PADI Scuba Diver Certification Course on Royal Caribbean

[airbornewilly]

Does anybody have any exciting stories to tell about this opportunity? Is it a decent deal at $250? Does it take up too much time on the ship as far as the classes and the pool dives or is it just the right amount to help kill some of the dead time? I am leaving on a RCL cruise in May and I am strongly considering doing this. I have always wanted to become a diver and I figured this might be a good opportunity both time wise and financially. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[coiran]

I don't know about RCI, but have experience on Princess - takes the better part of 4 days on the ship plus some beforehand home study. $250 is a good deal if it covers everything - Princess charges $350 and that was a good deal compared to what is charged around here.

Ron

[sea-jay]

Airborne - Although the excursion brochure states that it takes up only 12.5 hours (including the 4.5 hour dive trip, that is diving, class and pool time only. I would suggest you also have to have at least one hour of study for each hour of class time. Remember, you are entering a very dangerous sport. It isn't like rollerblading where you might bruise yourself or break a leg. This sport can kill you if you don't know what you are doing.

 

What ship are you sailing? Does it have a lot to do? If one of the Voyager class ships, you can be so busy you wont get to experience everything to do and see, so you wont have much 'dead' time to kill.

 

The price is about right. I paid $240 for my initial course which included all the books and study material, 6 hours of class room instruction/quizes, 4 hours of pool time, two lake dives in central Florida (another 2 hours in the water) where I live, and two ocean dives.

 

You didn't say where you live but most larger cities have at least one scuba store. I would recommend getting certified before the cruise. If you don't have time, I suggest a 'discover scuba' excursion on the cruise, (You are limited to about 30 feet in depth with more personal attention from a dive master) which will give you enough taste to determine if you want to go the full course.

 

One word of warning, if you don't live near places where you can dive, this sport can get really expensive (driving to the ocean, hotel rooms, etc, etc, etc.:D in order to dive). Then there is the cost of all the gear. After all, you will want to own the equipment you trust your life to wouldn't you? So far, I have over $2,000 invested and that doesn't count the $1,500 or so for a good digital camera and underwater housing. Then, you have to add all the money spent for cruises and travel each year so you can dive in some of the more exotic places.

 

Happy bubbles!:)

[Middleager]

$250 is an excellent deal for OW certification, if it includes the 4 OW dives. Do check if it is just the class/material, pool lessons, and maybe the 4 dives are extra. I kind of suspect the 4 actual OW dives are extra as they are two port excursion trips.

 

You can get all the class/pool lessons in the world, but it is the experience in real open water that really makes the difference. After getting the OW certification, do many more guided dives following a DM, then you'll really get the hang of it.

 

Scuba is a really fun (and expensive) sport. You'll enjoy it.

[iamkidc]

From what I read it sounds like this is the PADI Scuba Diver Course, not PADI Open Water Scuba Diver Course. You will not get full certification taking this course and a lot of the excursions are for fully certified divers... Someone correct me if I am wrong... I suggest trying to get certified before you cruise.

 

 

Sea-Jay, With who and where in Orlando did you get certified?

[sea-jay]

iamkidc - My original PADI OW certification was with Florida Scuba Connection in Winter Garden (just south of Hy 50). They closed up shop. My instructor lives over in Tampa now.

 

My PADI Advanced Open Water Cert was with a dive shop on South Kirkman Road, Extasea Divers, but the owner/instructor retired and sold out.

 

The new owner, Mike Butler of Dixie Sands Scuba, will be certifying me on Nitrox with classes this evening and I will be diving in WPB on the 22nd with Ocean Quest Scuba as referral. (Referral because I am the only student and Mike didn't have a class to take down for diving.) Mike is a NAUI instructor, not PADI, but I really have no preference.

 

Both PAADI and NAUI are good organizations and recognized anywhere divers dive. Since I have no desire to become an instructor at all, and the only future certs I will be going for are 'knowledge' rather than 'skill' certs, any instruction is sufficient and I don't have to re-do anything I have already gone thru.

 

With my history, next year when I want to do Wreck diving cert, or something else, I will have to find a new operation/instructor.:D

 

Join us over on the Florida cruiser's board. We get together once in a while to party and meet. Here is the link: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=45106&page=128

 

Middleager - I agree with your assessment. I wasn't paying attention to the RCL Excursion. You need 4 open water dives to be certified as PADI "Open Water" and the excursion only listed two dives at one port as part of the $250 'excursion' fee. I assume you would have to pay for another dive opportunity which would cost another $70-90 (depending on dive operation) and you would also have to have a referral from RCI.

 

happey bubbles.

[airbornewilly]

I actually would like to be certified before I leave, just so I don't have to waste time in class while im on the boat. I am going on the Mariner of the Seas, which is in the voyager class, so I imagine there will be a lot of things to keep me busy! The only problem I see is that I am leaving on May 7th and im not sure if I will be able to get certified before then. Another thing is that my girlfriend is coming on the cruise and wants to get certified as well. Th only problem with doing before is that she is a flight attendant and does not have more than 2 days off in a row between now and the cruise. Do they have crash courses in the Daytona/Orlando area that would allow us to get it done that quickly? Thanks for all the responces.

[Middleager]

Ah ok. Now that makes sense.

 

So it is the PADI Scuba Diver certification. The $250 is not a great deal, bt is still a reasonable price if it includes one excursion trip with two OW dives. It gets you more than half way toward the PADI OW certification, which is what most people refer as scuba certification.

 

I'll share with you a little story of how I found out the difference myself.

I was NAUI OW certified, and the certification card says Scuba Diver. Once in Cuba, the dive op (which was neither PADI or NAUI, but some less-known name agency) would not allow me to go deeper than 15m (40'). Two days later I went to a different dive op (still in Cuba) and had no problem and we went to fantastic wall dives to 27m (95') at the Bay of Pigs. After that trip I learned that PADI had the Scuba Diver certification. It is a good program that gives people credit for getting half way to the OW certification. It then downed on me that the first dive op must have interpreted the NAUI Scuba Diver to be like the PADI Scuba Diver certification, not the OW certification.

 

Last year I got PADI AOW and Nitrox certified. Now with the AOW card I would have no problem going on deep dives.

 

 

If you are going for the $250 PADI Scuba Diver certification, I'd suggest going on one more port excursion dive trip and get two more referal OW dives, and complete your PADI OW certification. It costs a little extra, but you get the OW card.

 

In fact, you might want to inquire with RCI if they can set it up for you. If RCI goes to the trouble to set up this PADI Scuba Diver certification program, then hopefully they will go that extra one step to cater to those who want to have one more excursion dive trip count. Even if they don't have such a program yet, ask them to set it up because you are proving to them there is interest.

[airbornewilly]

Thats a great idea! I will definitely contact them and at least see what they say. I am still going to see if I cant get OW certified before the cruise in Orlando or here in Daytona, but i guess it just depends on how long the classes take.

[iamkidc]

airbornewilly, if you are looking to get certified in Orlando try http://www.dayoscuba.com . They provide all the scuba gear you need so there is nothing for you to purchase (huge savings!). You do a lot of the bookwork on cd-rom at your own time cutting down on a lot of the classroom time, and they are very flexible on scheduling your pool time/OW dives. I got my OW, AOW, and Nitrox certifications with them. I have even gone back to them a few times to do some fun manatee/spring dives too.

 

Price: $339 for the first person (all inclusive) & $199 for each additional person (all inclusive)

[airbornewilly]

Thanks iamkidc, I will definitely check them out. I have another question, if I do the cruise class, does that include all the written tests for OW certification? If this is the case I am guessing I will just need 2 more dives to complete it which doesnt sound too bad. What I dont want to do is waste time taking classes on the boat and then have to take more classes on land in addition to the two extra dives to get OW certified. Maybe somebody knows about this?

[airbornewilly]

I would like to find somebody that actually did this course on the ship, I have put alot of thought into it and I think that even though I will need two more dives to become OW certified, I am still going to do it. I think it will be a good experience for my GF and I, not to mention that we probably wouldn't be able to do it together otherwise considering our conflicting schedules. Hopefully someone that has done it already can chime in on this.

[JodiBB]

From what I read it sounds like this is the PADI Scuba Diver Course, not PADI Open Water Scuba Diver Course. You will not get full certification taking this course and a lot of the excursions are for fully certified divers... Someone correct me if I am wrong... I suggest trying to get certified before you cruise.

I'm hearing the same thing....to be a full OW diver, there is 3 class sessions of 3-1/2 hours each, 4 pool session, usually 3 hours each and then 4 check-out dives. That's a lot of time to be spending for only $250. I'm guessing this is the SCUBA certification and not the Open Water certification.

 

I also agree that if you're serious about getting OW certification, do it BEFORE your vacation, so you have more time to enjoy the vacation and dive as an OW diver. Otherwise, you'll be spending lots of your vacation time studying, doing knowledge reviews and practicing rather than doing the real thing!

[Dragon Lady]

Yes it is the Scuba Diver Cert, but you can also do the Open Water for another 100-150 (i can't quite remember the extra price). My sister and I did it last May on the Navigator and it was alot of fun. The schedule went like this ...

 

Saturday - sign up and get your book.

Sunday morning - pool session, approx 2.5 hours in the salt water pool

Sunday Afternoon - lounged by the pool with my MP3 player on and reviewed the 4 required chapters of the book (would be all 6 for the open water)

Monday - 4PM - 7PM classroom session in the conference room.

Wednesday - 2 dives in the Caymans.

That's it for the Scuba Cert ... now for the remaining parts for the open water...

Wednesday later afternoon - classroom session to cover the remaining chapters.

Thursday - two dives in Cozumel.

 

We really enjoyed it, and would have done the full open water, except we already had planned some excursions for Cozumel ...

 

However, we will be finishing the OW this May when we are back on the Navigator. The instructors were great and I never really felt like I was missing out on anything. I highly recommend it!

 

Have fun,

D.

[waterrats]

My BIL did the padi course on our cruise back in 2002. It is the beginner part of the course. This was abourd Voyager of the Seas. It included his course work, pool sessions, and 2 open water dives. I think he paid about $300 for that. He needed to take the second half of the course within a year to get his full certification. My suggestions would be to either get certified before the cruise or take the full cert class on the ship which hopefully is also offered.

 

Dragon Lady - Make sure that you finish the course within the years time because PADI could be very strict if you miss it by a few weeks. IF there is a chance you may miss it by a week, I would suggest calling PADI to verify it will still be accepted.

[Ravenchylde]

I going to do the PADI cert. course as well but on Adventure of the seas, 12 hrs. total 4.5 of which is actual excursion :) , all the book and pool work is done while at sea so you wont miss the island, or ports of call. I'm so excited:D ...I bought scuba diving for dummies, just leave the site like you found it , touch nothing, coral is very delicate, has coating to protect it if you touch it you could damage it, or worse, fire coral will not be a good experience it you mess with it, practice good bouyancy control and you won't bump into anything and don't stick you hands in holes you don't know what's in there:eek: ;) , you are going to have the time of your life!:D

[depwife]

Many places offer weekend classes. I live in Ft. Myers, FL and have bought a weekend class for my husband for his PADI Open Water cert. All day Sat & Sun - $175 for class/cert. The following weekend is a mandatory trip to the Keys for 4 dives - $165 for hotel and dives. So, total of $340 for cert. He just needs to get good snorkel gear first.