Rainbow Reef Dive Center

Fantastic! Went there on two two-​tank dives. One on Friday and one Saturday. Both 8am. Great, helpful, friendly crew. Nice boats. Odyssey had younger crew and Tropical Legend more experienced one. Both were great, but I thought Tropical Legend people were more helpful and hands on. I didn’t even need to ask them for anything, they were right there. Free water and cookies were a pleasant surprise.

I spent a week getting PADI certifications with Dan Weeks at Rainbow Reef. It was an amazing experience and I will be going back for further certifications as soon as I can.
The whole crew of Rainbow Reef was great. The boats are comfortable and very well equipped. My friend was getting his Tec40 certification and I was getting my Wreck Diver, plus we both obtained the Tec Sidemount certification.
Dan was a great instructor, he’s more than qualified to provide the class and he makes it fun and safe. We started the week getting used to all the new equipment using the pool they own next to the shop. The pool is very comfortable and it was extremely useful to be able to spend as much time as we needed to be comfortable with all the new gear. We rented most of the equipment, since sidemount gear is not that common and we were not sure we will continue with it after the class. The equipment was excellent and thanks to Dan, I think we have two new sidemount divers!
The rest of the week was full of dives for the practical classes and tests. Dan achieved a very good balance between going in detail over every step and every safety measure, but at the time of jumping on the water he let us figure it out on our own. He was present at all times, but he gave us enough freedom to figure everything out and enjoy the dives at the same time. He was constantly simulating situations to test our skills and safely and efficiently complete all the prerequisites for the certification.
The whole experience was extremely pleasant. The marina has a very nice setup with plenty of room to rinse and clean our gear after the dives. There’s also plenty of parking, hotels and restaurants at walking distance from the marina and shop.
I even forgot a flashlight I purchase from them in the rinse tubs. I called them the next day and they had it in the lost-​and-​found and they will send it to me at my house. That’s service!!! these guys rock!!!

Awesome dive experience. We were complete novices and our guide Justin gave us excellent trading. After two dives we felt like experts. The crew of the boat was great with advice, helping you on and off the boat, providing us water snacks and an excellent relaxed trip. Highly recommend this dive shop.

The staff in the dive shop were very friendly. They even helped us bring gear from our car down to the boat. Just don’t expect to get much in the way of rebreather support with Rainbow Reef Dive Center. Apparently Rainbow Reef is trying to get into technical diving but they don’t really provide much in the way of support for it, right now. Overall the boat crew on the Tropical Adventure ran a great trip. Good briefings and very safety cautious crew and captain. If you’re just using them for a recreational trip then everything should be fine. The boats are clean and well-​maintained with plenty of room.
I had multiple conversations back and forth with the Rainbow Reef staff about whether or not they could rent me rebreather cylinders and a bailout bottle but I kept getting different conflicting answers depending on who I spoke to. It was a little disappointing since my other interactions with the staff and experience on the boat was fine so I don’t want to paint them in a bad light but just give a little constructive criticism that it would help if everyone in dive shop was on same page.
Originally I emailed them in December and they said it would be no issue. I also reached out to one of their course directors via e-​mail who told me it also shouldn’t be a problem but unfortunately he was not there this week. I don’t want to mention names as I don’t want to get anyone in trouble but the first person I had spoken to said they would call me back and I never got a return phone call. The 2^nd person I spoke to said they don’t ever rent rebreather cylinders unless you’re taking a class with them. I had emailed the original person I spoke to again and he told me to reach out to another course director who also wasn’t in the office.
Finally I spoke to a 3^rd person who told me they don’t do that and really didn’t know anyone that did rent them. Odd… You’re in the Florida Keys, the diving capital of the United States and you can’t name a single shop that would be able to rent me rebreather bottles? Luckily I was able to rent a set from another dive shop and my dives with Rainbow Reef were perfectly adequate.

Easy ⁵⁄₅.
The crew took care of EVERYTHING! Tanks on/​off the boat, helping you in/​out of the water, great guide, and they even switched our tanks for us between dives. No labor required rinsing rental equipment after we docked too… Im not used to that level of service
Very competitive price still get you new gear.
Excellent location, just 30 min by boat to our dive site. They are on the radio making sure they take you where conditions are best that day.
Perfect size boat/​no cattle
What else do you want in a dive? I never write Unilocal reviews, but these guys deserve it. Stop shopping and book now!

Great experience, very friendly staff! My husband and i had not scuba-​ed in over a year and they were great eith us. The diving locations have so much life to see!

Excellent staff in the store, very knowledgable on the products they carry, especially the rebreather equipment.
My friend did her basic PADI certification, had a horrible instructor and little to no instruction, we were pretty sure he was high half the time. Twice she had to correct him when his mistaught her something but her common sense (and then consulting the book) proved him wrong. She was frustrated each evening after the course and swears she’ll never use them again, even as just a dove operator.
I did multiple dives and my Advance Open Water certification with Bret, and he was excellent. Very adaptive to my knowledge and pace, I was never bored or lost and was happy to have taken the course here.
The boats are clean and well maintained but they do seem to have a large staff that really varies from day to day, which kind of looses that «I’m apart of the family» feel you want with a Keys based diveshop.
The recently moved from the small dockside base in a shed to farther down the marina to a much larger and more formal building, giving them an even more corporate feel.

My boyfriend and I dove with Rainbow reef 3 times. Unfortunately, the weather and wind has been unusually horrid this time of year, so each time we had to go to Molasses Reef because the visibility and current was crap at the other dive sites.
Rainbow reef did a pretty great job making sure everyone was safe and having fun.
It was really nice to be able to leave all our rental gear on the boat and not have to lug that back in. I’m sure I would have busted by ass doing so. They took care of everything.
By far our favorite tour guide was Doug. He listened to our concerns about diving Molassus Reef a 4^th and 5^th time and tried to take us to some different spots. We aren’t as interested in the ‘wow factor’ fish like sharks. We are just as amazed, if not more, with sighting hermit crabs, gobies, blennies, trunkfish, etc.
He found a hermit crab for us, pointed out some eels, sharks, gobies, and spiny lobsters.
We also are extremely slow divers. We don’t even have cameras. We are like Molassus in January slow because we can just stare at one fish for 5 mins. We had some problems keeping up with the previous guides and even lost them on a dive.
We told Doug and he went at the perfect pace, and didn’t seem irritated by it. Lol.
All the other fellow divers that went on the dives with us were very considerate and aware. There was only one dude on the last dive that was a moron. He wasn’t aware of his flippers and hit coral a few times, kept running into other divers because he wanted to get a closer look at sharks, and threw some dead coral at a scorpion fish to get it to move. I wanted to throw a rock at his head.
I think I saw the captain talking to him privately at the end, so i hope they told him to go play in traffic.
Other than that and the uncontrollable forces of Mother Nature our experience with Rainbow Reef was great!
Our favorite sightings were a Balloonfish, smooth trunkfish, scrawled filefish, goatfish (watch them forage it’s awesome!), blue parrotfish, juvenile yellowtail damselfish, and a chain moray!

This is the best dive operation that I have found in the keys. Check out there website it is great. The boats are well maintained and the engines are amazingly clean. This shows that they take very good care of their equipment and when you are diving and using rental equipment that is the most important thing to consider.
They have a super staff and more people than they really need but that goes to show that they are very customer focused. They also have great rates with the local hotels so book thru them.
I am planning on making this a regular trip and bringing mini me as he will love it.
The dives were great saw a black tip and 2 nurse sharks and some great groopers and red snappers.
Going to be adding some videos to the
site when I get back so check them out you can see me getting close and personal with a nurse shark. #thewebdoc #rainbowreef #cactussky

Absolutely amazing! As long as Rainbow Reef is in service I will be coming to them for my Key Largo diving needs. My husband and I had decided to take a long weekend and get our AOW and had originally booked another now defunct operator. I called Rainbow Reef after seeing them on PADIs site and they were able to accommodate my husband and I on our original scheduled date. They mailed us our books and we were able to do everything at home before showing up which I really liked.
The day before our dives our instructor Hannah called us to give us all the details of schedules and see if there were any specific dives we wanted to do, I was also really excited to find out that we grew up in the same area, such a small world! Hannah was absolutely amazing, seriously she was so awesome!!! Hannah was always very calm which is a positive in diving, she always clearly explained everything, was always very thorough, and she was fun!
Our whole weekend of certification more than exceeded our expectations. Everyone we came across with Rainbow Reef was great! The captains on the boats were good at explaining the areas and all of our entries and exits, the first mates were always on top of things, and the other groups (since we were a class) had knowledgeable and fun leaders.
I just cannot say enough good things about this operation! Hannah and the team at Rainbow Reef have inspired us to keep going with our dive education and we will certainly be using them when we do so!

Captain Jordan and First mate Oscar were fun and friendly. Nice boat, smaller group which made it easy on board. Helped with tanks on and off. Helped with fins off. Bow ride in from dive was a sunny delight.

I had a great dive with Rainbow Reef until Brody stole the lens to my GOPRO. I saw it happen but didn’t realize it until I got home and put 2 and 2 together. I never dreamed the boat personnel would participate in thievery. Brett and Brody know exactly what they did. Of course they deny it. All I have to say is hang on to your things and don’t trust anyone! I fly all over the world with my job and write lots of reviews. I’ve been on kits immodest dives. This is the first time anyone ever stole something from me. Find another boat. There are lots to choose from!

My dad and I had a wonderful experience with Rainbow Reef dive center. Our dive master was Jardin who was knowledgable and pointed out all the cool things to see during our dive. The entire crew was nice, knowledgeable, and professional. I would definitely recommend them!

Extremely happy with all of my trips to Rainbow Reef. Immediately started my advanced open water after the PADI open water cert. knowledgeable staff, my instructors have been excellent, safety being drilled over and over for emergency preparedness. The rental gear is Aqua Lung, in perfect condition. Anything you need can be rented or bought at the store. Planning to get their set of Aqua Lung bcd, regulator, and dive computer for around $ 1100. They tailor a set to the type of diving you’re planning to do, in my case wreck and deep. So the Titan reg had to be upgraded to a more expensive one that allows for better air control at depth. Even if not taking a class with them, the boats go out every day to a number of sites, plenty of tourists from around the world on board at times.
Many of the staff are dive masters and keep an eye on them in the water too, especially when it’s hard to say how often vacationers dive and experience levels. Have seen several had to be «assisted» out of unsafe gear and habits. Like the 5’2 woman that insisted she needed 30lb of lead while diving… refused to listen to any advice before jumping in. You can imagine her descent rate lol. Thank god the reef wasn’t harmed! Semi-​soft sand broke the fall. Cheers to them for their caring attitudes and patience in the face of stupidity!

Labor Day weekend dive was crowded but so smoothly run by awesome dive team! Well priced for 2 tanks & all rental gear (gear itself was in good condition too); staff was friendly, capable, relaxed, & knowledgeable!

I spent a great day diving with the Rainbow Reef Dive Center. They run a tight dive operation and carefully check credentials. You need AOW or deep diving experience in order to be allowed to dive the local deep wrecks. The boats were well organized. The big advantage of this dive op is that they put dive masters in the water to guide groups. This is great for diving a deep wreck like the Duane, which is what I dove. Instead of trying to figure the wreck out on my own and wasting air underwater, I was able to just follow the guide. If you are into doing your own thing, you may not enjoy this approach. The staff were cheerful and helpful. They passed out cookies between and after dives. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them for low stress scuba diving in the keys.

My friend and I were planning a dive weekend in Florida, and I guess we forgot to plan ahead. So 4 days before we were supposed to get there, we started doing our dive shop search for the area. The thing with Key Largo is that there’s waaayy too many dive shops, and so research can take forever.
SO glad we ended up with Rainbow Reef though. We had 3 dive days with them, 1 trip on each day, and everytime we were on a boat the crew was fantastic.
They do provide you with a divemaster to guide you through your dive which I honestly appreciate. I’m still a little intimidated to be diving on my own in current.
They’re also extremely careful when picking dive sites. We were supposed to dive the Spiegel on our last day (a deep wreck dive). We arrived at the site, and there were two boats already diving there. The first two divers hopped off the boat, and when the crew saw how hard the divers had to swim against the current, they decided it’s too risky and won’t be any fun to dive down 110 ft and have to swim against current, so we moved locations and dove the Duane instead.
Would absolutely use them again when Im back in the Keys!
Cannot wait!

A buddy of mine decided to head to Miami for his bachelor party so that we could incorporate a few days of diving along with the famed South Beach nightlife.
After a sleepless redeye into MIA and having to deal with a crappy rental car company, we arrived down in Key Largo about 45 mins before the scheduled time to head out for our charter. I would recommend showing up atleast 30 mins prior to give you time to find parking and also to take care of your paperwork. Unlike a few people, it took us a bit of time to find parking as the lot was packed.
The boat was packed with divers and snorkelers so getting setup took a bit longer than normal. It was a hot and humid day so I was anxiously waiting to get into the water. I forget the second dive spot but the first was Rainbow reef. Vis was decent… not the best but the water was nice and warm. Really didn’t need my long sleeve rash guard but wore it just for protection. Our guide was friendly and glad we only had a total of 6. The sealife was decent but I had hoped for more sea life. The crew and captain were super friendly and offered plenty of cold bottled water along with snacks. A big plus for those that don’t come prepared.
If ever back in Miami, I’d definitely make the 1.5 hour drive to go diving with these guys.

I was finishing my last 2 dives to obtain my open water certification and could not have been more impressed. The staff was amazing and took us to the exact location and gave a history and briefed us on what we could expect to see. These were my first two open water dives to benwood and French reef and I had an awesome time! The dive master on board was so energetic and her love for her job showed in every way! Boat was very nice. Was a bit cramped after all the scuba gear was on (we had a full boat!). Will be returning again and cannot wait for another experience like this past one!

Excelente servicio. Tanto la capitán Alicia como su tripulación fueron muy amables en todo momento.
Gente joven con buena onda y que se ve disfrutan el trabajo que hacen. Uno se siente muy cómodo.
Fueron muy profesionales en todo momento incluso cuando me faltaba un poco de lastre y tuvieron que ayudarme en la mitad del buceo.
Hicimos un buceo nocturno muy bueno y vimos una gran cantidad de peces, langostas, etc.
El guía esta incluido en el servicio y además fue muy buena onda.
Recomiendo salir con estos muchachos.

I can’t say enough great things about Rainbow Reef Dive Center in Key Largo! They have a shop on Overseas Hwy/​US-​1 but their marina where you board the charter is located next to Courtyard Marriott, where there’s ample parking and restrooms in the hotel. Their website is extremely helpful and updated hourly. You can call to reserve spots on a charter but they don’t require a deposit for it… which is a huge plus and unlike many others.
We had about 14 – 16 people on each boat but only 6 people were with each guide (and the other 3 – 4 were taking a class with an instructor). The boats have a lot of room– even a ladder so you can enjoy the sun from the top deck! On the first day, we took the Tropical Adventure charter to the Christ of the Abyss statue/​Dry Rocks reef as well as the Hannah M Bell wreck (they changed to this during our surface interval because the visibility was much better). Captain Jordan and first mate Stephan were super helpful and explained everything wonderfully, and our dive masters Jenny & Mike were great. The dives were good but the crew made it even better!
The next morning the same crew (except Emma as the first mate) took us to the advanced dive on the USS Spiegel Grove and our second dive was on Molasses reef instead of the French reef as planned– again because the vis was better. Great dives again, but also because the crew was top notch.
I highly recommend checking out Rainbow Reef for all of your dive needs in the Keys :)