New and need advice!

[Lovemom3]

Hello! The plan was to take a class/get certified before the cruise. Life happened, and now planning on taking the whole course through RC. I can’t get a refund through the local dive shop and wonder if I should take the weekend course anyway just for extra experience or if the cruise ship course will be enough? True confessions- getting a tad nervous. I practiced clearing my mask (with snorkel) in a pool and... well let’s just say it didn’t go well and I lost all confidence. As I read more, I’m thinking I need to wait til I get my cardio up-to-par (high BPM) etc. Excuses? I’m 63 (47 in my mind) and really want to do this. Should I do the pool class twice or see if I can get a credit for gear and just wait for the cruise? Or.... join a gym and wait til next year. Thanks for your help!

 

[tbone1004]

talk to the shop owner. Here's my suggestion
Pay for the pool classes, that's the important part IMO anyway. Will ease any concerns you have going into the RC course, but give you some extra practice which is worth the cost if the instructor is good.
Take the rest of the cost, and ask him to apply to store credit, either gear or continuing education. Can't go wrong with that plan. Will cost you a bit more money but I think it will be a worthwhile investment.

 

[Lovemom3]

Thank you!!

 

[Lovemom3]

talk to the shop owner. Here's my suggestion
Pay for the pool classes, that's the important part IMO anyway. Will ease any concerns you have going into the RC course, but give you some extra practice which is worth the cost if the instructor is good.
Take the rest of the cost, and ask him to apply to store credit, either gear or continuing education. Can't go wrong with that plan. Will cost you a bit more money but I think it will be a worthwhile investment.

Thank you!!

 

[TMHeimer]

What is a "credit for gear"?
Why would you do the "pool class" twice?
I know you are in Mn. in Jan. -- Do the pool work there and get a "referral" for the ocean checkout dives. I don't know how that works with cruises though.

 

[AfterDark]

Hello! The plan was to take a class/get certified before the cruise. Life happened, and now planning on taking the whole course through RC. I can’t get a refund through the local dive shop and wonder if I should take the weekend course anyway just for extra experience or if the cruise ship course will be enough? True confessions- getting a tad nervous. I practiced clearing my mask (with snorkel) in a pool and... well let’s just say it didn’t go well and I lost all confidence. As I read more, I’m thinking I need to wait til I get my cardio up-to-par (high BPM) etc. Excuses? I’m 63 (47 in my mind) and really want to do this. Should I do the pool class twice or see if I can get a credit for gear and just wait for the cruise? Or.... join a gym and wait til next year. Thanks for your help!

@Lovemom3 do cardio and leg strengthen exercises unless your lacking in upper body strength then throw that in, push ups will do for that. I'm 65 been at this since age 16 I can attest ya gota stay fit to enjoy diving.

 

[tbone1004]

What is a "credit for gear"?
Why would you do the "pool class" twice?
I know you are in Mn. in Jan. -- Do the pool work there and get a "referral" for the ocean checkout dives. I don't know how that works with cruises though.

store credit.
I was thinking just do the pool sessions vs. trying to do a referral on the cruise ship since I'm not sure how that would work either. The extra pool sessions are not going to hurt though.

 

[dmaziuk]

If mask clearing is a problem, extra pool sessions can't hurt. And a neti pot: just get used to water up your nose (though chlorine's a b*tch no matter how used to it you are).

Cruisers I've seen on e.g. Bonaire get carted to Dive Friends shop and DFB runs the dives. AFAIK you can't do all of you certification dives in one day, so it has to be a 2-day stop to do them by referral with a shore-based dive op. I.e. you'd need to find out exactly what the cruise ship offers and how it's done, to see what you can do there and how.

 

[drrich2]

I can’t get a refund through the local dive shop and wonder if I should take the weekend course anyway just for extra experience or if the cruise ship course will be enough?

Enough for what? Serious question. The basic entry level recreational scuba diving certification level is Open Water Diver. Which agency you are certified under (e.g.: PADI, SSI, Naui, SDI) isn't a big deal from what I understand.

There is a 'lesser' course that provides a certification with more restrictions. You will read about 'Discovery Scuba Diving' type courses. A quick trip to PADI's website shows PADI Scuba Diver to be a subset of Open Water Diver. Basically, if you get this cert., you can 'build on it' afterward to earn the OW cert.

What I'm saying is, whatever course you're planning to do through RC (Royal Caribbean, I presume?) may not be the full certification course you envision.

Given how much diversions there are on cruises, I strongly recommend you do whatever e-learning and pool sessions you can before you go, so your knowledge base (and preferably in-water pool skills) is (are) good going in.

Here's a longer term views; if you want to engage in recreational scuba diving on an ongoing basis, you will at least want the OW cert. At some point, you may well want to get the Advanced Open Water cert., and possibly the Nitrox. cert. Those 3 would equip you for most of what you may wish to do. But OW is the true entry level in my opinion.

Richard.

 

[TMHeimer]

On the Princess cruise we took in 1999 there was scuba in the pool on the ship, which in thinking back, the description Gopher gave me was that of Discover Scuba ("you get like an hour in the pool then they drop you in the ocean"). Sounded a bit flimsy to me. That was a long time ago though. I opted for the snorkel tour instead.