Scuba Diving Certification Requirement on DCL? Any options to complete certification?

[el_bajo]

All,

On a Beaches vacation last December, I got my PADI Scuba Certification (2 official open water dives and I also had a couple resort course dives earlier in the trip) - didn't have time to spend an additional day to get "open water". According to the card (and the dives we did), I am certified to 40 feet.

1) Is this sufficient for the scuba diving excursions on the Disney cruises (specifically, the excursion in St. Thomas). They just say you need to be certified and I have a card.

2) If not, do you have any suggestions for completing open water dives 3 and 4 while at one of the ports (only St. Thomas is showing a scuba shore excursion on my cruise)so that I can obtain my open water certification and be good to go for the future? I can get the book work done here at home so that I just need the two dives themselves.

Thanks for the help.

FYI, I am going on the seven day St. Maarten cruise on 9/26.

 

[imwright1985]

call the cruise line and ask if they dont know ask for contact of who runs their dives at whatever locations. I would recommend trying to get your certification in the area you live just so you could be experienced for that area and can dive all year comfortably rather than once a year on vacation

 

[robint]

All,

On a Beaches vacation last December, I got my PADI Scuba Certification (2 official open water dives and I also had a couple resort course dives earlier in the trip) - didn't have time to spend an additional day to get "open water". According to the card (and the dives we did), I am certified to 40 feet.

1) Is this sufficient for the scuba diving excursions on the Disney cruises (specifically, the excursion in St. Thomas). They just say you need to be certified and I have a card.

2) If not, do you have any suggestions for completing open water dives 3 and 4 while at one of the ports (only St. Thomas is showing a scuba shore excursion on my cruise)so that I can obtain my open water certification and be good to go for the future? I can get the book work done here at home so that I just need the two dives themselves.

Thanks for the help.

FYI, I am going on the seven day St. Maarten cruise on 9/26.

Option #1 - call around in your area and see if you can finish your OW cert at home before your trip. That is the best option.
Option #2 - where does your cruise leave from? If it is somewhere in Florida, you could probably arrive a few days early and finish up there. Lots and lots of instructors down there who could do it IF you plan ahead and get in contact with them now.
Option #3 - as mentioned before, the card you have is limited - 40' and must be accompanied by a DM or instructor. It is up to the Dive Op used by your cruiseline IF they want to accept it or not. You can call the cruiseline, but it is still up to the Dive Op at each dive destination. I would personally go with Option #1 or #2 if you really want to dive.

 

[divezonescuba]

Its pretty unlikely that you would go on a normal cruiseship scuba excursion to depths less than 40 ft for scuba diver only qualified people. The only time I have seen this is in Aruba. On the other hand, I have seen a number of cruiseship excursions where freshly certified divers with only four training dives have been taken down to 95 feet in Cozumel and the Grand Caymans. Not that that was a good idea. You could tell some of them were freaking.

An exception to this would be the excursion that does the combination discover scuba and an OW dive. You could possibly go on the same dive and either skip the training or look at it as a refresher. That's still not going to get you OW certified.

Best to do it at home before you go so there are no issues. However, you could try to book a separate referral trip for OW3 and 4 outside the cruiseship system with either their operator or another operator at that location. Of course then you would have to worry about getting to the port late, as well as, coming back in time.