Two Day Certification Course (PADI) ?

[saying]

hambleto once bubbled...
2 nights a week for four weeks followed by a whole weekend at a quary - two days of diving in springs

I took a PADI course that lasted two nights during the week, then two weekend days in the pool followed up by four open water dives. At the time I thought, "Well, I've done the resort course and that's not hard. How much more can there be to it?"

Some 50 dives later I recommend the two to four week curriculum to the people that I like.

 

[ihunter]

To my limited experience, once you weed out the chaff, they're all within $100 or so -- for instance, $200 including gear probably doesn't include the fees for the checkout dives. Hell, $200 including gear probably doesn't include TRAINING, for that matter, lol.

Around here (Georgia) classes generally run US$350, and that covers instruction and materials. You buy gear (another $200 minimum), you pay for checkout dives separately (there's another $350) and you're looking at US$900 with just maks, snorkel and fins, booties, and a C-card in your hand. Add in a knife, slate, and the t-shirt from the charter, and you're sitting at a Grand.

Now if you buy all your kit, they train you for free, because you just paid for their kids' braces.

Ian

 

[Karl_in_Calif]

I am guessing that PADI really wants all their dive students to take several of their courses, like basic open water and advanced adventure diving, and not simply to rely on the single certification course.

I am also guessing that by marketing their plethora of specialty courses that PADI wants their students to enroll in a lot of training courses. That way there is more profit in Putting Another Dollar In.

The notion that a dive student can become a safe, well trained diver in one weekend is probably a myth that not even PADI believes.

Decades ago, before PADI, dive training took two to three months. Florida and California had county training courses, and the colleges had semester-long physical ed courses. Learning curve takes time. Whereas the law of natural selection happens instantaneously.

 

[baenglish73]

Don't do it.

Think of drowning while fumbling with equipment you first learned about two days ago.

 

[MHK]

ihunter once bubbled...
To my limited experience, once you weed out the chaff, they're all within $100 or so -- for instance, $200 including gear probably doesn't include the fees for the checkout dives. Hell, $200 including gear probably doesn't include TRAINING, for that matter, lol.

Around here (Georgia) classes generally run US$350, and that covers instruction and materials. You buy gear (another $200 minimum), you pay for checkout dives separately (there's another $350) and you're looking at US$900 with just maks, snorkel and fins, booties, and a C-card in your hand. Add in a knife, slate, and the t-shirt from the charter, and you're sitting at a Grand.

Now if you buy all your kit, they train you for free, because you just paid for their kids' braces.

Ian

I'm trying hard not to tirn this into a PADI bashing thread, but in San Diego over this past summer, PADI ran a test marketing program wherein you got a two for one certification. I'm told PADI spent over $200,000 on advertising and some local shops were doing 2 for 1 at $67.77.. It's obvious in that business model that the hope is twofold.. From the shop's perspective you will buy gear and from the agecnies perspective that you'll go onto added specialties and/or AOW.. If that is the case, one must ask a serious question as to the veracity of the underlying OW class as the gateway to the sport.. It certainly isn't how I would go about it..

Later

 

[roakey]

MHK once bubbled...
This is how I answer that type of questions to my students. Ask yourself this question " If you wanted to learn to play golf, would you go to the golf pro that would teach you the fastest?"

I use skydiving as the example, gets the point about risk and how it relates to mastership versus expediency better than golf, without explicitly bringing up risk...

Roak

 

[MHK]

roakey once bubbled...

I use skydiving as the example, gets the point about risk and how it relates to mastership versus expediency better than golf, without explicitly bringing up risk...

Roak

Thanks Roak, mind if I "use" that ;-)

 

[AliKat]

I just don't think 2 days is enough. Even as PADI diver, I just don't agree with these "2 day wonder" PADI courses. Even for the best students who may do (and comprehend) all of the book work ahead of time, 2 days is still just not enough time to digest all of that info and do all the pool work necessary and then 4 OW dives! I don't see how this is being done without big shortcuts being taken, and a lot of training being left out.

 

[MechDiver]

jviehe once bubbled...
I'm all for it. Basic OW is getting easier and easier. Especially with a lot of charters offering DM led dives. A 2 day course limited to say 4 divers, and maybe a limited cert, say to 60ft max, could get people in the water faster. Diving is about recreation, and its not rocket science. You dont even have to learn tables anymore, with computers being so efficient and dependable. You could even charge more.

Diving is also about being in an enviornment that will kill you if you're stupid. Or ignorant. One weekend divers would be one or the other.

MD

 

[E-Boat]

I'm not an instructor but i do have experience in helping diving school before. It look like some student can take the material verry fast . But some they just not a born to be diver. In two days class if instructor have peeps that just dont take the matterial. What they going to do ?

Suggest student to take another course.<<<<<good>>>
Hex no i'm not wasting my time they apply to 2days they got my 2 day<<< Bad>>>>>