Seashell Divers - Koh Tao — Attraction in Ko Tao

I am very picky when choosing a dive shop. When I arrived in Koh Tao I walked all up and down the beach road and checked out about a dozen different dive shops. Seashell Divers was my choice because it was the cleanest and most professional organization with excellent equipment, friendly staff, and their own dive boat. I didn't want to go to the pier and share a boat with 10 other dive shops and with Seashell Divers I didn't have to because they have their own boats. We would just walk across the beach to a small boat that would take us to the bigger boat moored out a few hundred meters from shore. When you get on the big boat the dive masters set up your equipment for you. They treat their customers like royalty. I also liked that they have their own dive masters on staff. I have been to other shops where you get a different dive master every day but at Seashell Divers I got to dive with the same person day after day. It makes you more comfortable when you get to know a dive master and build trust...

I went diving with Seashell Divers 8 days in a row and got my SSI Deep Dive Certification with the manager, Fabien Lebon. That's one of the reasons I was extra picky when choosing a shop on this trip. I wanted to get my deep dive certification with a shop where I felt comfortable with the staff.

The first few days I was diving with Divemaster Lydia. She knew all the sites very well, knew where the amazing animals were hiding, showed me all the cool swim-throughs, and was an excellent navigator. We always surfaced close to the ship!

I also spent a few days with Divemaster Billy. He was amazing at finding animals, including an octopus (!!!), but more than that, I appreciated his knowledge of marine biology. He obviously spends a lot of time online reading about the animals we see because I always had questions after a dive, and he was able to answer all my questions about what we saw underwater! Diving is a lot more interesting when you understand what you are looking at and how the different animals interact. I appreciate when a dive master actually cares enough about the ocean to take the time to learn and be able to pass that knowledge on to customers, it makes the whole experience a lot more enriching. He also showed me some amazing swim-throughs on the various wrecks around Koh Tao and got me onto the bridge of the HTMS Supharin 313 wreck!!! Swimming through that room with the steering wheel was the highlight of all the dives I did on my trip. It was awesome!

The whole 8 days it was always just me and a dive master with no other divers. When they had other customers, they had more dive masters. I appreciate when a dive shop has its own dive masters on staff. I enjoyed diving with Lydia and Billy. When I come back to Koh Tao, I know which dive shop I will...

We had an awful experience at the Seashell dive centre and are now out of pocket for 22,000 baht for courses that we didn’t complete due to the behaviour of the centre manager. We booked and paid upfront for a day of fun dives to refresh our skills and 2 AOW courses to follow later in the week. After an awful experience where I became very cold and sick on the fun dives due to torrential rain, strong wind , choppy sea and inappropriate kit, we asked to be refunded for the AOW or to wait until conditions were calmer. The manager said that we could not be refunded but could wait for calmer conditions and we extended our time in KT by another week in order to wait for things to calm down. However, the following day we popped into the centre and the managers attitude was completely different, he was rude and difficult and following some very unpleasant interactions with him over the following few days, we took the decision to not go forward with the course. One of the instructors who witnessed the managers behaviour apologised on his behalf giving the excuse that he was in a bad mood as had broken up with his girlfriend ! It was evident that once he had our money that he was uninterested with no level of customer care.

On the fun dive, kit was poor, with a thin shorty wetsuit provided that was not suitable for the weather conditions, no boots, fins that were too small as they didn’t have any other sizes. Our instructor however was dressed in a full wetsuit and boots etc as said he tends to get cold. There was no provision of snorkels despite PADI guidance stating that these are an essential piece of safety equipment and no basic first aid care / procedures provided for cold, sick customers. When we asked for snorkels, we were told that they are unnecessary and just get in the way.

The manager has refused to give his name and diver number despite repeated requests which raises further alarm bells and he has ignored all initial emails and messages. Finally, we received a response whereby he said that we had booked onto the course on 3 occasions and not attended. This was completely untrue as no date had been set for us to do it at all.

We had travelled to Koh Tao to do some fun dives and complete our AOW courses and had completed all of the online e-learning . Our experience at seashell divers ruined our trip to this island.

After some detective work, we have established that the dive centre managers name is Hasan Can Toker. I have no idea what his reasons for hiding this are !

There are many other dive centres in KT and we were very unlucky with...

I can’t recommend. I found their prices more expensive than other dive shops 2400baht compared to 1600baht for 2 dives. When i questioned that I was told they had smaller groups than other dive companies but I found out this is not the case. When I arrived to the dive shop the manager seemed disinterested in my experience. I actually didn’t realise he was the manager until later that day as I didn’t find him very engaging at all. Before the dive, he handed me fins that didn’t fit me properly (I wear a common size 38 for women)! I tried 2 other pairs and the fins I ended up with were both split but I was told that’s all they had. I wasn’t offered a wetsuit and when I asked to have one I was told I didn’t need it and didn’t get the choice - fortunately I didn’t but it was off putting when I got on the boat and found the dive instructors all wearing a wetsuit of some sort! On a positive note, my dive instructor was super lovely and took all the right steps to make sure my gear was set up correctly and had my safety covered, and there was another dive instructor to support that was also very helpful and friendly. My first dive was great - I was very fortunate to have good visibility and a great instructor. Unfortunately on my second dive, despite several attempts, I couldn’t equalise so couldn’t go down again. When I got back to the shop i mentioned to the manager that I intended to get my Nitrox certification and do a couple more dives including a night dive and asked if there was anything he could do such provide a discount on my next dive, given I couldn’t do my second that day - he straight out refused and as a manager myself, I found his attitude and approach as a manager to be very...