Cheap Place in Ontario to do Open water test

[alias420]

Hi I'm new to this sport just did my confined water courses this weekend. I am wondering where the cheapest place to go and do my open water checkout test is. I live in mississauga and was hoping to find a place within 1-2hours of the GTA. Seeing that we wont be doing to much exploration I really dont care much about a good looking place, I'll save that for when I have my certification. Just looking for a cheap place to get certified.

thanx

 

[Tom R]

Hi I'm new to this sport just did my confined water courses this weekend. I am wondering where the cheapest place to go and do my open water checkout test is. I live in mississauga and was hoping to find a place within 1-2hours of the GTA. Seeing that we wont be doing to much exploration I really dont care much about a good looking place, I'll save that for when I have my certification. Just looking for a cheap place to get certified.

thanx

YOUR INSTRUCTOR SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE TO FINISH YOUR OPEN WATER COURSE

Having said that I would imagine the most cost effective check out should be with the instructor that did your confined water, as most instructors will and rightly so charge a premium to do someone's open water referals.

Remember you may have to attend a pool session with them, have the referal paper work with you, have min gear requirements. As most open water courses are run as a lost leader, and any instructor that is worth their grain in salt would charge for their time.

You can PM for details on instructor contacts in Kingston.

 

[Twister]

Whom did you do your class & pool time with??
There are options!!
Referals etc.

 

[NorthernMelody]

Whom did you do your class & pool time with??
There are options!!
Referals etc.

Twister, what agency started your training? Do you need a Naui shop, a Padi shop, and AUCI shop, etc? There are 3 shops in Kitchener waterloo area....there's at least 1 in guelph, theres one or 2 in Barrie....Can you give us a bit more info as to what you need? Feel free to send my a private message if "other" issues are involved.

CJ

 

[Groundhog246]

Scuba is NOT an activity for the faint of wallet. If you can't afford proper instruction, aren't willing to put the $$ and time into it to learn, then it's likely to cause you or your buddy injury or death. I don't want to make it sound riskier than it is, with proper training diving is quite safe. But IMHO, that includes a proper course and checkout dives.

 

[divemed06]

Hi I'm new to this sport just did my confined water courses this weekend. I am wondering where the cheapest place to go and do my open water checkout test is. I live in mississauga and was hoping to find a place within 1-2hours of the GTA. Seeing that we wont be doing to much exploration I really dont care much about a good looking place, I'll save that for when I have my certification. Just looking for a cheap place to get certified.

thanx

The cheapest will most likely be with your current instructor. It isn't about location as much as the instructor's time and equipment rental. Most dive shops will charge about 100$ for the checkout dives (including equioment) if you've done the course with them. If you're doing a referal, it might go up to 150$ or even 200$ for the week-end. Stick with your current instructor!

 

[Axeman]

The closest to you would be oakville divers (PADI). They are near Kerr St. and Lakeshore.

I just finished a weekend of divemastering with them. We took out 6 open water students on their boat. The operator is super safety concious and I was impressed with the way he ran the open water weekend.

He told me that they do a certification weekend about every two weeks.

Their website is www.diveaqua.com . There are 4 shops but the only one doing local cert dives is Oakville. The other 3 do theirs in Midland/Penetang. But that is within 2 hours so you could go up there too.

Oakville divers is a PADI 5 star shop and the others are a mix of PADI NAUI and ACUC.

 

[FreeFloat]

Twister, what agency started your training? Do you need a Naui shop, a Padi shop, and AUCI shop, etc? There are 3 shops in Kitchener waterloo area....there's at least 1 in guelph, theres one or 2 in Barrie....Can you give us a bit more info as to what you need? Feel free to send my a private message if "other" issues are involved.

CJ

It wasn't Twister that asked for the information, it was the new guy alias420, to whom Twister was addressing his questions.

 

[alias420]

Thanx for writing back so quickly. To answer some of your questions. I did my confined water with Aquarius Scuba(PADI) in Toronto. I'm not too concerned about prices, but my friend is a student and a cheap student at that. We aren't looking for anything unsafe just a good deal. We were informed that Aquarius had really good prices for confined water but weren't so hot for the open water and better deals could probably be found. The friend recommended Simcoe but I thought I would look for some deals online. We have been given all the necessary referal documentation in our log books and have been told that we have everything we need to do our open water.

Aquarius Scuba's openwater at Gulliver's lake is $150 +GST + $85 for equipment (I already have googles, snorkel, fins). Maybe this is already a really good deal I'm not too sure.

 

[NorthernMelody]

It wasn't Twister that asked for the information, it was the new guy alias420, to whom Twister was addressing his questions.

I wrote it too early in the AM, but the point was made
Good luck getting an inexpensive course.