Diver Ed's Dive-In Theatre — Local services in Bar Harbor

I’m surprised no one was concerned with this. I guess parents were so happy that there kids were entertained by something other than their phones that they didn’t notice the animal cruelty and the creepy way diver ed was touching the kids. First off, I’d like to bring up evidence that lobsters and crabs feel pain and fear. They do not lack nervous systems as many people claim. The website veganuary says: Lobsters produce the hormone cortisol, the same hormone humans produce when hurt. This website has its own citation so you can look it up. There are many other websites proving and disproving this claim, but would you really take any chance of abusing an animal? Also, most living beings are able to get “stressed.” This means they focus their nutrients on surviving in the current moment, rather than the long term or trying to reproduce. The animals that were captured and basically tortured are now more likely to die earlier and not produce offspring. In fact starfish, are now at risk from being handled too much. There was some pretty rough starfish handling on that boat. However, I did like the idea of getting to see and touch animals without having them at an aquarium all their lives. So I would like to suggest some improvements. 1. Cut the touching of kids. Diver ed greated every kid by touching their shoulder, and then proceeded to use kids to demonstrate how starfish eat clams by lifting them up by their armpits, touching their arms, and I kid you not, biting their stomachs without asking them or their parents. At best it teaches kids that people are allowed to touch them without asking. At worst it’s giving some really creepy vibes. Even my brother (who doesn’t care about this stuff) thought it was creepy and unnecessary. 2. Handle the animals with respect. There is a possibility that lobsters and crabs feel pain. So why are you poking animals with plastic toy, putting them in your mouth, banging a lobster against your camera, and handling them like their toys? And no, I am not talking to the kids nor the parents. I am talking to diver ed himself. It not only is a terrible example to the kids it also is incredibly cruel. 3. Monitor the kids more. I don’t blame the kids. How can you expect them to teach the animals with respect as the adults a full on abusing them? And even if you don’t care about crabs, than you should understand that children group animals together. In their little kid books, crab is next to cat; lobster is next to lion. Your training kids to abuse animals. You could teach more about how to properly handle animals other than just saying “be gentle.” You could have people go row by row to see the animals and monitor how people are holding them. And if not anything else, you could treat them better yourself. 4. At least make it valuable. Yes I did learn some things on the boat ride. Mostly about how to tell butts from mouths. Yet there was nothing mentioned about conservation. If you’re going to tourture animals at least talk about how they are in danger because of climate change, pollution, and over fishing . This would allow kids to learn how they can make a difference. Yes you said “their are less starfish than their were” but did not explain why and instead said “we’re going to need to collect all of them.” 5. Don’t put predators and prey in the same bag and Sam container. I think this is pretty intuitive. Overall, this was a great idea executed terribly . Please make at least some of these changes for the sake of the kids and...

I attended this today with my husband and kids, along with the friend who invited us. This was a vacation treat, especially for my 8-year-old son, who is interested in marine biology.

I really appreciated the commentary of Ed's wife (Captain Evil), as she seemed truly dedicated to sharing her knowledge of the different species that were being shown on the screen. A full tour and discussion with her would have been great.

What we got with Diver Ed, unfortunately, was a disturbing manipulation of animals as comedy props bordering on torture, including putting them in crammed touch tanks with kids who were neither supervised nor offered real guidance on how to handle animals. Exactly what one might expect to happen in such conditions (with parents giving directions on how to handle the animals for the most impressive social media photos), happened.

There was also a worrying lack of consideration for the children themselves. Ed was incredibly loud and in-your-face with all the kids, frequently shoving animals in their faces and demanding that they kiss them. He also rubbed his butt on a child, and made a couple of disturbing pantomimes about shoving his organs out at them and eating them. Multiple kids were crying by the end, and at least five were clearly disturbed by it.

There was no educational value to...

I was avoiding writing this review because the family who runs this business and their dogs really are so nice; however the disappointment has been weighing on me especially seeing so many rave reviews that didn’t pan out to be my experience. I went on the last trip of the year with my husband and two kids. My biggest disappointment is the lack of consent used on the boat. For example, diver Ed rubbed my son’s hair, sat so close to my daughter who was uncomfortable, squirted sea cucumber mucous on another child’s head who ran back to his grandpa holding back tears and really roared loud over and over with the lobsters over the children’s heads, so much so that my son started crying and never went to touch the sea creatures after that. I hope in the future children can be treated like any other person and asked before being touched and that the theatrics be toned down to small child levels. Diver Ed and Captain Evil truly are funny, but there should be some ground rules so everyone feels safe and that personal space is respected. I really wish I saved my money and took my kids to the touch tank at the college of the Atlantic or the ranger touch...