Scuba Dogs at Escambrón Marine Park — Local services in San Juan

Initial review on November 29, 2024: Friendly staff and a good learning experience despite the circumstances. We did two dives with Scuba Dogs in one day: The first one felt crowded because of low visibility despite having only five customers and one diving guide in our group (hence I deducted one star.) The videos I took looked better though as my camera was closer to marine life. The second one had much better visibility, with only three customers and one guide. However, in the end I was tiring out against the current, and the rest of the group including the guide disappeared/swam away from me (hence I deducted another star.) I waited a few minutes without seeing them and decided to ascend to the surface, where I could see the surrounding shores. Strong waves pushed me against the top of a divider wall/reef, and the point of impact was my left palm, which unfortunately landed on a sea urchin. Luckily, I, along with the heavy diving equipment, was able to roll around on top of the divider wall/reef into a lagoon and swam to the private beach of Caribe Hilton nearby. A diving instructor from Aqua Adventure Puerto Rico was very nice to help me on the beach, carried the diving equipment for me, and brought me to the Hilton resting area with first aid (e.g. white vinegar for the sea urchin stings, sterilizing alcohol pad, tweezers, safety pin, etc.) There were 20+ sea urchin needles in my left palm/fingers along with a large bruise in my left palm, and I was able to remove a few longest sea urchin needles up to a quarter of an inch. The Scuba Dogs diving guide later arrived and took me along with their diving gear in his car back to their office, where they filed a report. After returning back to my hotel, I was able to remove a couple more sea urchin needles using the supplies listed above (see photo.) I consider the rest of the sea urchin needles too small to be removed. The bruise has also improved gradually overnight. Updated on January 14, 2025 (2nd photo): More than a month later, a sea urchin needle was finally pushed/rejected by my body to near the surface of my palm, and I was able to pick and...

We got our open water certification here and overall had a great time. We did it over three days and had César as our instructor. He was very good at explaining everything and making sure we got the basics in the pool before going to the marine park the following couple of days. The pool was warm and clean, and we were the only people using it for instruction so that was great. You’re more inland for that portion though, so I recommend bringing bug spray for the times you’re out of the water.

The only reason I can’t give 5 stars is that we had quite a bit of issues with our rented gear. During the pool portion when we’re learning to check gear, my husband’s tank wasn’t completely filled even though the rubber cap was on top. We also had times where we heard air leaking from our respirator connection, or when our octopus wouldn’t work. It made for great practice though, and we got really good at checking our gear during setup. Once out at the beach similar issues arose, and at one point the mouthpiece of my husband’s main respirator was chewed off!

César was great during the entire experience, praising us for our ability to find these safety issues and correcting them right away. He explained it was a busy time and hard for the rental shops to keep up with maintenance and checks consistently during that time so we get it. Overall, a great experience, and if we were to go back to PR we would use them as our dive shop for resources.

In response to the other reviewer that mentioned the marine park in Escambron to be only 4 feet deep, I’m not sure what they’re talking about, unless it’s only for snorkeling? We did our open dive certification there and definitely logged getting down to 26 ft. And yes, there’s less great visibility due to sand and currents, but we barely saw anyone else down there and saw lots of marine life (turtles, lionfish, pufferfish, angel fish and many more) unencumbered. Sure, it’s probably not a place for seasoned divers to get excited about, but it’s a nice bay to walk into and there’s...

TLDR: small dive shop at a protected water park. Good scuba dive master. Good experience. Would go again.

The story: Three of us were staying at the Caribe Hilton and read about Scuba Dogs which is basically a 5-minute walk from our hotel. There is a protected snorkeling park behind it with small man-made structures, reef balls, and statues scattered around. There was a surprisingly good amount of marine life considering how many people snorkel there. For $80 you can do a 1 tank scuba dive using their equipment with a dive master who takes you out past the barrier to see the area outside. We arrived at 1045 for our 11 am one tank dive. It looks like this location sees a lot of foot traffic snorklers, but their SCUBA equipment is acceptable, although their BCDs do not have integrated weights so I had to wear a weight belt for the first time while diving. My back started hurting toward the end of the dive. They had to call the dive master in from home – I guess someone dropped the ball on that one – no big deal, we hung around and talked. Our Dive master, Samual