American Pro Diving Center-Swim With Manatees — Attraction in Crystal River

My husband and I are both avid scuba divers. I'm an amateur but he has advanced qualifications and actually teaches! We decided to do the Rainbow River dive because neither of us have actually done a river dive and since we live in the Tampa area we decided to try it out! We did our research on possible vendors and decided on American Pro Diving Center and I'm glad we did. It was a great experience!

We met at the American Pro Diving Center location in Crystal River, met our group and boat captain and then followed our boat to the Rainbow River.

At the river we all got into the boat and the Captain took us down the river and showed us all the sights, swamp critters, etc. We saw a little alligator! He also pointed out some cool diving and snorkeling locations to check out on our drift dive back to the dock. Eventually we got to our dive spot and we all jumped in. Some were snorkeling and some of us were diving.

The water was super clear...I just couldn't believe it. I have done dives in Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe (also Caribbean locations) and I was expecting the visibility of those dives but it was much, much clearer than that. The current really pushes you forward so there's not much swimming. Most of the depths were around 6-10 feet but there were a few deeper pools of around 24-26 feet, too. Seeing the water bubble from the bottom of the river was really cool but the underwater rushing of fresh water from the aquifer outlets was definitely something I had never experienced before. You had to swim quite hard in place to maintain your position in front of these locations.

We saw turtles and fish - no alligators, thank goodness - and at the approximate docking location we got back in our boat and then docked. Neither of us noticed we were missing our camera until we drove home and wanted to look at our photos. We were both pretty bummed because we thought it had drifted away when we were reboarding the boat but we thought we would call American Pro Divers and ask them to check the boat. I was emailing back and forth with Melissa and she was so helpful and concerned about our camera and she reported back enthusiastically the next day they had found it! In his haste to debark my husband tucked the camera in the protective canopy of the boat but the staff found it!

At any rate, we had a great time on the Rainbow River dive and we'll be bringing our scuba diving friends to dive this spot when they come to visit us. It's a "tame" experience when it comes to scuba diving but it's different - and that's exactly what we were looking for. Great experience and...

We went to American Pro Dive center this past week for a refresher/guided tour. We haven't been diving in over 20 years. This place has the most amazing staff. When greeted by TJ at the front desk, I explained my plans to restart our diving adventures. He said he's got it - no problems.... He was right!!! We selected a mult-dive package. A snorkle with manitees, drift dive at Rainbow River, and 2 tank dives at Manitee Springs. We started at 7am with Abbie and Rodney for the manitee snorkeling trip. The weather and water is warming up so manitees are kind of scarce this week, but they found some. As we floated around, the manitees would swim up and brush against me. It was great, way above my expectations. Rodney is missed his calling as a comedian - he had us laughing most of the trip and Abbie is a manitee whisperer. After lunch we met up at the dive shop for the Rainbow River drift dive. We met Aiden and Orville. We rode with them to Rainbow River, we signed in to the park with Orville, and Aiden got the boat ready. We got on the boat, suited up and Orville gave the dive briefing. We rode upstream, and we jumped in. I was a bit nervous from being so long since our last dive, but Orville reassured me it's like riding a bike... he was right.! The drift was like flying without wings. The next day we met Orville at the shop for our trip to Manitee Springs. When we got there we walked over to the "Catfish hotel", which looked like a big bowl of pea soup. To our surprise, the view was amazing once we penitrated the duck weed. The sun coming through was a sight I'll never forget. We moved over to the main spring and swam with the fish and turtles and drifted in the currents. When we got back, my wife and I agreed this has been an amazing vacation so far. I highly recommend American Pro Diving for any water related activity. These people treat you like family and honestly put you at ease the minute you meet them. They are very professional and knowledgeable and make sure tbat everyone feels comfortable. Orville's experience, personality and demeanor will enhance any lack of confidence you may have. We will definitely be back for more trips with them. Thanks...

Visibility on the manatee snorkel was terrible, and nothing as advertised. The reason given by staff for the terrible visibility was lack of regrowth of eel grass (they say eel grass is supposed to clarify the water) from a hurricane over 1.5 years ago. This would suggest that lack of visibility is a long, on going issue, not told to customers pre-booking. Also, very few manatees still remaining in the area this time of year. This seems to be the end of manatee season although staff said there are always 'resident manatees' that stay all year. The sanctuary buoys protecting that manatee areas were actually being removed as we were on our tour. Even if water visibility was clear, there's 20+ people on this tour alone, along with 5+ other tour outfits, all bunching around trying to find the last few manatees left. We saw zero manatees while in the water. Given the lack of visibility and manatees, you're better off booking just a boat tour, we saw more manatees from the boat than while in the water.

We also booked the Rainbow River snorkel and dive tour, we had a mix of snorkelers and divers in our party. This tour was an easy fun drift dive and in a beautiful setting, redeeming the rest of our day. However, there is an additional entry fee at this launch ramp not included in the tour package and not disclosed by American Pro prior to booking. The first time American Pro mentioned this was in a confirmation booking email. I had booked over the phone and was not informed of this at time of booking, I went back to check their website and at the time of this review their website didn't mention it either. It's an additional $20 PER DIVER and $7 PER SNOKELER. Also just FYI, because this was poor assumption on my part, but American Pro charges for diver's weights and air tanks, these are not included in the...