I've FINALLY HAD IT with my LDS

The Aquatic Center of Rochester, NY

WHAT A RIDICULOUS MONEY HUNGRY JOKE OF A BUSINESS. My girlfriend wants to get PADI certified. As a gift, she received a PADI eLearning course. She wanted to complete her 4 pool sessions w/ the Aquatic Center and checkout dives elsewhere... I called today for a price on the 4 pool sessions only.....drumroll please.... $550 - WHAT!!!??!? THEN, the employee informed me that she'd receive a $50 store credit (at their ridiculously overpriced store) for not doing classwork or checkout dives with them..... WHAT A RELIEF!!! So, I asked how much for the whole cert from start to finish was... Ready for this? $550, but without the credit... what a bargain!

Thank you Aquatic Center of Rochester, NY. It's amazing you're still in business and no wonder I rarely see a car in your parking lot....

Time to move on. Give your money to somebody that will make you happy. That is what it is all about . If they are not pleasing you....RUN.....make someone else a happy business person.

Oh my days!
The cheapest I found in was £249! $410!

Yeah, they are trying to rip you off. Find a new shop. The full course here is less than $300.

Find a good instructor that will make her a strong, confident diver for a reasonable price. "Deals" on SCUBA instruction are seldom a good thing and more often than not you get what you pay for.

Also!
You know they're good when they advise you and talk you through it before you pay! And whether they offer intro dives too! The one i use, you have to pay for the intro dive first £12.50. And you go and do the first module...if you're happy, and want to do the full course, you pay for the full one and have 12.50 taken off =]

The shops I've dealt with usually price the components separately. So You pay a couple hundred for the classroom & Confined Water then you pay a couple hundred more for the Open Water & PIC. This works out well here as apparently so many divers will do their classroom/Confined here and the Open Water at a vacation destination.

My daughter had trouble with her sinuses and wasn't able to finish OW 3 & 4 with my shop so they refunded the dive & equipment fees for those 2 dives and she finished with another instructor.

Our LDS does the basic OW course, including the pool sessions, for under $300, plus the cost of the book, and always has a "two for one" special going on. One person pays for the course, and their buddy can take the course for free, only needing to pay for their book. They offer a discount on dive supplies to their students, and from what I've seen, are very easygoing in giving the referrals if students plan to do their cert dives elsewhere. One couple in our class was getting ready for a Caribbean honeymoon, and wanted to do their cert dives there (can't say as I blame them). There was no pressure or sales pitch to try and get them to book a dive trip through the shop for their cert dives.

I hope you can find one like that in your area. I know we appreciate ours, and keep our business with them as much as possible so that we help them stick around.

cheap doesn't mean lacking in substance any more than expensive equals quality.

fire_diver:

cheap doesn't mean lacking in substance any more than expensive equals quality.

Click to expand...

Right On Brother!

The only thing that is a little disconcerting is when a Dive shop in Oklahoma boasts that it is cheaper than a dive shop in downtown NYC.

Reality checks... costs of doing business are all over the place across the country. From rents paid to pool costs, insurance etc. It is really only fair to offer comparisons within a targeted market area.

I think the more important thing also is to understand what you're getting for the money paid. As an example, shops near us list OW at $295. What they don't tell you up front is that books are extra, equipment rental is extra, quarry entrance fees are extra etc... so that by the time you've been nickled and dimed to death, you paid more than the place that just gave you an upfront all inclusive price that looked higher.

Make sure you're comparing apples to apples - not apples to oranges.

We make it simple and believe our customers like it that way.

Online or Take Home Course ($120.00)
Academic Review & Pool Sessions ($199.00)
Checkout Dives ($150.00)
Do it all with us ($469.00)

You can choose to do any phase with us you wish
We require students to have their own "personal items." Mask, Fin & Snorkel packages start as low as $85.00. Our best selling Package is these three items plus boots and gloves for $199.00 total.

We also offer a $2495.00 Be a Diver package. You get the course and all your own gear so you can learn in it and be familiar with it.

And no - at these prices you don't get low-end stuff. You get to pick what you want from amazingly - almost anything we sell. Fifteen items in all -

I was told not to long ago that a shop in California offers this same deal for $6000.00... more than double our price... so if you live in Cali... and want to save a few bucks - the airplane ticket and hotel is well worth the savings...

In any event... you can find deals like ours close to home if you look hard enough. For every shop out there overcharging - there is one within reasonable distance that is not.

I say shop around... while in some cases cheap means cheap - in others it means you got a great deal. Most of the overpriced shops out there are just that - overpriced for what you're getting.