This is the second time this year my girlfriend and I have been diving with Diving Planet in Cartagena. We can highly recommend their outfit for its professionalism, reliability and safety consciousness. This time round we took their PADI courses, the Advanced Open Water for me and the Open Water for my girlfriend. The teaching and training was serious and no safety aspects overlooked or taken lightly. Nevertheless, it was fun and we had a lot of laughs. It won’t be our last time with them! Walter Graf and Estella Castano.

I'm in Cartagena for two weeks and apart from walking round the city getting offered beads and hats, there is not a lot to do. I am a girl (aged fifty) from a village in the English countryside and haven't left English soil since 1987, so this whole experience is a bit of a culture shock anyway. I don't like to get my head under water and I can't remember the last time I went swimming, so to go scuba diving is like, well, I don't know what possessed me, apart from the fact that I am here to see a place that a friend of mine, who died a year ago loved and scuba diving is something he would have done.

I was picked up at my hotel and given a bottle of water at the docks. A boat took a group of us, bathers and divers, to the Rosario Islands, where on landing we were handed a cup of passion fruit juice. A talk was given in Spanish and English, then the people diving were immediately taken to a small boat to go to the diving area. The boat to the island didn't make me feel sick, although it was fast and choppy. The boat to the dive place turned my stomach more, as we were still, but bobbing on the waves. I suggest you take travel sickness pills with you for
this.

I expected to be instructed for a couple of hours, but our guide only spent about half an hour going through the necessary basics and after an initial panic, when I first put my head under water and practiced taking off my regulator and got water in my nose and mouth, I was swimming over a coral reef, looking at vibrant, colourful fish! Excellent.

We returned after about half an hours diving at six foot, then after a twenty minute break we went on a second dive. I must point out here that I was in a group of four people from Diving Planet and we had a voucher for free lunch consisting of a sandwich and fries. I went to the toilet and my group decided to eat in the break. I wanted to wait until after the second dive, but the waiter brought all the food on the voucher, so make sure you let them know when you want yours if in a group. They take an awful long time to bring it too, one lady waited an hour and had to have it put in a 'doggy bag,' so she could eat it on the boat, because they took so long.

The second dive was longer and deeper than the first in another area where the coral looks like mushrooms and even more fish were observed. We then had about an hour or so to look around the island before taking the boat home at 4pm. Transport was then an arranged car drive back to our separate hotels. All in all well organised and as a complete beginner, it was a lot more than I expected to do. The guide who took me diving was good to look at too. ;-)

We booked a snorkeling trip through Dive Planet based on reviews and also that we had received a discount from the owner. We were picked up from our hotel and dropped at the wharf, that was the last we saw of the person we thought we would be snorkeling with. Basically you catch a boat to an island resort with a whole bunch of people who are just going to chill out on the island all day, then someone from the island takes you snorkeling, The gear was good and the fish were beautiful. Lunch was included and was nice, we opted to hang around on the island after lunch instead of go out for a second snorkel and that was fine also. We had a great day but wish we had been told that we wouldn’t be with Diva Planet people during the day.

we just came home from our colombia trip. we did the basic padi diver at diving planet and is was great! so we decided one week later to do the advanced, too.

Andres, our teacher whos spanish is really good, makes even the theory classes go by fast. we had a lot of fun!

it is a perfect place to learn how to dive!!