Dive Review of Jack's Diving Locker/Holiday Inn Express & Suites in
Hawaii/Kona, Big Island

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Jack's Diving Locker/Holiday Inn Express & Suites: "Reefs Are In Poor Health/Jack's Target Demographic Diver is Novice :(", May, 2024, by Love Sharks, OR, US ( Sr. Reviewer 9 reports with 9 Helpful votes). Report 13006 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was a return trip for us, not having dived in Hawaii since 2019, pre-COVID. A rental car is necessary on the Big Island. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, the only IHG property in Kona, and I used my IHG points. Had we paid cash for the 8 nights, it would have been $3300, way too much for the quality of this hotel. It was conveniently located downtown and a two-minute drive to Jack's Diving Locker (JDL). Hawaii has become insanely expensive, so I’m grateful to have used my points. I have always used JDL, but since it had been a few years since I was in Kona, I shopped the going rates around the Kona area, and JDL was the only shop that wasn’t charging the daily junk fees, i.e., booking fees, harbor fees, conservation fee, in addition to the sales tax. As return customers, we were given 10% off all the diving and only charged sales tax. To my disappointment, since my visit in May, they are now charging the rip-off fees, too. With our 10% discount, we still paid $198 for a 2-tank dive, which included Nitrox at $10 per tank. The manta and black water dives cost even more. I have always had a good experience with JDL, and they offer concierge diving...my favorite! They set up your gear on the boat and break it down for you at the end of the trip. They rinse everything for you on board during the ride back to the shop. They have nice, big boats with camera buckets, onboard hot showers, drinking water, and lunch included (sandwiches, fruit, and cookies). There are two ladders for a giant stride entry, so two people can get in and out of the water at the same time. Safety is important, so their briefings are very thorough, both about the boat (life jackets, emergency procedures) and the dive sites. Their guide-to-diver ratio is no more than 1 to 6, and they stick to that. They also guarantee 80-minute dives as long as you have the air to last that long. My dives were generally 73-83 minutes. Their staff and guides are very good. They do a fantastic manta night dive and the black water dive. We did each of those twice. The downside to JDL now is they fill their bigger boat, the Kea Nui, to near capacity, and it was too crowded. There was a student group on nearly every trip, and there were up to 14 divers a couple of days. The students had their own dive guide, and that added 6-7 extra bodies on the boat each day. JDL seems to be catering to the student population, which then translates to going to the easy (and over-dived) sites. Then when the students "graduate", they are now diving with the very experienced divers and have no idea what they're doing. The first diver to hit half a tank turns the dive back to the boat. This is a change from my previous experience. In general, the sites we were taken to were over dived, boring, and browned out. We really had to look hard to find the critters, but we did see a Commerson’s frogfish, white-mouthed and other species of eels, the elusive flame angel fish, black leaf fish, flounders, dragon wrasse, octopus, rock mover wrasse, and more. We were treated with the rarely-seen beaked whales on the surface during the boat ride and dolphin escorts when we left the harbor. There were fleeting sightings of a tiger shark from the boat but none while we were diving. We did the manta dive twice because there’s a real lack of boat night diving on Kona, and who doesn’t want a second dose of mantas! To our delight, our first night had 31 mantas show up, all identified by Keller Laros, JDL’s manta expert. The second night, we had 26 mantas show up. There was so much food in the water and the mantas were loving it. It was spectacular! We stayed down at the manta area so long, there was no time for night diving along the reef. Not a bad problem to have…you HAVE to leave to have enough time for the safety stop. This was my fourth and fifth times doing this dive and this was the most mantas I had ever seen. I did two black water dives. This other-worldly dive is a special treat for me because I love the weirdness of the dark ocean. The first dive, unfortunately, was cut short, only 20 minutes into the dive, because the guide spotted an oceanic white tip. I never saw it, but I would have loved to have seen it. It was the first time the guide had seen one. I know they’re an aggressive species, but I wonder if it was appropriate to abort the dive. There was no refund for this expensive dive. The second dive a few nights later was fantastic, and I stayed in the water as long as possible watching the incredible show of the deep-ocean critters coming up to the shallows. I was struck with torpedo speed by squid three times and got inked. Had the guide not told us about it in the dive briefing, it might have been a bit unsettling not knowing what just impacted my body. They are super fast. Other sightings were pyrosomes, comb jellies, siphonofores, salp chains and other things that were just indescribably beautiful. I had more fun doing the manta and black water dives than the day dives. The close encounters with the manta rays are brief. I have an Olympus TG6, and videos are kept short to conserve battery. Here are a few videos on my Youtube channel. [youtu.be link] [youtu.be link] [youtu.be link] Hawaii has unique species of fish only found in Hawaii, which makes this a special place to dive. Prices for everything are up about 40% post-COVID, and that’s not manageable for our budget, especially since the diving isn’t epic, and we won't be returning. To qualify my star ratings, the 1 star rating at Holiday Inn was for the free breakfast buffet, which was really bad. It was gross food. The 3-star rating is attributed to this being an aging hotel and it shows. The dive operation gets 3 stars because of the overcrowding and the operation is not targeted for the experienced diver. The 3 stars for large pelagics is strictly based on the manta night dive. Regular 2-tank dives had few large pelagics. I rated corals and large fish as "N/A" because there is not a zero star rating.
Websites	Jack's Diving Locker
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Hawaii, Florida, Mexico, Bahamas, St. Marteen, St. Croix, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Grenada, Bonaire, Belize, Honduras, Aruba, Grand Cayman, Curacao, Barbados, St. Eustatius, Turkey, Raja Ampat Indonesia, Australia, French Polynesia, Fiji
Closest Airport	KOA	Getting There	Easy and plentiful flight options from the West Coast of the U.S.A.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm
Water Temp	75-78°F / 24-26°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	30-50 Ft/ 9-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	First diver low on air turns the dive.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	1 or 2
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Looking for subjects was challenging due to lack of critters. I have an Olympus TG6 with a single strobe and video light. The onboard camera buckets were very big and useful.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Jack's Diving Locker/Holiday Inn Express & Suites in Hawaii/Kona, Big Island

Jack's Diving Locker/Holiday Inn Express & Suites: "Reefs Are In Poor Health/Jack's Target Demographic Diver is Novice :(", May, 2024,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Jack's Diving Locker/Holiday Inn Express & Suites in
Hawaii/Kona, Big Island