Carolina Dive Locker - Dive shop in Mt Pleasant - 1303 Ben Sawyer Blvd #10, USA

Just finished a course with Jeff. Learned a lot and enjoyed all aspects of it. He was willing to do open water dives in January to make sure people were certified. Really helped out some people who had upcoming trips.

Beautiful dive shop. I was in for a skills update and was impressed by the inventory in the store. When I’m ready to update my gear I’ll know where to go. As far as the class, A+! Dale was my instructor. He was passionate about diving, super nice, very knowledgeable, and patient in helping me get the skills perfected.

The guys here are really knowledgeable and have great tips for all the equipment. Unfortunately, they have a very strict policy where they do not give refunds, only store credit. I can understand that to an extent, but when I brought back fins that I could not use, and they did not have an alternative for a trade-in, and the fins had not even been worn, I feel like they could make an exception. I am out almost $200 for fins and no options except to try and resell online to try and get some of my money back. I would not have left this review, but I felt sort of belittled when I tried to bring these fins back in, because I have been having trouble with finding better fins for my sport and this is the 3rd time I have been in in 6 months. The gentlemen who helped me asked if I was new to the sport when I said the fins will not work, which I have played on and off for 11 years. It felt like he was insulting my intelligence.

Melanie is the best SCUBA instructor I have known. I have been diving for over 40 years. I taught SCUBA at YMCA's in Chicago for ten years and at Duke University for two years. I am also trained as an ENT MD. I've dove deep wrecks in the great lakes, ice dived, and dove the caves in central Florida. I simply took the Free Dive course with my wife on a whim in order to ease her back into the water in preparation for an upcoming SCUBA trip. But we both got so more out of the course than I ever anticipated! Free Diving is so much more than going on a snorkel. I am now recommending it to my buddies who are already SCUBA certified. Melanie dove DEEP (pun intended) into this fascinating and complex topic. The course was very comprehensive and well designed. Melanie has superb communication skills and is highly intelligent. Her lectures were interesting, and since she has dove with competitive free divers she knows the topic inside and out. She welcomed my questions and challenges when I dug deep into anatomy and physiology. In the open water phase, she was incredibly safe and attentive. She is a natural in the water. She was also very sincerely and enthusiastically supportive. I am 62 years old and not in outstanding physical shape. By the end of the class, I could descend to 30 feet quite easily. I KNOW I could not have done that were it not for Melanie's teaching. My wife was at first unenthusiastic about taking the class. But after the classroom and pool classes, she changed her mind and insisted that we complete the open water portion. We both still have a couple of skills to complete. We hope to do that after our upcoming trip. And Melanie is being so accommodating, giving us flexibility to complete it after our trip. Plus, she's pretty and funny!

Jeff, the owner of CDL was very helpful with the selection of the ScubaPro Hydros BCD. He had just sold the last size large and knew I was leaving in 5 days on a Bonaire dive trip. He ordered the Large for me, 3 day shipping UPS. That's great service and THAT'S why he's always got my buiness. Thank You CDL

TL;DR...Friendly Staff and Quality Shop Took the Freedive level 1 course and the instructor Melannie was the best. Due to CoVid, class size was quite small. Very chill course with relaxed atmosphere, which is what you need in that sort of course. After registering, Melannie begun correspondence to ensure I knew how to register my online account and I could access the proper online education. Throughout the classroom portion, all material was paced well so nothing felt glossed over. Some topics the class was passionate about and would nerd out on a specific bits of information, which made the class feel less rigid. Owner of the shop even popped in to say hi to everyone and introduce himself. The following weekend we begun our pool sessions for the course. The pool we used was about 24 min away from the dive shop and it was a decent pool. Melannie led the session off with guided stretching for about 15 minutes before the pool which is always helpful. Completed all pool skills in a few hours with the couple students in attendance. Finally on the third day of the course we proceeded to our open water skills testing at a sand quarry lake about 40 minutes away. Once we arrived, Mel used her personal knowledge of yoga and led us through some poses and meditation which REALLY set the tone for the day; big plus and very happy. Once in the lake we weren't pushed too fast to where we felt uncomfortable and could proceed with skills once we felt ready. The overall lake was nice and calm with around mid 70s Fahrenheit at the time of our class (5mil suit was nice). Visibility was good and you could see the bottom to where the line ended. Given the small class size, there was plenty of oversight and we weren't rushed at all. We even had some time at the end to do some fun dives and take some underwater photos thanks to our Scuba bro camera man... thanks Dave. I've said everything you can expect from what this class offers. I thoroughly enjoyed this class and would definitely recommend it if you're thinking about taking a class.

Excellent dive shop with extremely knowledgeable and patient instructors for learning how to scuba dive.. just finished my certification and an overall great experience. Looking forward to my first off shore dive with Jeff and the Carolina Dive Locker crew!

The staff and instructors at Carolina Dive Locker were outstanding. I was nervous going into the Open Water course but Sanders found the perfect balance of informative and fun, which eased my nerves. I highly recommend him for any training you need. He knew when to stress the importance of critical components in the classroom and in-water skills portions, responded with patience to my (many) questions, handled our class of 5 adults and 4 kids with ease, and genuinely catered to each of us individually based on our knowledge and comfort levels. He was strict with the pool assessments but that set us all up for success to pass our open water skills tests. Jeff and Brian were also very helpful with equipment and on-site assistance. Great group of passionate people that we are excited to get to know more as we begin our diving adventures! Thanks guys, Shannon & Randy Williams