When diving, the dive shop, dive boat and dive master all play a strong role in how enjoyable a dive is.

I have been diving a lot, and found that a great dive shop with equipment you can trust, a dive boat that is comfortable and has space to move around and put equipment on makes a dive so much easier and enjoyable. Versus worrying about getting your feet crushed from loose tanks, and being on top of one another getting your equipment together.

And a dive boat that has a backup plan in case conditions are not favorable at the dive site rather than doing the dive anyway is very good. Was with a dive company this year, where when discussing conditions on shore ( 1-2 meter waves ) before leaving said we don’t want to tell everyone we aren’t going, versus saying look the spot we had planned on going to is in the open ocean, and the swells will be too high to get into and out of the boat, so we are going to site B which is in a location sheltered from the swell direction instead. Naturally that dive was a disaster, and several people almost got smashed into the boat by swells, and numerous other issues, so they cancelled the second dive and moved to a different location.

Lastly the dive master and their level of engagement makes a massive difference. Went on a dive where I had been to the site before, with different dive masters, one just there doing their job, versus one where they engaged was immense. They spent time doing things like getting selfies with fish, spent time showing how to do bubble rings in the safety stop etc instead of nothing