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I'd like to share our experience with NZ Diving. We booked the Poor Knights dive for 2 people. The booking was confirmed a few days prior to the dive, which was great. On the day of the dive, we were supposed to meet at the Tutukaka Marina at 9am, as per the itinerary details on their website. My confirmation email stated only 9am, but the location was in their office - the first confusing thing, which I, however, cleared over a phone call. We drove for 2.5 hours to be at the marina by 8:40am. Not knowing what to expect, we assumed there would be some signage.
At the marina office, we asked where the dive charters leave from and were pointed to Port M from where all the boats starting to filling up. We ran to check each boat heading to the Poor Knights to see if we were with them. None of the companies had heard of NZ Diving, which made us worried. I called the number from my confirmation call, nobody picked up, and my email went unanswered. After running around and asking every person in the marina, all the boats left by around 9:15 am, and we thought we might have missed ours, as the itinerary said departure was around 9am. We went to the local dive shop in the marina, but they too had never heard of them. At this point, if I hadn't personally visited their shop in Warkworth weeks earlier, I would have thought we were scammed.
To ensure we went diving, we booked a dive at the shop for the next day. Then we went for a walk around the marina and around 9:32 am, we saw a small trailer boat arriving with dive tanks and decided to ask if by any chance they were from NZ Dive, which they were. I was quite upset because for the last 45 minutes, we had been running around thinking we missed them. I was greeted with "well, we were supposed to meet at 9:30," which was clearly not true since everywhere it said 9am, and the other divers looked as confused as we did. A simple apology would have solved this issue, as mistakes can happen.
There was clear miscommunication, we were not given clear instructions on where to go, and apparently, we weren’t even given the right time. Another thing not mentioned anywhere is that the boat is a wet boat, a small RHIB with no sunshade. We did not wear hats as nobody mentioned this. We also needed to prepare our equipment (fair), which can be confusing for people who don’t dive every day. Luckily, the owner's daughter, who wasn't out dive master but only went with us, jumped in to help me. She frankly saved our experience and made us feel better.
With charters like this, those who pay expect to feel safe and prepared. Unfortunately, this was not the case. They seem to have been operating for quite some time, and I believe this is a big minus.
Things to note before you buy: you travel for 1 hour there and back on a wet boat, which is very uncomfortable, especially after dives. There is no sunshade - bring a hat. There is no surface interval, even though it says so in the itinerary on their website. We dived in two groups - while one is diving, you're cold and burning under the sun with nowhere to hide.
At the end of the day, everything can be understandable; mistakes can happen, but it is very important to acknowledge them and apologize. I never got a response to my email from that day or the 10 missed calls and a voicemail that I left them. And all that is the reason I am writing this review. Really hope this will get better and it will not happen again to other people. - via 