OP
KnowledgeIsPower
Registered
There's definitely some easier diving. When we did a liveaboard our very first dive was a aquarium like no-current dive with a bottom. Still nice enough, but obviously chosen as a checkout site. I'm sure there was more of that available, but everyone on the boat was experienced so I think after that they were trying for the best sites as far as marine life and scenery, and not worrying about more advanced conditions. I expect any land based resort that caters to some inexperienced divers has easier sites they can go to.
To the OP, is this something you have to decide in advance? Many resort places are fairly flexible on working in a course, assuming they have the people to do it. I suggest you ask them if that would be a problem, then dive there for a day and see how you're feeling about things then. How would doing the class cut into your 10 dives? You will still be diving if you take the class, just that you will be doing various training exercises during some of your dives. If you are concerned about losing dives you have already paid for, talk to them about it. As long as whatever additional they charge you for the class doesn't include charges for the boat dives, or they can apply the money from some of your purchased dives to your class, you won't have lost anything. Heck, maybe once you are there you can add some more dives.
They seem to be a smaller shop (they are on a local island), so I think they are fairly flexible. As for the dives, my biggest issue is we are only there for 6 days because traveling here from the US takes 35 hours each way because of all the connections! The first and last days we cannot dive because of the 24 hour no-dive advice (We arrive at Noon the first day and leave in the evening the last day). So we only really have 4 days of diving. The shop has a 3-dive/day capacity so I can really only do up to 12 dives.
They told me the class takes 3 days because of the Knowledge Reviews...so I am not sure if that means if I can only do 2 dives/day when taking the class, I have to confirm with them. And while I agree that doing exercises while diving will still be fun, I probably will be in shallower water for some of the dives and not really get to experience the nicer dive sites that the Maldives offers.
We are thinking for now it may be a better idea to for us to just stick with our OW and do the 10 dives and do the AOW later next summer when we come back (our lake freezes over until mid-may). Unless they can compress the class for us or allow us to do extra dives in addition to the AOW dives during class days I am not sure it is the best idea given our schedule.