Goat Island Dive & Snorkel — Attraction in Rodney

Update: Spoke with the owner, she was lovely. I stand by my review, but I'll give more stars..I'm not trying to hurt anyone's business because of one employee's bad day (or whatever that was). Original: Worst diving experience I've had. The equipment was fine but the guide was unhelpful and extremely condescending the entire time. I did not feel comfortable diving with him at all and it completely ruined the experience. He started by telling our group that we're qualified divers so he would leave us to choose and set up our own gear, and then proceeded to criticize and nitpick everything we did, even things that were not safety related but just preference, in the most condescending tone. He was aware that most of us were new divers...if I felt confident to do it all on my own then I wouldn't have paid for a guide. I paid for a guide so I would have GUIDANCE - an expert to give recommendations and help me remember and fine tune my dive skills. Not to mention the fact that equipment and expectations differ from shop to shop so without any guidance at all he really set us up to make mistakes and be scolded by him, which we all were, repeatedly. Instead, he offered nothing and when I asked questions he responded with a patronizing tone. I felt like I couldn't do anything right, and every time he came near I felt anxiety about what he was going to criticize next. To his credit he asked me at one point what was wrong because I seemed upset and I did not tell him what the problem was because all I could think to say in the moment was "please stop acting like a condescending prick" but I didn't think it was appropriate so I just didn't say anything at all, which was my fault. Once in the water, I was having a hard time sinking because I was so tense and wound up, and he told me it was in my head and it meant I didn't really want to go down there (he assumed because of nerves) which he was right - I did not want to go under water, but not from nerves, it was because I did not feel safe going with him, someone with zero patience or empathy or understanding - and he basically just told me I needed to calm down. I still wasn't sinking, so he told me to swim over to him - I thought so he could perhaps provide me with some spare weights - but instead immediately started pushing me underwater while yelling "exhale all the way! Exhale! Exhale!" I had no idea he was going to do this and I didn't have a moment to catch my breath from swimming over to him and it sent me into panic mode. Then I popped back up out of the water and he said "looks like you can sink to me" and turned away as if what he just did was somehow helpful. After all of that, turns out I did in fact need more weight. In the beginning he had told the group that we could cancel the dive at any point for any reason and he'd send us back to shore with the assistant diver. I felt so uncomfortable that pretty quickly I gave my buddy (my husband) the end dive signal (I was pretty much still at the surface, no ascension required) and a moment later the guide popped up and said that if I wanted to go back to shore he'd have to bring the whole group in, so I felt guilt tripped into continuing. I summoned all the calm energy I could to continue with the dive as safely as possible and finish it. It was supposed to be a long hour+ dive but due to his lack of effective group management or willingness to help the group prevent issues, choosing to let us try to do everything ourselves and inevitably do things incorrectly/not to his liking, it took SO long to get in the water that the whole dive was only 30 min with a max depth of just 5.5 meters. Pathetic. I'm personally not complaining about that because I didn't want to dive at all with this guide so I was happy that it ended quickly, but what a waste of time and energy and money for the group. It had been 9 months since my last dive and I booked this mellow dive to serve as a refresher for me and to have an enjoyable and easygoing day. I left feeling demeaned and discouraged from wanting to dive again. So, so...

have been amazing in the past when i've come here for hiring some kit for casual use on the beach. showed up recently with a big group of my family wanting mask & snorkel for 9 people and the lady just kept pushing the hard sell to full kit + guided tour. i'm sure that's an amazing upgrade but we weren't interested and didn't roll in with the budget. we were asked to wait for a safety brief by another guy and when he came, he also tried to push the tour and some other combo kit. family felt really uncomfortable with the pushiness and so we left without purchasing anything. respect that it's hard times for business and the lady was just doing her job trying really hard to upsell but would appreciate if took the hint and backed off, i'm sure even the basic rental we wanted would have been better than not getting our business at all. anyway we still had fun on goat island and have had pleasant experiences at this shop in the past, too bad my family have moved to aus now and this was their last experience...

Amazing place and amazing company! I did the advanced snorkelling at the start of my trip (17/12/23) with Adi, the try scuba dive at the end (10/1/24) with Sara. Both were amazing and we saw so many Sapper, Red Moki, Kelpfish, Drummmer, Urchins, Spotties, an Eagle Ray, Sponges and lots of other cool things! Both instructors were absolutely brilliant, making sure you were okay all the time and making sure you dived in a relaxed environment. With the Try Dive you spend about 1 hour in the water, with the rest of the time spent going through all the paperwork, equipment and safety procedures. I wish it had gone on longer, however, it was still a magical experience and one of the highlights of my trip! Thank you to Adi and Sara for all your help and encouragement… and I hope to return one day with my...