Overall, it was a great experience with my instructor Koa on the PADI advanced course. He was very thorough, highly professional, and offered advice, tips, and insights all throughout the... read more two days of rigorous, but fun learning. In addition, all the staff I interacted with were super friendly and professional. Top notch employees and just good people here. My only problem comes from the management side. After my course, I rented some equipment and a tank for 3 air fills - and pre-paid for all of this. I was only able to dive once given some ear issues (but that was a great dive at Karpata). When I returned the gear and tank, I requested a refund for the 2 tank fills I did not use. Staff telephoned their manager but they declined to give any reprieve giving no apparent reason. That just left a bad taste in what was a great experience. Essentially, one dive cost $66 for air - even the staff agreed they saw it as unfair. It is a shame for the business, as I was about to purchase some t-shirts and gear, but after that unfortunate decision, I decided to take business elsewhere. I have to say, I'll think twice about diving with Dive Friends again, and will definitely get my air elsewhere.

  I went diving with Dive Friends in November 2022 and Tess provided a winderful trip at 2 different dive sites. The whole island is a marine sanctuary so the... read more sea life is plentiful everywhere. Dive Friends are setup with dive shops at every site so getting any kind of help or service is instant. Dive masters are very knowledgeable.

  I have done 2 dives with Divefriends. First one was a refresh and short dive at Bari reef. That was very relaxed. Second one was a personal dive with Tessa... read more at Cliff reef. As I am not a great diver and uncertain, diving with a personal divemaster was great. Tessa helped me with my mask issues and took all the time I needed for my ears. After that we could dive down to 14 meters and it was very nice. Thank you Tessa.

  We used Dive Friends just for tanks and weights while shore diving on Bonaire. We signed up for the unlimited Nitrox through their Yellow Submarine location right in Kralendijk,... read more and the staff there were friendly and helpful. They encourage doing a test dive right outside their shop to ensure you're properly weighted, and this also serves as a great opportunity to test all your equipment or get familiar with rental gear if applicable.

They have multiple locations around the island making it really convenient to swap out tanks. We visited their Sand Dollar location any time we dove the northern dive sites and went to one of their shops close to the airport after southern dives. This is an awesome concept and makes it super convenient to swap out tanks and be ready to go for the next morning. Not all of the locations have compressors, but even the ones that don't will take your spent tanks and give you fresh ones.

The only complaint we had was the condition of some of the tanks. We found on several occasions that the tank valves were really difficult to close completely, so gas would leak out very slowly. On a few occasions we found that one of our tanks had leaked out to around 2500psi. We learned to double check that they were closed tightly before storing them overnight. Also, the o-rings in a LOT of the tanks were completely shot. It's wise to ask the tank guys for extra o-rings and keep a little pick handy to extract the old ones. There was a really nice and helpful guy at Sand Dollar who gave us a bunch of o-rings just in case. They definitely came in handy.
None of this is a criticism of the operation. O-rings don't last forever, and they have hundreds of tanks that are being used and filled again and again. Just something to keep in mind. Make sure you inspect the tanks thoroughly prior to heading out for diving.

Overall, we had a really good experience with Dive Friends.

  Wow! Great customer service and diving. - We came in for the day on a cruise ship, the company we had planned to use couldn’t accommodate our group but sent us to dive friends. So glad they... read more did, Kim at dive friend went above and beyond to help set us up with gear and transportation . We had a wonderful two tank shore dive at two great sites. Will definitely use them again. Todays world customer service doesn’t seem to exist sometimes. Dive friends know how to do customer service , making our time In Bonaire fabulous.