I know nothing! I see nothing! lots of questions---

[flysure1]

I was in Mexico near Tulum last feb, I am going to go to playa area in Feb. 2012--I have never put on tanks or dove period, are there any legitimate one day basic dive places, I know diving cannot be learned in a day but I don't have many places near me in the winter months to learn that I know of (peoria, Il area) ---any help/suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

[Afishianado]

Realistically, there is no 1 day quality certification for SCUBA. You can do a Discover SCUBA diving type class which is an introduction only, get you wet and experience the idea of SCUBA diving. You can often find these types of events at or near resorts as well as at your local dive shop.

A quick search of the PADI site for locations near Peoria.

Aqua Diving School - Learn To Scuba Dive!

Deep Blue Adventure

Midwest Diving Specialists!

For fairness sake I will include a NAUI shop as well. http://www.dodivein.com/

and some SSI facilities

http://www.mermetsprings.com/

http://www.omniscuba.com/

I know nothing about any of these places personally, just found them doing a search. They may be great, they may be garbage.

Where is Playa Area? I found one in Spain, is that where you are going? or Playa Arenilla perhaps? in Costa Rica

[TMHeimer]

If it were me, I'd forget about diving and enjoy the tropics. Maybe do a lot of snorkelling. Then take the full course in summer at home. Some prefer to take the classroom part at home and do a "referral" to a tropical locale for the required class dives, but it's usually 2 days of diving. I would feel that doing a Discover Scuba down there would just be tantalizing, seeing all the reefs and stuff but not being able to do any more. But that's just me.

[Jim Lapenta]

Dive Right In Scuba is in Illinois. If you looked and did a google search you could probably find more. Including independent instructors.

[warmwaterturner]

Discover Scuba at Scuba Diving Playa Del Carmen, Cozumel, Cenote Diving,Dive Center ask for Steve - he is the owner.

[boulderjohn]

Several people have mentioned Discover Scuba courses without a full explanation. In a discover Scuba course, you are given some basic academic instruction in a classroom, you practice some skills in a pool or pool-like environment, and you have a dive in fairly shallow water.

One thing that was not mentioned is that you can do what is called a referral. In that case, you pick a shop near you and begin your instruction there. You do all the academic learning and the pool instruction locally. When you are done with that, you are 4 open water dives away from certification. You can then get a referral, a document explaining that you have successfully completed that work. Take that document on your vacation and a local dive operator can complete your certification.

If you do use a referral, be aware that the different agencies do it differently. Both SSI and NAUI use what is called a Universal referral system, and you can take a referral from one to a dive shop from the other. PADI uses a different system officially, though. A PADI instructor or shop may elect to use the referral system, but they are neither required nor encouraged to do so by the agency. The difference is that PADI believes that the person who actually sees you performing in the open water should be the one who grants your certification, so in the normal PADI referral system, that is who would be your certifying instructor or agency. In the system used by the other agencies, the instructor/agency that gave you the referral is the certifying instructor/agency.

[Quero]

flysure1, the information that Afishianado gives regarding the Discover Scuba Experience is correct as far as it goes. But there are other short options as well:

1) You can do e-learning for the Scuba Diver certification. In this option you enroll in Open Water Diver certification course, go to your destination, do the pool training in half a day and complete two dives the other half of a day. This will earn a certification that allows you to dive with a qualified professional such as a Divemaster or Instructor.

2) Do the e-learning but dedicate two days to your on-site training. This will be similar to the Scuba Diver cert, but instead you will earn an Open Water certification.

3) Do a "referral" course in which you complete the classroom and pool portions of the course at a local dive school and do the certification dives at the resort. If you do two certification dives, you can earn the Scuba Diver cert; if you do all four of the certification dives, you can earn the Open Water cert.

[kazbanz]

Flysure can I ask --why do you have a fixation with ONE day? Knowing your reasoning will make offering you the best recomendation a lot easier.
Incidently for totally different reasons I decided on another option with my kids.
With two of my kids I just wasn't sure if they were mature enough to go for their junior open water certification so in essence we hedged our bets. The dsd pool session was actually the first session of the OW course. we then decided if they would carry on with OW or simply have a try at a single DSD dive.

[flysure1]

I was using the one day because I was only going to be in the playa del carmen Mexico area for 5 days---I actually think the best advice would be the take lessons locally and get certified before traveling--I googled locally and had not called the peoria shop yet--thanks for the replies---I have the snorkeling stuff so I might just snorkel and be happy--thanks again.

[Jill from Phoenix]

I would definitely take the time to get a full certification before going to Tulum/Playa del Carmen area. There are many beautiful cenotes that a certified diver can tour, an experience not to be missed! You can swim and snorkel and rappel and tube the cenotes as well, but it's not the full monty.