I was interested to become a licensed skydiver and was looking for a dropzone that would be extremely student-friendly. My friend and I have started at another dropzone in Long Island and quite soon we have become disappointed with the organization of the process there. The dropzone and stuff there were extremely cool, but the whole drop zone seemed to be more tandem-oriented. We have decided to check Skydive the Ranch as it was a recommendation of many people on the forum and seemed to be a logical choice. We have called the Ranch regarding Theory class availability and we were able to start our AFF course there pretty much on the following day. Everything went perfect - at this point we are allowed to do solo jumps. Sometimes the wind wouldn't allow us to jump or sometimes we would fail a level, but skydiving wouldn't be so exciting if we didn't have to overcome certain difficulties on the way to our license. The stuff there is more than great - every time I leave the drop zone I miss them. Also, we have brought some people there to make tandem jumps - they were extremely happy about the jump and also think that this is a perfect place. Of course, I am planning to travel and jump in all possible locations, but I will always refer to Skydive the Ranch as my home drop zone - the place where I started making my first steps in flying and continue making jumps whenever the weather permits.