Skydive Space Center

I have been the pilot at Skydive Space Center for about 1½ years now and I really enjoy flying here, so it saddens me to see that some people say they had a bad experience here. I know that some of the bad reviews here have been written by the same person, who for a long time has not been welcome here for many reasons. I will let it be up to other readers to decide if they think the reviews are genuine or if some bad ones have been made up to give a great DZ a bad reputation.
With regards to a comment made about offensive remarks towards somebody talking with an accent, I find that very hard to believe. Most of the people here have quite a bit of an accent and we all sound funny, including me.

Here are some facts about our DZ:

We have 2 King Air Taurus 90. These planes have been modified with PT6A-135 engines. This gives you an airplane with 1,500 horsepower. This is enough to take 15 people to 15,000 feet in 7 minutes or 18,000 feet in 9 minutes. If your have 2 rigs and a fast packer you can do 4 skydives from 18,000 feet in an hour. There are not many places in the world where this is possible. On most rides to altitude we fly right next to the Kennedy Space Center, and on clear days you can see straight across Florida all the way to Tampa.
As the pilot here, I do my best to give all of you a safe and comfortable ride to altitude, with a green light for exit at the right spot, by combining both GPS and visual check. If people are slow at exiting and you or I feel that we are too far out, we will just do a 180 and fly back so you can exit at a comfortable distance from the airport.
Nobody wants people to land out, including us. So if anyone has comments/corrections with regards to the jump-run, please feel free to talk to me, instructors or the organizers. After all, you are the one feeling the drift in freefall & under canopy not me.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would have difficulty finding a packer here. Normally that is not a problem. I will even pack to help people get on the load, unless I’m flying of course.

We have a full rigging service by Griffon Rigging, the bathrooms are cleaned every day, and on weekends Mali is normally making lunch in the kitchen.

If you want to stay here for a while, we have a free bunk house for those who are here to skydive. This is a real house, with washer, dryer, dishwasher, stove, microwave, coffee maker, TV, 2 baths and AC. Only request is that you skydive and clean up after yourself since you have to share the house with others.

As anywhere in the world, now and then you find some people that you dislike. However, overall I feel that we are a great bunch of people here, both staff and regular fun jumpers. We have people here of all skill levels, from just off student status to 13,000 + jumps. If you want to jump with someone, be it freefly or belly, you can find somebody to do that with. I have yet to see anybody be bumped off a jump because of their skill level. The organizer will find a safe position for you in the formation. Don’t be surprised if you are invited to join someone on their jump.
If you love to Skydive either with your team or by yourself, Come and visit us here at Skydive Space Center.

Blue skies,
Snorre

We my husband and I were on our way to a boogie in the Keys. We were stopping at all the Dz's in Florida and came across this one that was very disappointing. We have a bit of an accent and found some remarks offensive. They need to learn the meaning of the word TACT. The ability to maintain good relationships while not being offensive. My husband felt as though everyone was staring at me excessively and I was being talked down to by the men there. When my husband asked who the manager was they were very allusive in addressing our concerns. I have read some of the reviews and can understand both the negative and positive but we had observed more negative than positive. We visited most of the dz's in Florida and only found this one to be problematic. Found it hard to get a pack job as everyone seemed to busy to help me. Maybe they should get some more help. Having only 12 jumps now I have not learned to pack my main yet. When I asked about being taught they again seemed uninterested and encouraged me to take a 50 dollar class on how to pack my main. My husband has hundreds of jumps and says he has never had such a horrible skydiving day in his life and encourages everyone to avoid this place and heed their negative reviews.

Before skydiving here I had read all of the reviews on this site. Some of them had mentioned a negative and/or arrogant attitude from all the instructors there. I believe these all stemmed from the lengthy post from the person who had some personal problems with the owner. I would recommend that you keep your personal problems personal. The instructors here were all very friendly and willing to help in any way. I am very new to the sport (don't even have my A license yet) and I didn't feel that anyone was looking down their nose at me. Everyone greeted me with a handshake and a smile and gave me a big congratulations when I completed my AFF course here. I think this DZ is very organized and the facilities and setup promote skydiving. I recommend this DZ to anyone passing through.

My first DZ in the US and I was spoilt. Open, friendly and willing to help staff. They may not be able to jump 7 days a week but you don't miss out when they do and the weekends rock. I loved the plane the altitude and the help and kindess I recieved from some of the staff I will always be grateful for. Great place, loved it recommend it to anyone. Go jump the space centre.

Skydive Space Center is by far one of the best DZs in Florida. I have been jumping on and off for about 6 years now,a nd I always end up back at Space Center. The location is great, the view is amazing, and you can't beat the altitude you can get there! The whole staff is very friendly, and the local jumpers are willing to help out anyone that asks.
As for what some others are posting here. I'm just perplexed. I don't see the staff and locals as clicky. Yes, a few might be, but you will get that everywhere you go. My second day jumping there, I went out with a group of the locals for dinner, and the next week, I was invited to a party. Here I am, brand new, and not knowing anyone there, and I'm not being pushed away, but invited to join in with them.
There's also been comments about "offensive suggestions geared mostly towards women to skydive naked" on this site. We all know that every DZ jokes around about naked jumps. Within the past 2 years or me jumping at SSC, I have only seen 1 naked jump, and that was do to a video crew shooting a DVD there.
Truthfully, I recommend this DZ highly. I consider it my second home, and family. I have learned so much about skydiving because of the people at SSC. Everyone is there to help each other out, even Greg. I think that we should appreciate a place where people want to talk to you about mistakes or mishaps that happened, so that they can be corrected, and you don't get hurt. I recommend that you come and check out skydive space center for yourself, and see what everyone is talking about. It is one of the best DZs in Florida, if not in the US.

I have to say I'm surprised at both the negative and positive recent reviews. I have looked at the last 5 and noticed only two have details in user profiles. This concerns me. I must say I have noticed attitudes for all five of the past reviews. Unfortunetly, I do not reccomend this DZ at all. They are very clicky, the owner is not very nice most of the time, and the remarks of offensive suggestions geared mostly towards women to skydive naked can be validated with me. I only will go here in a pinch. I would never take my friends here when I do travel to different DZ's. I have been to many DZ's and had never experienced the attitudes that come from this DZ. Last time I was there which was recently I was encourage to give a review on DZ.com I now I see why. It seems as some of those actions are now just starting to haunt them and they are trying desperately to conter balance them. I really do hope the reviews will make them treat all people equally and not be so unprofessional towards the woman.
My words of wisdom
Anita

This was my first trip to Fl skydiving and SSC is the BOMB! Great people great planes! And a beautiful view. Stacey in Manifest works her a$$ off to get it all done there. Keep up the good work! Dan from Canada EH!

I cant believe that anyone would have anything bad to say about this place that didnt work at another drop zone or was imposible to please anywhere. I took aff there and my instructor yoshi was absolutely amazing.I felt that when I made my first jump I knew everything I would ever know about making a nice controlled safe skydive. Everyone is so friendly that I cant believe someone would say anything negative about them.I have gotten more free coaching from the staff than I could ever imagined. I feel like there is no way I would be this far along if I jumped somewhere else.The owner greg is as cool as a fan.He has even made a coached jump with me for free because he wanted to see how I was doing to convert me to throw out. I have 50 jumps now and feel like I am family out there and I was just a walk in.And for fun jumpers,you will never have a lack of people that would leave you out of a jump if you wanted to get in on something. So if your looking for a great time and atmosphere theres no better place than here. So be cool and friendly and you will get treated like family when you go out.

I spent a day off on my business trip at Skydive Space Center. I just want to say big thanks to everyone making it such a great place! Friendly and helpful people, well-organized loads, 15,500' standard on every jump. The view from above is spectacular! Too bad there was a problem with King Air, so that 18,000' load didn't happen. Maybe, next time... On summer afternoons winds and thunderstorms are almost guaranteed, so plan to be there early. If I ever again come to the area, I will definitely be back. Go there, you'll enjoy your every minute at Skydive Space Center!

While I was in FL for work I had the opportunity to visit Skydive Space Center. It has a very welcoming atmosphere, from the manifest to the organizers, everyone was very friendly. Space Center has VERY good organizers for all disciplines, and will make sure that a visitor has someone to jump with. Who can complain that you get 15,000 ft for each dive? I will definitely be back to Space Center, and will recommend it to anyone.

Spent the weekend (Apr 3-4)at the Space Center. If you haven't been there yet and are looking for a place to jump in FL, I highly recommend this DZ.

Guaranteed 15,000 on each jump for only $17, you can't beat that with a stick. The bunk house is FREE, only reqires a small deposit for the key. The packers perform good pack jobs. All modern facilities and great people.

The only areas I could find fault with, and these are only because I'm not used to them, was sandy landing area next to the hanger (although you can land in the grassy area in the main landing area), the planes are stored in the same area where packing is performed (which may lead to damaged canopy fabric if one of the AC had/has a fuel/oil leak. The winds were marginal on Sat and strong on Sun.

Overall a great place to jump. I was able to find several jumpers who were up to jumping with a visitor. At the end of each jump, I got very good vibes that all had a great time.

Looking forward to visiting the Space Center again.

After our tunnel trip my team went to SSC to try out our new found skills. The staff there was very friendly an so helpful. We called them sunday to find out if there would be loads on monday. They said that they would. We show up monday and manifest goes out of their way (calling up jumpers to come out and help get loads up) to help us. All in all by the end of the day we got 6 loads up. Just as we felt things were starting to slow down jumpers start showing up. Everyone was so helpful. And not to mention the view of the Space center on the ride up is amazing.

The only problem I had the day I spent there was out of the DZ's control, the weather. We jumped from 13,000, in pretty strong wind, and many clouds. The folks at the DZ were very easy to get along with, as were all the other jumpers. I plan on a return visit, hopefully to blue calm skies!

That's right... 15000' on EVERY jump. You can't beat the altitude. Any more and you'd need O2. The people here are great and the view... wow. Jump AND see the Kennedy Space Center all at once. It is a really cool place. The only bad thing was the amount of "outs" that could or could not contain alligators and other swamp wildlife. Either way, it was an excellent place that I would love to revisit.

I jumped here last week, the staff was wonderful. Some of the fun jumpers had a big head. But other than that I had a wonderful time. I plan to go back as soon as I can. The 15,000 Ft jump was pretty cool, it would've been nice to get to jump with someone else. But I went out during the week so I didn't have the option. Thanx For the Jumps.

Derek Lewis
D-24034

I never jumped before. I passed today to the 3rd level aff. No complaint; excelent trainers( joshie and greg)very concern with my safety, fastest airplane, awesome view. Looking forward to get my A lic.

I just had a wonderful time at Skydive Space Center. I went there as a level 3 AFF dropout, refreshed and finished the AFF sequence in one weekend, and made much progress toward my A-license the following weekend. The instructors are highly skilled skydivers and patient, effective teachers. Manifest is friendly and helpful. They went out of their way to assist me with the advance planning and execution of my trip. The riggers were incredibly focused and patient with me, both in sorting out some issues with assembling my first rig, and in teaching me to pack my own main. (I was not a particularly fast learner…) The other skydivers were also very friendly and helpful. There is an extremely high level of organization and safety consciousness, yet the atmosphere remains pleasant and relaxed, which eases the learning and anxiety burdens on a beginner. The bunkhouse is a tremendous resource to travelers, and it’s very cost effective (which means more money for jumping!). The aircraft are just beautiful machines. In my time at Skydive Space Center, I observed many tandem jumps, and would recommend this dropzone to anyone considering a tandem for themselves or as a gift. The video flying and editing skills of these people is most impressive, so do not forgo this option. Overall, the experience was overwhelmingly positive. I jump-started my stalled skydiving endeavor, had a vacation experience I will never forget, and made some friends with whom I intend to visit again soon.

Blue Skies!

Chad H. Phillips

I've been to a few places in Florida and none equal the people I've met in space center. There are no attitudes here like some other local dropzones, (I won't mention any names...DELAND). This is a great place for beginners, mid-level, and experienced jumpers and I highly reccommend it.

I chose SSC from the web as the dropzone for my 1st ever jump with another friend as tandem "newbies", on a visit to Florida back in December 2001.
How did it go?..... We both enjoyed the experience so much, by the end of May 2002 we had both rustled up enough cash to be back out there and get ourselves through AFF.
Could write loads about the entire staff and how they instantly made us part of their family.... don't want to embarass though :)
Since then, we are on a plane at every opportunity and back over at SSC to jump at a spectacular location with some of the nicest people we know.
Looking for a cool DZ or want to learn to SkyDive? - This is the place to be. Brilliant location, excellent kit, awesome people....
Worth a 6000 mile round trip from the UK any day.

Enough said really.... :)

(Oh yeah - and as Mel says, lots of girl jumpers too!)

This drop zone has the some most spectacular views in Florida from beautiful sunsets jumps overlooking NASA to incredible views of Florida Swamplands, the intercoastal waterway and the Atlantic ocean. All of the staff are among the most pleasant and helpful people I have ever met - not to mention that all of the jumpers there are totally cool as well.
I would recommend this DZ to anyone - infact, I even had my Mother and Aunt do a tandem there!

Firstly, what a great DZ. The airport is not too busy, nice hangar for packing and the landing area is large. Jumping altitude is either 15'000 or 18'000!!!!! The 15'000 jumps are perfect and for only $19 or $18. They fly a King Air which does 15k in 6.5 minutes, and the 18k in 8 minutes, no BS!!!! The view is amazing, and there is a bunk house which is free if you do 5 or more jumps per day. Only thing that sucks is the Mon-Fir jumping is non-existant, but that probably adds to the character and is what the owners want. To summarise, not a major DZ, but really really good, just wish they did more loads mid-week.

Skydive Spacecenter is the safest Dropzone I have ever visited. The staff is very friendly and they have a great Bunkhouse (free if you do more than 5 jumps a day).

I made it! Completed the AFF course, having a lot of fun with the people thereat. The drop zone is not one of the "big ones", but therefore much more personal than others. I enjoyed the excellent view very much, jumping @ 15K. The packing area is quite big and they usually fly-up with a Caravan, taking up to 19 jumpers.
The jumpmasters are at a very good skill taking a lot of care for ye. They won't let you jump if it's to windy .-)
I'll come back there!

It is great to plan a trip (here from germany) to the Skydive Spacecenter. You can manage everything by eMail with them, they do help you a lot and - what might be very important - yes, they do answer your mails usually within 2 days. So I wanna give 5 stars for the customer service

What I did not like is, that the website and the data maintained at dropzone.com is out of date. A new owner is in there from July 2001 and prices have changed accordingly from about 995 up to 1290.
So I wann give 3 stars for the maintenance, but they have a nice web site at all with good information for tourists.

I'll keep you up, when I've completed the AFF course and still alive :-)

Yours, Florin