Dressel Divers Club – Iberostar Bavaro Resort

Me and 10 of my colleagues recently booked some diving trips with Dressel Divers. We were a mix of experienced and inexperienced, with half of us having to do certification. I am a certified diver so fell in the certified group. My uncertified friends probably have a different take on the experience, as when you've never dived before any dive is going to be an amazing new experience.

When we arrived we were told that there was no place to lock our belongings and with wallets and phones we could leave this behind the desk, with the receptionist saying "If I leave to go to the bathroom and it's stolen, it's not my fault" - awesome start!

Now on to the dive sites we went to: they were extremely fish poor - there was definitely a lot of coral, but in terms of actual sea life, this was limited. The majority of fish we did see were babies, my assumption is as soon as they're grown they're killed. If I had to guess the number of fish/etc I saw I'd say it was less than 100.

During both dives there was a diver making a film, with our dive master following her and showing her what to capture. This, instead of taking the time to show the people who'd paid circa $200 each to have an amazing underwater experience all the sea life that was supposedly there.

At the end of the trip we were told that we could buy the film for $250 - another classic Domincan way of trying to rinse you of every penny - their logic was that it was around $20 each. I'd have paid $20 more to be actually shown things DURING my dive, versus getting some footage of stuff I never actually saw.

Dressel Divers should rethink their profit strategy and invest more time actually showing their guests underwater action than trying to sell them after the fact footage at outrageous prices.

I would absolutely not recommend diving with them and would never go again.

I was sold a package of 4 Dives the cost was a joke $1100.00. Since we were on vacation and they showed me amazing pictures, they got me. I will say the staff is cool but for that price you would think they would carry the gear. The first dive (1 tank) sucked nothing to see. We dove right outside of the ibostar hotel in Punta Cana, the coral reef looked like a desert with nothing to see. The next day they drove us to the other side of the Island and the sea was very rough. We spent the first hour looking for the spot where they had only been 100,000 times before. We all got Sea Sick. At that site we saw some fish, the next site was no better, at the last Dive site called The aquarium (shallow dive) was nice we did see a Shark they pretended to be amazed by it but after they explained that she had been there for weeks because she was just about to give birth. Over all hire a small boat have them take you to The aquarium and thats it.

The tour itself was nice. We saw a lot of fishes and even a sting ray. The boat ride was nice and they even served drinks on the boat. They took us snorkeling twice for 45 minutes, we did the exclusive tour on Monday May 30. After snorkeling, they took us to Saona beach where we had lunch, the food was ok. We had dominican rice "moro" and spaghetti with salad and other things. After that we went to the natural pool where we took pictures with star fishes. After that we purchased a cd of our tour adventure and that's where our disappointment stems from. They said we couldn't look at the footage beforehand and we just returned home and looked at the footage. Wow! What a disappointment! The footage barely contain any pictures of my husband and I, we appeared on the footage at the most twice!! The footage is of low quality and Laura took the video. Why would we purchase a video footage of other people and not ourself? Well, had we seen the footage beforehand we would not had purchased it, basically we paid $280 for the tour and $65 for the video. The $65 for the video was wasted money. We would not use this company again.

Me and my family were at the dive centre in early December. We were not staying at the Iberostar resort however this did not seem to be an issue when they were taking our money prior to our arrival.



Once at the resort there was a 2 hour wait between the pool tuition and the ocean dive. We had no issue waiting as we thought we could relax on the beach during our wait. How wrong were we...



The security guard stopped us on our way to the beach but a staff member in the dive centre agreed with him that we could wait there. Once on the beach we were shouted at by a hotel resident for being on the beach without a hotel wrist band, we were escorted off the beach, infront of everybody, by a security guard and lead back to the dive centre where we were told that we were not really allowed to be in the resort. We stood outside the centre for a few minutes as we weighed up our options, all the time being supervised by the security guard.



We were horrified at our treatment. We were being treated like criminals who had attempted to steal something and not like the activity paying customers that we were. It was the most mortifying experience and the manager at the centre could not even be bothered to apologise or attempt to resolve the situation.



When we canceled the afternoon dive and looked for a refund we were denied a refund. When I explained that we had no option but to cancel due to not being welcome in the resort and our treatment, they did not seem to care. Why would they, they already had our money...



As we left, to add insult to injury, we were once again escorted out.



If you are not staying at the hotel DO NOT use this company and I definitely would not pre pay for the activities prior to your arrival.

We just got back from vacation from Punta Cana D.R. We did 3 dives each. First let me say my intention is to tell the whole truth and nothing more. The guys that work there were great and all treated us very nice. 1 dive left from at the dive shop at the hotel Iberostar. Its cost way to much for the dive and you hardly see anything because you were in the Atlantic ocean. We left the sand by the hotel and went out about 1/2 mile if that. Even though we had all our own gear, one dive with one tank was around $65.00. We saved a little by booking on-line before we got there. We were disappointed because the dive sucked. The boat driver droving like a bat out of hell because he "has to get over the waves". That's what he said but several people got sick. The water was not clear and so we decided we needed to go to Saona beach and dive on the other side. We were told we would see a lot more and the water would be clearer on the Caribbean side. Well all of that was true. Unfortunately, they only had one option to do this. Its was called a Divers Day Something. We paid around $400 for the 2 of us. We had all our gear and were given a discount or it would have been around $500 for one day. We were told we would get 2 tank dives and a big barbeque picnic on a private beach. LOL. Let me tell you about this one. We have dove all over and have never been scammed like this. We did one dive and that was fine. We then went to what they called a picnic cookout and imagine this: We pulled up to a little hut and they were cooking super thin pork chops and chicken wings and legs, some macaroni salad and maybe two other side. We didn't really want to eat because there were a hundred flies on the food. I'm not making this up. There was a port-a-potty in the back. It stunk to high heaven. It seemed like the locals didn't do anything about the flies because they were waiting for us to finish so they could eat or save the food that was left. That's exactly what they did. Here's the deal. Why would I book a hotel with all the food included and settle for this. Its because we wanted to go diving and this was the only choice you had to take. See I think the hotels are in on this also because they kept you away for 8 hours plus and I am sure the hotels get a cut and you ending up eating less of the hotel's food. All I am saying is you have to give people a reason to come back. It take more than just a nice hotel. All I can say fool me once but NEVER again. I hope this maybe helps someone else out. Go to Cozumel or anywhere but this place. Sorry I just have to tell the truth.

I did one dive with Dressel Divers while staying at the Iberostar and had done a day trip with 2 dives with another company who were recommended by our holiday rep.



We didn't go with Dressel Divers originally because their prices are so high in comparison to others - $77 per dive with equipment instead of $50-55, but for one dive off the beach on our last day we went with them for convenience. First impressions were that they seemed to have a lot of staff apparently doing nothing, I counted 21 just while we waited to leave!



Their kit is all pretty new, which is good except that the masks haven't been de-fogged properly and my partner found the mask really uncomfortable and wasn't able to see without clearing it every minute or so. I was lucky to have my own mask because one or two others on the dive had the same problems. When he brought it up with them afterwards they said they knew some of the masks still had problems, so we thought they should have taken spares really.



In our group were a couple of experienced divers, myself with only 2 dives since becoming qualified, and a newly qualified family with a child who looked about 11. In the briefing we were told about the dive site, the surge and that it was a 14m dive. The family were concerned that their daughter is only allowed to dive to 12m because of her age and were told 'It's OK there are no underwater PADI police'. It wasn't really a problem as the maximum depth ended up being 12.7m but I thought in comparison to the other company we used who spent extra time briefing me because of my inexperience, they could have done more to calm their nerves. Our instructor was also impatient with me at one point when because of the surge I struggled with boyancy and ended up ascending a few metres above the group.



Otherwise there were no problems. We dived the wreck just off the beach in Punta Cana which was interesting, but not as much to see as the dives we did on the Caribbean side which was expected. Very convenient location, plenty of space on the dive boat for 2 groups and the staff we spoke to were all friendly. They also had someone dive with us who was just there to get photos/video which for people without their own underwater camera would be good.



I did my dive trip in October 2014.

My wife and I traveled to Punta Cana on Saturday August 02, 2014 and stayed at the Iberostar Grand. I signed up for scuba lessons with Dressel Divers, paid my fee and was excited about learning to scuba. In the meantime, I hurt my back playing golf and was unable to even walk. So we went back to Dressel Divers and informed them I would be unable to take the course and wanted a refund. Dressel Divers was rude, and uncooperative when I asked for a refund. They mandated I go to the local doctor for an examination and proof of my injury. This was a back injury, what proof other than just watch me stand or try to walk did they need. Well the only way to get a refund was to spend 400 dollars at the local doctor for a note to get my refund. This is a scam. We had Togo back and forth for our passports, and other documents before they would consider my refund. We travel all over the world and I have never experienced such run around to get a refund of my money ...everyone..look else where...don't use this company. They are an unapproved endor of I Eurostar, and should be more accommodating to their guests.