マリンクラブUMI — Local services in Onna

Overall Experience: Extremely Disappointing – I Don’t Even Know Where to Begin.

Course Arrangement: I originally signed up for a boat dive, but at the last minute, they changed the plan and said it wouldn’t be provided. So, our entire group had to carry heavy oxygen tanks and walk from the shore. This included going down a flight of stairs and navigating slippery rocks, which were very hard to walk on. And on the way back, we had to climb those same stairs again – exhausting and unsafe!

Equipment and Facilities: The equipment was in terrible condition. Everything from the wetsuits to the beach shoes and fins was worn out and full of holes. The oxygen tank only had 120pp. I asked the instructor if that was enough, and they brushed it off and said it was fine. In hindsight, it made sense – because they never intended to let us dive for long anyway!

Instructor Service: Absolutely awful. First of all, there was no proper instruction. They just sent us a half-hearted training video and called it a day. Based on my previous diving experiences, instructors usually give hands-on training for at least 30 minutes to an hour, in a pool or shallow water, ensuring everyone is comfortable before the actual dive. Here, the pre-dive gear check was rushed and careless. My wetsuit was put on incorrectly, and the weight distribution was off. Some of my friends later mentioned they had trouble with the regulator’s pressure balance as well.

Now for the most important warning: Avoid the instructor named Murakami (村上) in the photos at all costs! He kept kicking our legs throughout the dive, using excessive and unnecessary physical force with no proper verbal communication. Both I and another dive buddy are strong swimmers with solid flutter kicks, and I’ve done two dives elsewhere with no issue. But every time we kicked, he would kick us from behind. Then he forced the two of us to link arms extremely tightly, which – combined with a misaligned air hose – made it almost impossible to maintain balance. The whole underwater experience lasted less than 10 minutes, at a depth of no more than 3 meters, before he forced us to surface, saying we couldn’t maintain balance and that he wouldn’t take us down again.

When we asked why, he suddenly claimed he couldn’t speak English. Ridiculous – who was speaking earlier then? Do they think it’s easy to scam foreigners out of their money like this? Toss some ragged gear on us, fake a dive, and call it a day?

In the end, we did manage to negotiate a refund, but they still wasted our valuable time, which can’t be undone. I’m sharing this horrible experience here in hopes that future visitors can avoid going through the same...

Went here cuz it had such a high review but my personal experience was absolutely HORRIBLE. So, I called them to ask and reserve about diving and water activities.

They said it’s all good and it’s at 2. They seemed to have just what I needed so I was naturally very excited. I knew I was running 5-7 minutes late so I called them again to inform them that. They said that they forgot to tell me that I am supposed to reach an hour before our activities that means I had to reach at 1. However, they can still arrange scuba diving for us at 3:30PM. From Zamami island, I went all the way to Onna (more than a 3 hour ride). I reached there by 2:15-2:20PM. Once, I reached there they informed me that they called the captain for scuba and he can’t arrange for it today. I WAS DISAPPOINTED after hearing this.

Why couldn’t he tell me earlier? Why didn’t they just call me and tell me not to come? They ruined one whole day of my trip and I was there for only 5 days.

Here are other fishy things that happened: Given it was so popular, there was absolutely nobody in their shop. It was empty. It had such great reviews so my friend insisted we give it another try, we called them again after leaving and asked if he can confirm if everything can be arranged tomorrow. His response: “Tomorrow we have a lot of customers coming so it will not get cancelled” Which means he cancelled on us because he didn’t have any other customer that day...

Wasted my entire day, my time and money. Thanks to their...

The snorkeling tour itself was ok. They make you wear life jackets which is annoying but understandable at least in the cave. The guide and most of the staff were excellent.

There was one older lady staff member who was incredibly rude and obstinate. We arrived about 30 minutes early and she forced us to hurry and put our stuff in the lockers and head to the waiting area, where we waited for nearly an hour for absolutely no reason. She kept insisting we needed to move to the waiting area RIGHT that second even though we were repeatedly telling her we still need to bring some things from our car and there was plenty of time to spare. She also forcefully grabbed me to make sure I walked exactly where she wanted me to walk (???). Absolutely inappropriate.

To top it off she and another staff member decided to play charades with me rather than use words even though I was very obviously speaking Japanese in front of them. Instead of talking to me like an adult it was very difficult to understand from their frantic hand waving what they wanted me to do since they refused to speak.

Anyway I can't say I'd recommend. A lot of shops in the area offer the same tours so you're probably better off going with...