Anyone Can Run Dive Trips: Undercurrent 08/2025

Anyone Can Run Dive Trips

and anything can happen

from the August, 2025 issue of Undercurrent

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As we wrote last month in our article on travel agents, people who lead trips on their own are seemingly quite free to do what they want in most states, since few regulate travel and many don't have strong laws protecting consumers.

In May, we became aware of complaints about a Texas-based trip organizer where several divers were airing their problems. We were referred to Facebook pages (e.g., Coral Dreams Scuba) for these complaints. In reviewing these complaints, we saw that one person reported being dropped from a trip without receiving a refund. Another said they flew to the Maldives in May, only to find the liveaboard had no reservations for their arrival and had not received payment. We also learned from these complaints about another complaining client who paid Coral Dreams for a trip to Fiji, only to discover shortly before her trip that Coral Dreams had cancelled the trip, and had not paid her airfare or the resort, according to emails from Bega Lagoon Resort, Taveuni Dive Center, and Air Fiji. She was denied a refund. And there were other complaints, as well.

After reading the reports containing these complaints, we contacted many who had posted, and they referred us to others who had booked dive trips with Coral Dreams Scuba to the Caribbean and elsewhere. Coral Dreams Scuba is a trip operator in New Braunfels, Texas, run by Jolene Stephens, a PADI instructor and RN by trade. Her clients sent us emails between themselves and Stephens, as well as emails from resorts or liveaboards that claimed they had no reservations or had not been paid, although the clients said they had paid Coral Dreams Scuba in advance of their trips. The following are comments from just two of several people who contacted us....

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