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Unfortunately we had the worst dive experience with pacific paradise divers.
We are confident two divers and try to see the best in every dive. And this dives were good examples for "Not to do".
Day One:
We had two dives at lake Ilopango. The dive master Isa was a little bit shy and not very confident in her role. Henry interrupted her several times and almost crashed our dives because he was swimming uncontrolled within the group. We were lucky he didn't hit anyone.
The diveside itself is boring (of course we can not blame Pacific paradise divers for this, but this is additional a reason not to spend money on the dives). The first 10 Minutes the fumaroles are interesting. But after that we needed the warm water of the fumaroles because the water was so cold and we just wore 3mm shorty.
They gave us an 8 pounds weight belt. This is the amount we use in salt water. They did not ask in advance what amount we normally use while diving, which is uncommon. I had the feeling that neither Henry nor the dive master were able to estimate the right weights.
When we started the dive there was no time to change it. After the first dive I dropped 3 pounds and it was still too much. Maybe it would have been better if Nuria had been with us.
Day two:
We were at the ocean at Los Cobanos.
In general the boat is very small. It worked but in my opinion there should be a maximum of 5 or 6 divers on the boat. It was just chaos. Tanks were laying open on the ground, tanks laid on regulators, and so on. And you cannot do anything because there is no space to move. It was a very stressful environment.
The conditions at the diveside were bad. The current was very bad and the visibility was about 6 to 8 meter. Or less when someone hit the sand. 4 of 7 of the group were inexperienced divers. I had the feeling that they have never dived before in the ocean. As we got to know later, one definitely just dove in the lake and never in the ocean before. They had problems with buoyancy and fighting against the current.
At the end of the dive we thought we lost one guy because he went up on his own without telling anyone.
So we had the feeling Henry miscalculated the weather conditions, the experience of the divers and the number of divemasters, who would have been necessary for a group like this. Henry introduced everyone as very experienced and good divers but in my point of view they were not. In this case 1 divemaster for 7 people is not enough.
After the first dive divemaster Elvira canceled the second dive. This was the right decision. It is not a fun dive if you are worried about the other people.
Maybe all would have been different, if Nuria had been with us. And we thought that would be the case. But she had a cold and couldn't dive. Of course, again no reason to blame someone for this, but this was also miscommunication. We were just told she couldn't come to the lake dive the day before. And we put high hopes in her after the first chaos day.
There was no refund or anything for the canceled dive. We did not expect the full amount, but a bit would have been a great gesture of goodwill.
And lastly we had a little miscommunication. They didn't tell us clearly that the transportation is not included. So they charged us extra for the transportation. And not a little. On the first day the divemaster took us in her own car, so I thought okay that's the reason. But on the second day we got to the diveside in the cars of Henry and Nuria. So after the second day I asked to get the transportation fee back. They refused, because they said they informed us.
To be fair, they gave us the hint to rent a car but this hint was in a another context, and did not make clear that we needed to arrange transport.
At first contact it should be clearly said what is included and what is excluded. Never had a dive center before, where transportation is not included. So for me it's really uncommon and extra reason to make it clear.
1 Star: The equipment is good and everything worked properly.
We recommend not to dive with them - via 