near my accommodation who said that David had quite a reputation for his anger and that staff turnover at his shop was high for that very reason. She suggested I send a complaint to the Shire and Tourist board so you can add it to I would imagine an ever increasing folder of complaints. I would imagine that most people don't complain in writing so I hope you take some notice of this. I would like to see his license taken away from him. This is not the way to treat customers.

Contributed by DeannaS added 2009-04-27