Did the 4 day open water certification in Cairns. This was such a fun and challenging experience. I felt safe and supported at all times and enjoyed every minute. The reef was the perfect place to be certified. Ana was sensational! She was informative, fun, skilled and encouraging. I would recommend taking the tread water and 200m swim requirements very seriously, as you definitely need this as a minimum in the ocean.

Booked 2 intro dives with Divers Den. Safety briefing was adequate for me as I am a strong swimmer and have done intro dives before, but I felt like it wouldn't have been enough if I didn't have experience. (I will say, in previous intro dives, there's been a pool practice portion so we get us to the equipment in a controlled environment, and you obviously can't do this on a boat but it was very helpful at the time and I can't imagine diving for the first time without that). Both intro dives were only about 30 min regardless of oxygen levels. For all intro dives, you have to hold the guides arms the entire time, and they took 4 divers per guide, so with two people on each arm, we were slow moving and always kicking each other. In previous intro dives, I have been 2 people/per guide and we were to stay within arms length of the guide, so we weren't literally piled on top of each other the way we were with divers den. (I heard a lot of the companies in this area make intro divers dive this way and my guess is this is some kind of attempt at reef protection but if they would've taught us how/allowed us to use the buoyancy thing we could've avoided hitting the reef ourselves). The first dive left me very disappointed because we spent like 15 min doing skills practice, (which I understand for safety reasons, it was just a bummer that it took up so much of the time), and the second half of the dive was spent on the photo shoot. They took awesome photos as you can see, but I was very bummed when after taking photos they took us up to the surface and put us back on the boat (also you had to pay an extra $50 for your photo package). If I hadn't booked the second dive, I would've been pissed that that was all I got. The second dive was better in that we got to spend it actually exploring the reef, but it was still 4 divers holding onto one guide, constantly kicking and running into each other, and moving at a snail pace. The guides and crew themselves were very nice and knowledgeable but I don't like the way this company makes people dive. If you're gonna make us hold the instructors arm the whole time, at least have a small enough group/enough guides that there's only one diver on each arm.

UNSAFE. Terrible company. Terrible experience. . . Let’s start with the trip out. Seemed nice enough weather but the seas were so rough at least 1/3 of the boat was either sick or puking on the ride out to the reef. 2. Everything is so rushed. Rushed to get your gear on. Rush to get in the water. When you rush you compromise safety. 3. Speaking of safety which is most important in a dive operator this was not good. No safety talk before the dive or go over our equipment with us. Or even a talk about a safety stop. I was also left without my guide at one point. Unsure when to come up. The second dive they sent me with a bunch of workers who get to dive as a perk. These workers had to be back on ship and pointed nothing out. Didn’t go over any safety info prior. I ended up getting sick due to this lack of safety. A company who just has hordes of tourists and newbies on board should really focus on safety. With so many other companies out there I’d definitely not recommend this company .

The best crew ever! We booked a 2D1N diving tour at great barrier bay with divers dan, we felt really taken good care of, and had so much fun underwater. We had 6 dives in total, including 1 night dive. So many sharks and cute little things that I can't name, and we saw one gigantic sea turtle - longer than my arms combined - during the night dive. The food was delicious, shout out to the chef🫡 We had a wonderful trip, thank you very much. Special thanks to our diving instructor Natalie, Aden, Lisa, Chinami, Roig for taking care of us during the guided tours 💙

It was an utter delight to dive with Divers Den a couple of weeks ago! I spent 3 days and 2 nights on the water doing the #scuba4life routine, getting amongst the coral reefs across ten dives for my AOW and Nitrox certs. The dives were spectacular - we saw hawksbill turtles, blue-spotted stingrays, peacock mantis shrimp, Nemo clownfish, sharks and lots more! On one dive, I played hide and seek with a reef octopus - they are very clever and alert animals that camouflage themselves with the coral. I enjoyed the meals on board, the banter and the ocean view from my cabin. My instructors Simon, Momo and Deanna were helpful, attentive, patient and knowledgeable. Thanks so much Divers Den for a fantastic experience and beautiful memories 🤙🤙