Been shopping with a number of bigger 5* schools but we finally decided to let my 15-y-o daughter get her AOW with El Dive. We were really happy with our choice.
Despite it was a simple dive shop, El Dive will make you confident to enjoy a fun dive or a training. Large enough boat with air pump and a clean comfort room (not all dive shops in El Nido have). Equipment, gears are in well organized and care, yes of course. But also personnel are attentive and professional too. We were so pleasant with the dive instructor - Mr. Yoshi and his japanese hospitality and thoughtfulness and so was my daughter. During her last dives of training, she felt uncomfortable and went vomit. Me as a mom was quite worried and didn't know to help her. Then Mr. Yoshi kept calm and attentive, brought her a cup of warm water and explain her how to deal with such sickness on boat and underwater. Thanks for his instruction, my daughter completed her dives satisfactorily and will get her AOW soon after her next 16.
Other instructor and divemasters incl. Tom, Larry, JR. also made us feel reliable, friendly and safe. Lunch was good with many choices to different people.
We dove in plankton season, mild current but not good visibility. Only at the third dive site near the Helicoper island we've seen a lot of cabbage coral and school of jackfish. No turtles or sharks. That's a pity.

First of all, we are very riskaverse when it comes to diving - El Dive has exceeded our expectations. We have been on a boat with 7 other divers and two dive masters. Also two very experienced divers 3500 and 2500 dives joint this tour for their fun dives - which showes the reputation of this diving school. Don't let your self judge their knowledge based on the look of their dive shop which is not as fancy as the other big schools. But I can highly recommend this diving school.

As a couple, we did our Open Water Diver at El Dive with Thomas and beeing assisted by Rina, training for her divemaster. From the first moment on, everyone was amazingly helpfull and anticipating our needs to make us feel comfortable. On the day of our first dive, my partner felt sick due to a small food poisoning and it was no problem to postpone our dive to any other date we wanted to. And I cannot imagine a better instructor than Thomas, just making sure that everything he told us, we understood. If we felt worried or anxious in a moment, he took all the necessary time to make us confident again. It is really nice and slow and always safety first. They have emergency oxygen on board, spare parts and everyone does the job to their best. Of course, the food on the boat was exceptionally good and we just enjoyed our 3 days with all of them.

I had 4 days of fun diving with El dive while my other friends taking AOW with them. El dive is a small shop but they are really professional and setting the safety as their priority.
I like they do everything slowly, no matter underwater or on surface, I feel very relaxing for all 4 days with them. They also choose very good spots for both lunch and diving site! We even had lunch near a lagoon that is one site of island hopping. They don't care how far it is for the diving site, we went to few sites that only us there. They only want you to have the best experience, even only 4 of us on the boat, they are willing and eager to show us the best of El Nido! All staff are very friendly, funny and helpful. I will definitely go with them next time and El nido is always my favourite place when I wanna chill out although it is a bit difficult to get there. Thank you, Yoshi, Larry, Ace, Thomas and all of the nice people I met! Looking forward to seeing you soon :)