Do you really want a Groupon Training Experience?

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Im taking on your style of argument too Dan. :) you are so often an apples and oranges guy. By the way I recently booked myself into some 5 star experiences and of course enjoyed them very much. Would have enjoyed them even more if I could have gotten a coupon discount. :p
 
Groupons in our area for Scuba either are DSD twopacks,or OW ( with a note that softgear must be purchased at the shop ). I'm an avid supporter of Groupon,and just because I make my pennies count doesn't mean i'm unwilling to spend - quite the opposite,every cent saved gets spent on more scuba stuff
 
I think I got quite lucky with my OW course, I did it through the university club and got a better deal than groupon could offer. Our instructors offered their services on a voluntary basis and the course cost only needed to cover training materials, and club membership. For the eqv of $125, I got full instruction, and years access to a pool, free hard gear rental for training and very cheap rental rates after. The club also gave us contacts to an LDS where I bagged full soft gear at 20% off costing about $220 total incl weights. Our open water and qualifying dives were not included but we had some discounts on that front too through the regular dive ops the club uses. Didn't check out the instructors myself before signing but heard through a buddy they were good.

More on the groupon front, I did see an ad today which is offering discounts on side mount training which is not offered at my current club. I just need to check out the club and instructors before pulling the trigger.
 
Oh boy, here we go . . .

:popcorn:
 
Funny thing about Open Water classes, the price really hasn't changed much since I got certified in 1989... in a CPI Inflation calculator, it says that same $400 spent in 1989 should now be worth $850(ish). Yet, it seems that our industry is racing to the bottom with regard to course pricing!?!

The training you receive now is often nowhere near what you received in 1989. By-and-large 40 hours of course training time is a thing of the past. If you want a meaningful comparison you have to compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges.

1)Do you really want a Groupon Training Experience?
As far as Groupon is concerned, today all that seems to be important is quick & cheap. Comprehensive training, quality and value are not often considered by first-time SCUBA students.

2)How much should you pay to Learn to Dive? (aka, what is your training worth?)

That depends upon what you want to learn. Some people don't pay anything (there is no requirement to be certified), others choose quick courses, while few seek-out more comprehensive training. It really depends upon a student's motivation. Most are motivated by the 'Why pay more?' philosophy.

The content of my training courses hasn't changed since 1971. I do find myself using a computer/projection system more and the blackboard less... :) Course training time is approx. 50-55 hours and I still incorporate fitness and mental stress exercises.

Is a course like mine reasonable for a diver to have their hand held in the Bahamas to look at the pretty fish in 20 FSW? Absolutely not. Standards that are set by some training programs today are often minimal (you don't even need to know how to swim).

More comprehensive programs are often available through Diving Clubs at less cost than the LDS. As these do not tend to have an Internet presence or store-front, they're not sought-out for training. People don't know what they don't know.

What it comes down to is matching the Client's desires and expectations with the training program given. If they choose to go on the cheap Groupon is one alternative. Personally, I believe that in-life you often get what you pay for financially and in the amount of effort required to succeed, but that's just one man's opinion...
 
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We see Groupon in action with Dive Instruction at the Blue Heron Bridge Marine Park every weekend....often a dozen big classes, typically with bumbling unskilled divers dragging consoles and guages along the bottom, and kicking and stomping on the benthic marine life as quite normal...for instructor and student alike....it seems to me that the more a shop is likely to go with groupon, the less concerned they are with buoyancy and the marine life they will kill....
Case in point...this groupon class:
[video=youtube_share;dgdabfvr2B0]http://youtu.be/dgdabfvr2B0?t=42s[/video]

Click in to 42 seconds into play...and watch in HD :)

The instructor--the old guy with his back to you in the beginning...is walking on top of the area the best Macro photographers have shot some of their best Nudibranch and Frog fish shots..in the Hydroids that you can see all over the bottom there. This is an environment, just like a coral reef is an environment.

Groupon is often an incentive to cut corners on skills like buoyancy and to ignore delicate marine life because the COST to worry about it is not compatible with any use of Groupon we see.
Now I know why those Nova fins fail at the flex joint (that I hear constantly about).
I suppose if people didn't use them as underwater hiking boots they would probably be OK.

I actually don't see a lot of difference between what you guys are calling "Groupon" training and any other basic OW training. When I'm out diving and happen to encounter an OW class I see this sort of flailing, walking on the bottom, bicycle kicking, knee planting, etc.
I just figure it's pretty much par for the course in todays standard OW training.
 
my shop does the groupon thing occasionally. they charge $189 + course materials. this is what they normally charge, but the groupon ad says the normal price is $299 + course materials. they do take a hit using groupon vs. someone who just walks in the shop to get certified, but it brings more people in the door. They justify it by saying, most people that get o/w certified end up wanting aow/nitrox and buy air, gear and boat trips from the shop after they get certified so I guess they end up with new customers so it works for them.
the training is the same and it gets people into the shop, so I don't see any negatives with it. they yoyo's in the video obviously weren't properly trained groupon or not. I have done shore dives and have seen 12-14 people doing their o/w dives and they were all over the place like those in the video. it was bad enough that me and my instructor had to jump in and assist with that class. The shop that was doing their class doesn't do groupon, so its just a matter of class size and the instructors abilities to train people, not weather or not groupon brought the people in my opinion.
 
We see Groupon in action with Dive Instruction at the Blue Heron Bridge Marine Park every weekend....often a dozen big classes, typically with bumbling unskilled divers dragging consoles and guages along the bottom, and kicking and stomping on the benthic marine life as quite normal...for instructor and student alike....it seems to me that the more a shop is likely to go with groupon, the less concerned they are with buoyancy and the marine life they will kill....
Case in point...this groupon class:
[video=youtube_share;dgdabfvr2B0]http://youtu.be/dgdabfvr2B0?t=42s[/video]

Click in to 42 seconds into play...and watch in HD :)

The instructor--the old guy with his back to you in the beginning...is walking on top of the area the best Macro photographers have shot some of their best Nudibranch and Frog fish shots..in the Hydroids that you can see all over the bottom there. This is an environment, just like a coral reef is an environment.

Groupon is often an incentive to cut corners on skills like buoyancy and to ignore delicate marine life because the COST to worry about it is not compatible with any use of Groupon we see.

Dan, I don't agree. I did mine through Groupon and though yes, we did go to our knees in the sand of the east side south of the bridge, the level of training still falls on the shoulders of the instructor. My instructor was very thorough and didn't take shortcuts and didn't have us swim around destroying everything. I frequent BHB with several trolls and get invited back constantly. I've seen discover diving groups and classes do exactly what's seen in your video and that behavior has nothing to do with groupon and falls solely on the shoulders of the instructor. And for what it's worth, my instructors wife, who also does Groupon classes, is one of those troll photographers. She helped out at the bridge and was carefully showing us Seahorses and other critters. I believe I was even introduced to your wife at the last troll party.

Groupon is an enabler. For me, $400 plus books and gear was too much to justify training. The slight discount made it affordable and since then I've dropped a lot of $$$ into the hobby.

With that said, the last time there was a scuba convention down south, there were dozens of divers with expensive camera rigs and they were making a MESS under the bridge. Each one was kicking the ground and destroying the algae while trying to get a picture of a Seahorse on the west bridge. I had never seen so much incompetence while diving at the bridge before and these were professionals in the business of scuba.
 
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Dan, I don't agree. I did mine through Groupon and though yes, we did go to our knees in the sand of the east side south of the bridge, the level of training still falls on the shoulders of the instructor. My instructor was very thorough and didn't take shortcuts and didn't have us swim around destroying everything. I frequent BHB with several trolls and get invited back constantly. I've seen discover diving groups and classes do exactly what's seen in your video and that behavior has nothing to do with groupon and falls solely on the shoulders of the instructor. And for what it's worth, my instructors wife, who also does Groupon classes, is one of those troll photographers. She helped out at the bridge and was carefully showing us Seahorses and other critters. I believe I was even introduced to your wife at the last troll party.

Groupon is an enabler. For me, $400 plus books and gear was too much to justify training. The slight discount made it affordable and since then I've dropped a lot of $$$ into the hobby.

With that said, the last time there was a scuba convention down south, there were dozens of divers with expensive camera rigs and they were making a MESS under the bridge. Each one was kicking the ground and destroying the algae while trying to get a picture of a Seahorse on the west bridge. I had never seen so much incompetence while diving at the bridge before and these were professionals in the business of scuba.


I was talking about this as it relates to LARGE POPULATIONS....a statistical issue. It is great that it worked out for you.....but just because you became a good diver via Groupon, is not going to suggest that Groupon is a great thing for everyone....Heck, I know people that were just told not to hold their breath, and to watch their pressure gauge so they don't run out of air, and 1000 dives later they became better divers than most Dive Instructors, with zero formal classes or real certifications....The "Right diver" does not need much training, and may only need to see some good divers doing things, and never need or want an instructor. I think this is great, but I can't suggest that this is a "model" that we should suggest to non-divers interested in our sport.

There are already way to many non-groupon OW classes, taught at sub-standard levels, with the resulting certified divers being at RISK for death, if they went to Grand Cayman, and opted to swim from the beach to the wall, do a dive, then swim back....This is the ultimate baby dive, in water as calm as a pool, but with a wall that requires some awareness and skills, and a swim that requires some propulsion....and with no boat, this dive requires that the diver will not need outside help.
A REAL Instructor, teaching a REAL dive class, should be able to turn out divers that could do this with ease, with a high degree of safety. The indictment is really against the largest Dive Instruction business models for OW certs--it is not directly relating to Groupon....BUT...Everything bad about normal OW Certs, "can be" magnified by adding Groupon to the equation.
 
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