Well I have been home now for best part of 5 weeks and today i got this response to my letter of compliant from my tour operator. ( Tony Backhurst )
Dear Louise & Stewart
Apologies for delay in getting back to you but the boat owner is away and I am for him to respond. He should be back within the next 2 weeks and I will get back to you as soon as I hear from him.
I will keep you updated.
Best Regards
Maxine Johnson
Customer Service
Scuba Travel | www.scuba.co.uk
To say I am really getting P1553D off with them is an understatement. How can a company with such bad customer services get best tour operator year after year.
Stew
Stew,
I saw the owner in Male' today, near the Seagull cafe'. Apparently there are thousands of complaints about the boat and he's hiding from the operators!
Shaff
Just for an update, our tour operator TB has now offered us £100 each off another trip with them. This I do find amusing as I have said all along I am not after any form of money back I am after the safety and pleasure of future divers on the Nautilus2 to be better than the standards that we received. This " gesture of goodwill " was only sent to us after Tony Backhurst himself sent me a shocking email more or less telling me to F OFF. He also see fit to add my email address to his spam folder, so my wife emailed him from her works email and he did reply to her. As she said that she was a guest on the boat also and if he did not want to have correspondence with me he still had to have correspondence with her. Aparrently I upset the girl who works in " customer services ". Anyway Tony informed my wife that he had not been able to get hold of the owner of the Nautilus2 to see what was going on and that he was trying to organise a meeting with him in april. I would have thought that the owner not answering his emails and calls for 5 weeks would have given TB an idea that the owner had something to hide. Sadly we have another trip booked with TB for september otherwise I would not be using his services again.
stew
Out of curiosity I did a quick search on undercurrent.org for this boat operation and came up empty handed.
What a horror story - you have been treated disgracefully both on the boat and by the so-called "travel agent" before and agter the holiday. I will steer clear of them. Incidentally they are still offereing holidays on Nautilus 2 with the usual gushing sales pitch ie
"Nautilus 2 is a new name in the Maldives, but like her sister ship Nautilus 1, she has quickly become associated with only the highest standards. Built in 2007 to a traditional Maldivian design, this colourful yacht brings a splash of style to every reef she visits. At 43m from ...read more here..... http://www.scuba.co.uk/Travel/Maldives/Nau...2/Nautilus2.htm
What a horror story - you have been treated disgracefully both on the boat and by the so-called "travel agent" before and agter the holiday. I will steer clear of them. Incidentally they are still offereing holidays on Nautilus 2 with the usual gushing sales pitch ie
"Nautilus 2 is a new name in the Maldives, but like her sister ship Nautilus 1, she has quickly become associated with only the highest standards. Built in 2007 to a traditional Maldivian design, this colourful yacht brings a splash of style to every reef she visits. At 43m from ...read more here..... http://www.scuba.co.uk/Travel/Maldives/Nau...2/Nautilus2.htm
If the issues that we experienced were dealt with then I am sure that the Nautilus2 would be one of the best boats in operation. The boat itself is amazing. Very spacious through out. I will be interested to find out what the outcome is of Tony Backhursts meeting with the owner.
Stew
Wow, it is high time the dive industry wakes up to the demands of the discerning client. It is not 'the good old days' any more. People work hard for their money, and when they spend it, they want value for their money!
To all those lazy 'dudes' that pass them selves off as dive-masters or cruise directors; time to step up and deliver, or retire!
What happened here is not just bad for the particular companies involved, it is bad for the industry...
The Maldives have always been on my list of places to dive but after reading this story and the death of a Russian diver due to bad air I think I will skip the Maldives until I heard they start taking their tourism industry seriously.
I should add I know that there are probably some good ops there but sometimes separating the wheat from the chaff is not worth the effort.
