InTheDrink
Contributor
(Partial) retraction time: I posted late last night and after a bottle of particularly heady rioja - apologies for the particularly ill thought post.
I've seen enough OW courses in action to believe that the standard is too low. Watching beginners plow through the water like they're running a 400m race isn't a nice vista. And putting people in situations where they're very uncomfortable isn't nice or clever either and I think that the standards of PADI (and perhaps others, I don't know) is conducive to a crap experience and turning people off diving. But again, I think it's the minimum standards thing that's the problem and I think that most resort diving courses will suffer from this because of simple economics. People are unlikely to be repeat customers so retention for a particular resort is unlikely to be a huge factor (although I'm sure it still is a factor).
So apologies, I was way off last night. In fact it may well have been my evil twin posting.
I probably wouldn't give my children to any agency before checking out who was going to train them, what the syllabus was, how many hours, etc. and then attending some of the classes. I wouldn't want them to have a bad experience that put them off and I've already seen this happen with some friends and colleagues that I've introduced to diving. Being brought in at the absolute minimum level is really no level at all in which to feel comfortable.
I still maintain that there should be a middle ground, but no doubt that's all others here are arguing also. I think the topics covered in the PADI OW course are fine but it's just the time allotted to assimilating these that isn't. One would have thought that a simple tweaking of these hours and class ratios would have the desired effect but I guess the economics doesn't add up (especially in the resort context).
My buddy has just started a dive operation in Thailand with the express intent of providing a superior training and diving experience. He's got lots of nice kit in. A very nice and fast boat. The course and trips will cost a bit more than his competitors. He's trying to link up with some of the more upmarket hotels where price isn't such a big factor. However, he is expecting to be disappointed because time and again, people choose price over quality in the vast majority of scenarios.
I'd be happy to give my kids to a PADI instructor, or any other recreational agency instructor, as long as they put the time in to make sure my kids had properly assimilated the very basic skills.
J
I've seen enough OW courses in action to believe that the standard is too low. Watching beginners plow through the water like they're running a 400m race isn't a nice vista. And putting people in situations where they're very uncomfortable isn't nice or clever either and I think that the standards of PADI (and perhaps others, I don't know) is conducive to a crap experience and turning people off diving. But again, I think it's the minimum standards thing that's the problem and I think that most resort diving courses will suffer from this because of simple economics. People are unlikely to be repeat customers so retention for a particular resort is unlikely to be a huge factor (although I'm sure it still is a factor).
So apologies, I was way off last night. In fact it may well have been my evil twin posting.
I probably wouldn't give my children to any agency before checking out who was going to train them, what the syllabus was, how many hours, etc. and then attending some of the classes. I wouldn't want them to have a bad experience that put them off and I've already seen this happen with some friends and colleagues that I've introduced to diving. Being brought in at the absolute minimum level is really no level at all in which to feel comfortable.
I still maintain that there should be a middle ground, but no doubt that's all others here are arguing also. I think the topics covered in the PADI OW course are fine but it's just the time allotted to assimilating these that isn't. One would have thought that a simple tweaking of these hours and class ratios would have the desired effect but I guess the economics doesn't add up (especially in the resort context).
My buddy has just started a dive operation in Thailand with the express intent of providing a superior training and diving experience. He's got lots of nice kit in. A very nice and fast boat. The course and trips will cost a bit more than his competitors. He's trying to link up with some of the more upmarket hotels where price isn't such a big factor. However, he is expecting to be disappointed because time and again, people choose price over quality in the vast majority of scenarios.
I'd be happy to give my kids to a PADI instructor, or any other recreational agency instructor, as long as they put the time in to make sure my kids had properly assimilated the very basic skills.
J