Newbie & seeking advice Hi!

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Hello - I'm looking forward to chatting about diving with everyone -

My husband and I have been researching scuba certifications and see there are the PADI certs and SSI, and we're wondering which is the better one to go through. We've seen a few pros and cons with each - but we'd like to get more 'professional' opinions before we invest in one. Any advice or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated! Happy New Year to you and thanks for any replies!

:balloons:

Hello Iggiecat,
first of all a happy new year and welcome to ScubaBoard!
There are more certifying organisations BSAC, Barracuda, Naui, Cmas and more.
Remember always once, it is the person (instructor) who is teaching you your course.
This person is trained to offer you a safe course within the standards of the choosen dive organisation. If you get trained by a dedicated instructor there will not be much difference between all of those organisations. As a PADI and SSI instructor I noticed very small diferences between the two, specially the starters courses are very simillar.
Hoping you make the right choise!
Nice Dives,

Robert
 
Hi ...
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& Welcome to ...

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talk to each instructor from PADI and SSI, the one that you like better and answers your questions the best is the one to pick. This is the most honest answer I can give you. Also sit down and think what you want to get out of diving and how much you want to learn and how far you want to go. This is hard just know alot of new divers just wanted to get their cert. with a cert. in hand and the awesome world they never knew, now is opened in front of them things change and they now what to get more and more involved. Make sure your instructor can cover your basic requirements you might want such as AOW, Rescue and Nitrox to name a few things that you might want to expand your horizons. A few more might be U/W nav, night maybe even a deep class.

PADI is the largest in the world ... but I never seen SSI turned away either.
 
I say go with the instructor who makes you feel comfortable and is willing to spend the extra time on skills that you are weak on. As Iam a padi instructor I make sure all skills can be done along with having fun. good luck and have fun dorsal fin
 
Thank you all for the advice, we were definitely more comfortable at the PADI shop here in Atlanta GA, We're also looking for potential children scuba programs as we just had a baby girl.
 

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