Scuba diving with RC

[rance]

Hi...my son and I are just finishing our cerification and wanted to do our open water dives on our upcoming cruise on oasis. Problem is my son will be 11 1/2 and the shore excursion brochure says must be 12 (even though padi allows certification above 8 years old).

 

Can I arrange the open dives at a local dive shop in port or will it be too risky with ship timing? Do other people arrange own dives outside of shore excursion desk? Will RC allow 11.5 year old dive if completed certification or is the age limit for divers without certification course?

 

Thanks

[Capt_BJ]

If I understand your question, you will have completed book and pool part of certification but need your check out dives . . .

 

IME the dives offered as excursions will not accommodate folks needing their check out dives as these require an instructor .... a typical excursion is led by a dive master and not an instructor

 

You may be able to arrange these on your own depending on where you are going. btw these dives are often called a referral.

 

For example Sunset House in Cayman will usually do these with prior arrangement (shore dives) http://www.sunsethouse.com/training/universal-referral.htm

 

Arranging things outside of the excursions is very popular and most operators have a better idea of the time constraints that you (we) do!!! See the SCUBA forum here

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=40

 

Note: as I recall PADI limits your checkouts to TWO in any one day ... so you need tow days of diving (minimum)

Edited March 20, 2016 by Capt_BJ

[Deptacon]

Hi...my son and I are just finishing our cerification and wanted to do our open water dives on our upcoming cruise on oasis. Problem is my son will be 11 1/2 and the shore excursion brochure says must be 12 (even though padi allows certification above 8 years old).

 

Can I arrange the open dives at a local dive shop in port or will it be too risky with ship timing? Do other people arrange own dives outside of shore excursion desk? Will RC allow 11.5 year old dive if completed certification or is the age limit for divers without certification course?

 

Thanks

 

Arrange with local shop. I do it all of the time, have done it at least a dozen times. I dove with the cruiseship operation once, wont do it again unless its somewhere like Belize where it makes since.

 

What stops are you looking at, I can recommend some shops. you do have to pre-arrange with them and make sure they understand these are checkouts. Although, I have never heard of someone doing check-outs in different place (Cozumel and then Grand Cayman) and seeing how you cant do them all in the same day......I dont know how this plan of yours is going to workout.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Deptacon

[rance]

Thanks for the replies...our itinerary has stops in Nassau, St thomas and st Maarteen.

 

Maybe my plan isn't possible :) I had noticed that RC offers the certification course on board (confined pool dives, theory and open dives), but you have to be 12 years old and my son is 11 1/2.

Also it's very time consuming so was hoping that having the theory, tests and pool dives completed would be best way to go and do the open water dives to finish certification once on trip.

But I dont RC will let him do open dives because he is 6 months below their 12 year old cut off.

 

Thanks again for responses...might just have to plan a separate trip all together to do dives...or ship leaves from FLL. Maybe go down a few day earlier or is FLL not a great dive location?

[Capt_BJ]

I do not believe the referral program prohibits checkouts happening with different instructors or shops. But you should be clear when making arrangements that the shop knows what checkout you are doing 1,2,3,4 (or 1&2, 3&4) as there are different skills to be demonstrated in each.

 

Also, as I recall your son will get Junior Open Water certification which carries a depth restriction of 40 feet. The ship excursion is probably trying to avoid the complication of this restriction. (alto I'll be damned if I can find this on the current PADI web site)

[Capt_BJ]

AHHHH

 

The on board program is the SCUBA DIVER course which is a limited certification

 

it is NOT "Open Water Diver"

[rance]

ahh ok thanks good catch. Subtle wording...So the course taught on the ship isnt the PADI open diver course? I though the price seemed starnge as it was cheaper then on land.

 

Thanks very much. Think I will just plan a separate trip.

[Clarea]

ahh ok thanks good catch. Subtle wording...So the course taught on the ship isnt the PADI open diver course? I though the price seemed starnge as it was cheaper then on land. ...

 

Correct, my wife took the course and can only dive with some sort of instructor (might be using the wrong term), and I believe there is some limitation on depth.

Edited March 20, 2016 by clarea

[Capt_BJ]

looking at the places OASIS goes, I would not have much in the way of recommendations for check outs .....

 

If another trip is an option consider

 

a) The Keys ..... there are many shops in Key Largo and you could complete your dives in two days. dd did the course work by e-learning and then in Key Largo did pool work first morning and two dives in the afternoon on day one .... and two dives in the morning of day two .... DONE. One of my favorite shops is Quiescence Diving Services

http://keylargodiving.com/index.html

Junior Diver depth restrictions don't matter much at most popular Key Largo dive sites as you'd need to dig a hole in the bottom to see 40' most of the time!

 

b) if Cayman is an option: Sunset House .... the shore diving there is first rate and you can have great dives not exceeding 40' .... the staff is excellent and you'll be surrounded by divers. You can also dive Eden Rock, just short walk down the road. (your junior diver would not be able to do most boat dives in Cayman as the top of the wall is typically 70' or deeper . . . ) {after dd complete certification in Key Largo we went to Sunset for a week to build skills ... she was then on her way to an internship at CocoView in Roatan

 

####################

 

WRT the PADI Scuba Diver course: from the PADI web site

 

The PADI Scuba Diver course is a subset of the PADI Open Water Diver course. If you’re short on time but really want to become a diver, the PADI Scuba Diver rating might be right for you ̶ particularly if you expect to go scuba diving primarily with a dive guide. This course is an intermediate step for earning an Open Water Diver certification, if that’s your ultimate goal.

PADI Scuba Divers are qualified to... dive under the direct supervision of a PADI Professional to a maximum depth of 12 metres/40 feet.

 

Basically you do about 1/2 of the book and pool work and only 2 check out dives. IMO there is a basic flaw with this offering tho cuz PADI does not offer a course that is "part 2" to complete OPEN WATER requirements. Sure you COULD do the extra two checkouts BUT you did not complete the book or pool parts. The only way to get them technically is to complete a full OPEN WATER course .....

Edited March 20, 2016 by Capt_BJ

[cruiseguy1016]

ahh ok thanks good catch. Subtle wording...So the course taught on the ship isnt the PADI open diver course? I though the price seemed starnge as it was cheaper then on land.

 

Thanks very much. Think I will just plan a separate trip.

 

Correct, the course on the ship will not get you the Open Water certification. Is there any way you can get your Open Water certification before your cruise? If you can get those dives in at home before you cruise, it will make things so much better for you. Once you have your certification, you can dive anywhere. If the ship won't allow your 12 year old son to dive, there are local dive shops that will. Don't worry about with a local dive shop, their reputation depends on having you back to the ship in time.

[rance]

Thank you all so much for the info. I think we will get all pool work and study work done here at home ( I live in Ontario Canada and the open dives are done in a cold water quarry:eek:) So will complete the open dives before trip in the keyes or possibly a mini trip to Nassau (Atlantis) or Grand Cayman. I am an airline pilot so airfare is affordable to do the quick trips.

 

Thanks again for the info...I'm looking fwd to exploring diving and bonding with son.

 

cheers

[Cruzin-K]

I see you already got some great answers, but I'm going to also recommend Key Largo. You can get there easily from Ft. Lauderdale, just a short drive down, and dive sites there are great for beginners. The water is warm, very clear, and not too deep. I went diving there shortly after getting certified and it was amazing.

[rance]

Thanks Cruzin k that sounds perfect. ..I'm not too interested in deep dives so that sounds great.

[larkwind]

Your precruise checkout dives minitrip sounds great. Our son (14yo) did his checkout dives last year in Hawaii via a landbased vacation. This year as a jr ow diver he could go diving w us in Gr Cayman off the Navigator. They broke the group into three smaller dive groups and ours went toward the beach/away from the wall so we never went below 60 ft. The other two divers in our group were inexperienced as well, so no one minded missing the wall (dh and I were happy to trade the wall for the chance to dive w our youngest!) If RC won't bend the 12yo rule, contact a dive training shop and arrange a nonship dive...they'll get you back in good time. Enjoy!

[Capt_BJ]

if flight $ is not an issue, one thing to consider about Sunset House versus a Keys trip or Atlantis/Nassau

 

In the Keys the diving is boat diving .... ALL the diving is off shore. IME this applies to Nassau as well .... I've never seen a shore dive offered in Nassau. SO you dive when the boat goes or you don't dive (or snorkel)

 

At Sunset, the reef is a few yards from your room. Once certified you can dive any time you want ..... if you went for 3 or 4 diving days you could complete your checkouts in 2 days and swing a few more 'experience dives' as well to build your confidence.

(diving days usually means no diving within 24 hours of departing flight, and since you'd not yet be certified you'd probably not dive on your arrival day ... BUT you COULD snorkel as much as you wanted!)

 

That's why I took dd to Sunset for 'experience'. We did 3 dives a day, a two tank boat in the AM and a shore in the afternoon or night. A week after getting her card she had experience to 100 feet and night dives .... ready for her 6 weeks on Roatan counting sea horses!

Edited March 20, 2016 by Capt_BJ

[Pallybean]

I would highly recommend doing your complete Open Water certification at a local dive shop and then enjoy your vacation. Yes it's cold, I'm a PADI SCUBA Instructor in California and the temperature in Monterey Bay this morning when I took my students was mid 50's. However it's only 4 short dives in the cold water to complete the cert and they will set you up with proper exposure suits. 3 of the dives are mostly skills so you'll be too busy to think about being cold. If you hate cold water diving then you'll never have to do it again, however you might enjoy it too!

[rance]

Thanks again for all the tips. Sounds like it will be a great sport for us.

[danacline]

My son and I did our pool and classroom work in Kansas City, and arranged to do our 4 certification dives on a cruise. This was Princess, maybe 10 years ago, and my son was 17 or so. We contacted a dive shop in Cozumel, and another in Grand Cayman. We had no problems doing our two dives in each location, and had plenty of time left over to wander the ports. We had the dive masters sign the appropriate paperwork, which we then submitted to PADI upon our return home.

 

It worked great, and we really loved the dives in Grand Cayman - they were right off shore, just a block or two from the tender pier, and had great terrain and fish.

 

Don't forget to take your dive log books!

[Summerknight]

My DH will never book a dive with Royal again. They tend to get cancelled due to lack of interest.

[Deptacon]

Thanks for the replies...our itinerary has stops in Nassau, St thomas and st Maarteen.

 

Maybe my plan isn't possible :) I had noticed that RC offers the certification course on board (confined pool dives, theory and open dives), but you have to be 12 years old and my son is 11 1/2.

Also it's very time consuming so was hoping that having the theory, tests and pool dives completed would be best way to go and do the open water dives to finish certification once on trip.

But I dont RC will let him do open dives because he is 6 months below their 12 year old cut off.

 

Thanks again for responses...might just have to plan a separate trip all together to do dives...or ship leaves from FLL. Maybe go down a few day earlier or is FLL not a great dive location?

 

It MAY be possible to do the checkouts with different shops, but its a long shot... its worth looking into and asking though. If its all the same company (all PADI shops and PADI instruction for example) they may let you do it.... Its going to take some communication and coordination on your part though....

 

2 dives in 1 spot, 2 dives in another, 1 more dive at the final stop. I would dive all 3 places anyway so....

Edited March 21, 2016 by Deptacon

[Deptacon]

I would highly recommend doing your complete Open Water certification at a local dive shop and then enjoy your vacation. Yes it's cold, I'm a PADI SCUBA Instructor in California and the temperature in Monterey Bay this morning when I took my students was mid 50's. However it's only 4 short dives in the cold water to complete the cert and they will set you up with proper exposure suits. 3 of the dives are mostly skills so you'll be too busy to think about being cold. If you hate cold water diving then you'll never have to do it again, however you might enjoy it too!

 

What he said.....knock it out before you go....enjoy awesome diving in the carib on your vacation.