The Houstonian Hotel, Resort and Spa hosted Santa Claus for an underwater photography session. The Houstonian staff were on hand with Hot Chocolate complete with marshmallows and the Oceanic Ventures staff were in the water taking the photographs and entertaining Santa! People of all ages joined us and even a little rain did not stop the festivities. To see what you missed…
Santa Visits West University
This past weekend, Santa came to visit and pose for underwater photographs. What a fun time! Here are some highlights…
Travel Tipping
“How much should I tip?” This is one of the most common questions that we receive as trip and tour leaders. For our escorted trip adventures, we always include a tipping guide to help people answer these questions for themselves. Here are some guidelines:
- For yacht travel, we recommend 10% – 20% of the trip cost which is usually paid at the end of the trip to the Captain or the Cruise Director. The tip is shared by the entire crew. More often it is closer to the 10% amount, especially in third world or lower cost of living countries. But there are some high-end luxury boats where the appropriate amount would be in the 15%-20% range.
- For daily boat dives the percentage is generally the same 10% – 20% but you should pay it daily. The best person to give it to is the boat Captain so that it will be shared properly with the entire crew.
- Lead shore dives are generally more personal dives so you may want to tip a little more than you would for a boat trip, depending on the level of service you received.
- In Cozumel, we have the benefit of Victor taking care of the diving equipment every day. He does not share in the boat tips so we tip him separately. This type of service is also available in other locations so you will want to tip these people separately. $5.00 to $15.00 is a good tip range depending on the level of service you receive.
- For destination tours, plan on tipping the guides $5.00 to $20.00 per day depending on the length of the tour and the activities they have taken you to.
- In a post from Travel & Leisure, they recommend tipping the housekeepers $3.00 to $5.00 per day. This of course depends on where you are staying and the local economy. In Japan, you may need to tip more than you might in Borneo.
- Tipping the Restaurant staff depends on the system they have in place. If there is a service charge included on the bill, like in Grand Cayman, then you only need to tip a small amount if you received good service. In other places, like in the United States, 15% to 25% is customary.
Remember, a “Tip” is really an abbreviation for the phrase “to ensure prompt service.” But even if things went horribly wrong, there are still people in the tip pool who worked hard but just didn’t have total control of the events affecting your trip. So, a zero tip is not really something you want to do. Find the people who did work hard and make sure the Captain knows that you appreciated their work and if possible could he “skew” the tip their way. It might not happen but you have rewarded them with praise and made it evident that you are not disappointed with everyone.
The other thing you should do if complete the survey of you are presented with one. This is the only way the crew can improve their service for the next guest. If someone made your visit special, single them out on the form and let the operator know how much you appreciated them. This type of praise goes a long way.
Sanctuary Identified as Manta Nursery
From the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Newsletter…
Where do young manta rays spend their time? Finally, researchers have an answer: Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
In a paper published in Marine Biology, Dr. Nancy Foster Scholar Joshua Stewart and sanctuary researchers Marissa Nuttall, Emma Hickerson, and Dr. Michelle Johnston suggest that Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary and the area surrounding it may represent the first documented nursery habitat for oceanic manta rays (Manta birostris) and a potential new species of manta (Manta cf. birostris).
In light of the fact that oceanic manta rays were recently listed as threatened under the Endanger Species Act, this is quite significant. The protections provided within the sanctuary keep juvenile mantas relatively safe from threats affecting them in other parts of the world.
We always knew this place was special. This new finding just makes it more so!
Website HighlightLast month, Joshua Stewart gave a webinar about Manta Rays of the Flower Garden Banks. Click here to listen to an archived recording of that webinar (scroll until the presentation begins at around the 10 minute mark). |
A New Facility – Open For Business
It has been a long road from looking for a new home to moving in but we are finally here! We are still rearranging things and moving them around to find the optimal position and placement. We had 23 years to do it in the old facility so it will take some time to find our way here but we are open and ready to show everyone around.
New product is once again arriving and we have a lot more space for it. The phone and computer installation crew is still working so everything is not away yet but as they say, “soon come.” The new facility has an entire room dedicated to environmental protection (i.e. wetsuits, drysuits, booties, etc.) and another for the technical and travel accessories. Ann has a larger space and highly polished floors. The Pure Fiji is on display and more is one the way. We have more dive computers and you should see the systems on display in the Orientation/Small Classroom space.
We are still waiting for the containers to arrive so our customer intake area is a little full and the compressor is still off-site but that will change soon.
Everyone is welcome to come in for a tour and a cup of coffee or an adult beverage. We would love to see you!
A New Facility – Still Unpacking
We have made a lot of progress in a week. The wetsuits are up on the racks and in order but the boots are temporarily stored under the suits awaiting their new home to arrive. Colin is putting the finishing touches on the new bench that will be in the wetsuit room next week. When it arrives, Colin has designed bins for the boots under the seating so things will look even cleaner in that room.
We have also been working on Dive Mom’s area. This is where you’ll find the dive computers, photo equipment and the Ocean Positive swimwear. As of yesterday, the Pure Fiji has been unpacked and arranged and the computers are now nicely displayed in the cabinet. W
The phones have been coming up and we should have all of that system set and in place by the end of the weekend.
Our computer consultants have been working to finish the cabling and installation and hope to have the majority of it completed by Sunday of next week. You can expect some new things in this area when everything comes up.
The kitchen/repair/storage/Coad’s desk is packed to the brim with repair parts and tools along with the rental and pool equipment and a few cylinders. But, Coad was amazing on Thursday and Friday and it really cam together. He even has a place to work now — not that we have time for him to sit.
Amelia transformed the Orientation room into a showroom this week so we can once again talk about diving and scuba systems with the appropriate displays and videos. You can even come and find a book or two since we have those set-out and displayed.
The travel and tech showroom is unpacked but not yet very organized. This is the next big area to attack. It should be more organized next week.
The classroom is relatively clean and we are now trying to make the final decisions for monitor placement and white board placement. We have a new table on hand and a new sofa that is REALLLY comfortable! It should be ready for classes by Tuesday or Wednesday (which is a good thing since we have some this week.
Eric’s office remains a disaster! We are missing parts for the bookcase, and Ann keeps sending boxes up. It will be a few weeks before it is ready for company.
Of course, what all of this means is — we are here and ready to help everyone with their diving adventures and education. Please come by and visit us!
