Complaint Review: ProDive College - Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Select State/Province

Do not go here if you haven't figured it out already this school is shady. The Owner decided to create and enforce no drinking and curfew rules when his son failed the Instructor Exam. Everyone at the school was a college educated adult (a little old for curfew rules). We only dove 2 sites the whole time we were there and most of the time they were too cheap to take the boat out.

Rental equipment is old and hardly works. 

I personally saw the Owner (Jose Perez) break PADI standards by leading  non certified divers as a PADI advanced open water diver. 

They claim to be in puerto vallarta but are really about 20 mins away in a boring little town called bucerias. 

You will never get hands on experience working with real clients with this company and you will most likely be disappointed. Right now they don't even have an instructor on staff.

the only nice thing about this place is the housing and the pool. 

This place has too many problems and with so many other schools in the Caribbean where the diving is nice don't waste your time here. 

Don't get sucked in to the the great price because it is too good to be true.

Hey no Im not questioning what happened. But there is no way the Managing Director had someone else make the decision and then come to you and tell you. Thats what Managing Directors do, make decisions.

I work in PV and now these guys since they first started about  years ago. I never trusted Mariano Castro. He plays the innocent type and then sticks it to you.  The new owners are some local guys who dont even speak english or very little and he runs the show. 

Like I said contact PADI and let them know what happened to you and put the heat on this Mariano Castro to at least cover your airfare.. thats the least he could do for you.

Yes I did pay the deposit last year to take advantage of the savings before the price increase. Or that's what I was told. As the site looks and is legit, and I had only dealt with the company through the site- I had no reason to doubt the invoices and contracts they sent me. All these contracts are the same ones they still use!

I also was traveling the other way around the world through Asia and Europe before I Planned to settle in Mexico so that's why it was planned that early.

I don't know what exactly seems fishy besides the company so just let me know if you have any questions, though it does not change the facts of what happened.

First of all this Mariano guy is the managing director of the school so any decision on not letting you stay in the school was his to make or at the very least he had a huge part in it. Also not saying that these things did not happen to you, but did you really pay over a year ago, wait months and then travel down to mexico without talking to them before you arrived. Seems strange, fishy maybe.

I was curious and researched this company other than their website, there is nothing on them.. in fact their facebook page is secret.. And they are not in Puerto Vallarta but rather in Bucerias, Nayarit. That secretiveness  should scare you away immediately. But then again your story seems to have some parts left out.. why no fill everyone in on it.

I also have just posted a report about this company too. I see this one was dated for October 2010. I had read this ages ago when I deposited in December and due to the new owners advice and speaking with the college, I still booked. However, almost a year on from the original post I have just been ripped off $1800 from this company and find the directors to be untrustworthy. They were still working with this souza guy in january as i was getting emails then from him at the company so im not sure why they continued ti work with someone banned by PADI? Still involved in scandal and always changing hands! There are many out there with better reputations and better companies as a whole so I'd skip over this one. Of course I'm their most recent victim , try find my report too.

My name is nick and i am a past student of prodivepv, and i have just finished my PADI divemaster internship. Neptunes was a company owned by a man named jorge sosa and he and his company where expelled by padi. Mariao was, like what is said, an employed of neptunes and when the company went under he started his own business. jorge the a*****e who was expelled stole over one thousand pounds of my money and i didnt think i was going to get anything for my cash, but mariano agreed to take me on and train me at his expense. i did have o share a room, at first, and my accommodation was not what Neptunes had promised but it was not the slums. it was nice. i had my own bed and after a few month we moved into a bigger nicer house and i got my own room. mariano is a great guy and if he hadnt of helped me i would never be the diver i am today. i highly recommend him. leah is a bitter 19 year old girl trying to get back at her 40ish ex scumbag boyfriend jorge sosa. if you need any info please go on facebook, look up the company, add m or any of the other students and we will all tell you tt mariano and prodivepv is the place to be.

First of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Paul Robert Linskey and I live  in Costa Mesa California. I am the owner  and honestly I am quite saddened by this negative report on this website.

Firstly, I would like to clarify that our company has no affiliation with the former Neptune's. Nor do we have anyone working with this company who was or is currently expelled from PADI or any training agency.

Mariano Castro is a PADI certified Dive Instructor and works with.. NOT FOR... ProDive College. Our Advanced IANTD courses are not taught by anyone mentioned in the above report.

We also have never had a student named "Leah" in any of our programs. I do understand that she may have or did attend the other company. And I for one would like to express my sympathy to her for her negative experience. However, none of what is mentioned in the report holds true for this company.

The short of a very long story is I purchased the contracts, concessions, equipment and intellectual Property of the old Neptunes when it closed down. I chose to keep one of the concessions they had in PV operating and closed down one of them that was not producing. There are items such as the old Neptune's website that point to this company. But that website has been in place over 10 years and has a very high Google ranking. Hence we kept it as a place holder and link to our site. That is the extent of our affiliation or similarities with Neptunes.

Mariano Castro was instrumental in convincing me to continue the training programs they had done in the past and I agreed to work with his company ProDive PV. He again has no affiliation with the old company other than being a former employee who was smart enough and had the gumption to open up his own buisness when his employer closed down.

Our program is run very efficiently, awards PADI certifications to all of our students and quite frankly we have a very nice program.

Housing for our students is very nice, comfortable and VERY clean, it has maid service 3 times a week, And the internet is 2mb Wi-Fi. Yes we could use a Washing Machine but that is in the works.

Obviously, anyone who is reading this is deciding whether to attend our school. I only ask that as part of your investigation you contact our current and former students and ask them directly......how was your experiance? ... did you get what your paid for?, who certified you?, would you recommend it?

Our Facebook webpage is.... its open to join, do so and talk to our students.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=111680668870394


And of course feel free to Contact me directly if you would like to clarify any questions you might have.

Paul R. Linskey
[email protected]

Neptunes Dive College was expelled from PADI along with Jorge Sosa for violating standards, it is true that Mariano Castro worked for Jorge, however he did not take over the company, he started his own: ProDivePV, and I can assure you Jorge does not work for Mariano (Jorge was expelled from PADI so can't work as a diving instructor ever again) and is in no way involved in the business.

All certifications taken with ProDivePV are PADI certifications. I have completed the PADI Divemaster course, the PADI IDC/IE and several PADI specialty course, all of which have been processed and are in order. All materials have been supplied, it is a standards violation to not have all of the materials when taking PADI professional courses.

ProDivePV accomodation is spacious, comfortable and clean, there is maid service 4 days a week. Accomodation may be shared, but this is made clear before signing up. They have fully functioning facilities including, a dining area, clean kitchen, two bathrooms which have hot showers and three bedrooms. The only thing missing is a washing machine, however there are several fairly priced laundrettes within a few minutes walking distance.

ProDivePV will help you write a CV as well as help you find a job and will provide references.

It is not fair to tarnish Mariano and ProDivePV with the same brush as Jorge and Neptunes just because he used to work for that comany. Mariano is an excellent instructor and prepared me for the IDC/IE to the extent that I felt as though I could take the Instructor Exam without doing the Instructor Development Course. I did encounter a few problems at the beginning, which were resolved in time, however, these problems were due to the fact that the company had bearly started up when I first arrived. Mariano was not expecting to have interns when i arrived, but he took me on (along with my fiance) at short notice, despite the fact that we had paid our deposit to Jorge and Mariano would not get that money, so he was actually running at a loss by taking us on.

Do not take this rip-off report at face value as Neptunes no longer exists and ProDivePV is a new diving comany with lots of potential.