It seems that Pattaya bashing is just about as popular as PADI bashing around here and it's just as unjustified. If you want to become a truly quality instructor who has experienced as many dives and conditions as possible in 4-6 months, then you should be diving in Pattaya. Full stop.
Yes, it's absolutely not the best diving in Thailand, let alone the world.
Yes, the viz is not great a lot of time.
Yes, there are some rippin' currents here.
But how good of an instructor are you going to be if all you ever dived were calm seas with great viz? Not a lot of rescue situations tend to happen in those conditions. So what happens the first time you get a job in a less-than-idyllic locale and you have a student get in trouble. You haven't even experienced those conditions yourself. How much help are you going to be?
The OP was not asking about fun diving. (Actually, this post is so old, the OP is long gone, but for our new readers.....) This post is about professional dive training. If you want to simply spout off about how lousy the fun diving is in Pattaya for a tourist, then please go elsewhere. If you have something credible and relevant to contribute to a topic about professional training, then carry on.
An internship as offered by Mermaid's or by ourselves at Aquanauts is not a $500 dive a bunch program. With our program at Aquanauts, you get unlimited diving for up to SIX MONTHS. That's 200-250 dives on 22 different dive sites with conditions that are just as varied. You get rippin currents and calm coral dives. You got tech dives to 92 meters, diving on 3 wrecks between 27-32 meters and totally fun dives on a sunken restaurant at 9 meters. The marine life ain't the Similans, but there's still plenty and, unlike down south, you can dive all year around.
The Aquanauts internship also gives you all your courses, all your books and slates, all your PADI cert and application fees, full, new private accomodations, a full set of Scubapro or Mares gear, plus individual instruction from our 2 in-house Course Directors, Master and IDC staff instructors.
With respect to Crowley, we also have a few advantages over other programs in that we have EXTREMELY small classes with IDCs that often have more instructors than students. We GUARANTEE in writing our students will pass the IE or they get a second exam at no charge and we offer early booking incentives valued at more than US$1200. All of these are unique to AQUANAUTS.
But perhaps the thing the Koh Tao groupies overlook is that there's more to a dive internship than simply diving. Our guys and gals are here for months at a time. When you do that, you need a sizable amount of infrastructure to support your students. Lounging around on a hammock for a week or two may be great. But for 4 months I'd be bored, bored, bored.
Pattaya is Thailand's 3rd largest city and offers all the amenities and creature comforts that come with that. We've got 8 cinemas, 2 bowling alleys, 2 world-class hospitals, two deco chambers if needed, 7 large, western-style supermarkets and restaurants with every cuisine in the world.
Basically, if you're serious about becoming the best instructor possible, then Pattaya is your BEST option in Thailand. It's not the best diving, no, but it is the country's best pro training ground.
And (shameless plug) if you really want small classes, more value and an internship environment that is personal and focuses on quality, not quantity, then please click the link in my footer and read up on the Aquanauts program.