Isla de Jeju, Seongsan Ilchulbong, Descubre el buceo

I thought long and hard about this before posting this review. I'll try to be as objective as possible. My main goal is to inform potential future clients. Pros: - lovely location - friendly owner - friendly part time worker (I didn't catch his name but he's tall and speaks excellent English). - they own their own dive boat, so no ferry fee - reasonably priced Cons: - Inexcusably bad instructor (Mike Han) - No pre-dive equipment check (!) - No pre-dive map & weather briefing (!) - No pre-dive conversations of any kind (!) - Poor planning, poor time management - "meh" dive sites and poor visibility (more of a problem of the ocean water location on the island, not this particular dive shop's fault) Summary: My daughter and I are both Advanced Open Water (AOW) PADI certified and have been diving for years. We are also both fluent in Korean and English (just wanted to point out this is not a language issue). Booking online was easy, dive spots were chosen 9We wanted to see the sunken Buddha statue) and we arrived at the time they asked us to be there. Then we waited for more than 1.5 hours. The rental gear was not premium but not "bad" per se. Kind of old but good enough. However, most egregiously, no communication about where we were going to dive, weather conditions, temperatures, anything. No plan, no nothing. When we finally get to the boat, we finally meet our guide at the dock, a freelancer (not full time dive shop employee) named Mike Han. He informs us we will be going to the Lobster Cave (a location we did not particularly want to visit, but okay, we can roll with it). The entire time, he's talking to us in odd broken English, not all that friendly, just boastful and seemingly try to show off to the other dry suit divers sharing the boat ride. But we wanted to dive, so we smile and nod along cordially. Got our gear, sat politely, and came out to the sea. As soon as we get into the water, he cancels the dive. Not even 30 seconds into the dive. No warning, nothing. Orders us back on the boat. He insists we aren't fit for the water and insists we go elsewhere more shallow. Now, in my opinion, if a dive instructor feels we are in a dangerous place or that we aren't fit for the dive, that should be communicated clearly ahead of time. scuba divers always should defer to the professional on the dive and comply. I certainly wasn't going to argue with him in the water, of course. However, It seems he was in a bad mood, rushed feeling and didn't want to dive with us "beginners" as he kept called us. I can't say it was racism but definitely I felt he had already made up his mind about who were were as divers before we ever touched the water. His demeanor was so unexpectedly rude. So I made the call, we're done. I insisted he take us back to shore. No diving with this guy. This changed his demeanor. He realized his braggadocious mistake and fervently apologized over and over. Seriously maybe he apologized 20 times. I stood my ground and insisted we come back to land. He seemed quite nervous at what the boss might say or do. When we arrived on shore, the owner calmly spoke with me and listened to me. She was professional and offered her sincere apologies. She informed me Mike is not a full time employee, rather someone she hires on occasion when the season is busy. She also said his attitude does not reflect her dive shop (which is debatable. She hired him). She offered me to return at a later date with a different instructor. I chose to write this review because I've dived in multiple countries, multiple dive centers. Never have I ever met a more rude guide nor a dive shop that seemed so disorganized and communicates so poorly with customers. Jeju has plenty of great dive shops, please avoid this place. Respectfully, this is not a professional dive shop and should be avoided.

Thank you for your valuable experience! I learned a lot of things carefully and enjoyed it. I saw fish and terrain I had never seen before. I look forward to working with you again.

Unfortunately that day the sea was very rough which made it difficult to dive with such low visibility. Still we live the experience with pleasure. We were equipped super well and our instructor was very attentive and careful.

Fantastic experience. When we went conditions were not optimal (mother nature) but it was very enjoyable.