Open water dives while on vacation?

[RonFrank]

Resort Certs are rather worthless for most. Keep in mind that you will ONLY be able to dive with an Instructor, will only do one dive a day, and only with Sandals. If one dive a day is enough, maybe this is worth consideration, but IMO get certified if at all possible.

You do NOT have to do the referral with Sandals. Any PADI shop that does OW certification referrals can do your checkout dives.

$200-$250 may initially sound like a lot.. BUT that depends. If you are diving off a boat, it's actually not a bad deal considering it's going to run you likely $110-$130 to just do four boat dives. So it run's $100 to certify in a quary that costs next to nothing to dive in. $100 cert cost + $100-$130 normal cost of boat dives is basically just about the same price PLUS you are diving somewhere MUCH nicer.

K, I just visited Sandals website, and diving appears to be included? So my logic may not apply in this case as to pricing. Have you CALLED them and asked about referral?

The down side is that the certification will required skill drills, and limited *FUN* time. However IMO that is THE way to go if ou can work it out.

The best option maybe to bit the bullet, and do the cert with another dive OP. The water temps will NOT be getting that much colder that fast, so IMO your LDS may have other reasons for cancelliing the OW checkout, like class size...maybe U can find an LDS that CAN do your checkout dives locally...the referral may still apply...

 

[parrottheaddiver]

My wife and I were certified while we were on vacation. We had no problems with it, our certifying instructor was extremely competent and patient, and we got our cards within 2 to 3 weeks. Diving in warm water was nice as we were able to use thinner wetsuits and were able to do our skills in comfort, and the surface intervals weren't bad either. Of course, if you wear the proper wetsuit and are prepared for cooler conditions, then there is little reason that doing your dives in your home waters would be any less enjoyable.

It would be ashame to miss out on any diving since you are going to be there anyway, so go for it if you can! Good luck and safe diving!

 

[Gonz]

OK, here's the deal with Sandals. They can do your referral, and it will be around $200-$250. Most likely there will be others there in the same situation, and you'll all get paired up and go out for your dives like that. Many times there will be three or four separate Sandals groups on the same boat. Some doing there OW, some doing AOW, some just diving, and others finishing the resort course. They generally go out three times per day, 9am, 10:30, and 12:00. A couple times a week they offer a night dive as well. All diving is included in the "All-inclusive rate" as well as all equipment except wet-suits, cameras and maybe dive lights. The 9 am dive is generally the deeper dive, the 10:30 is usually only 40 feet max, and the 12:00 is maybe up to 60 ft. The 10:30 dive is the only dive open to folks who did the resort course, hence the 40 ft limit. If you are certified you can do any and all dives you want, as long as there is room. If you do your referral there you will be certified and can do any and all dives you want. The night dive is only for certified divers, and costs extra. Private guides and instruction is available for a fee.

For example: My wife and I were at Ocho Rios last March. We were not certified and did the resort course for $70US each, plus $5 wetsuit rental. We dove at 10:30 every day after that. Per instructor/DM discretion they would have taken us on the 12:00 dive as a private, for $50 each. While there, we saw others doing their OW and we also saw a guy doing his AOW as a private. And there were others just diving for fun, not that OW and AOW are not fun!

The Sandals Signature Guest is only available once you've stayed there. I don't think you can sign up for it on your first stay.

My overall impression of the Sandals Diving Experience is this: If you are an experienced certified diver or anything beyond that, you may not have the best time due to being limited in where they take you. If you are a newer diver you'll have a blast. You can dive three times a day with good DMs. The reason I don't think experienced divers will enjoy themselves is because you'll find that your bottom time is limited by noobs like myself who use up their tanks too fast. I will definetely be booking another Sandals trip now that we're certified, because I think it's a good deal for decent diving, spending the rest of the day lounging on the beach, and eating all the food and drinking as much Rum Punch as you can. Within limits depending on you're diving, which should't be followed by alcohol-overconsumption.

I hope you enjoyed my novel. Feel free to pm me with any other questions.

 

[DiverDebbie]

hi there. I did all my pool and classroom sessions here at home in Vancouver before heading to Australia where I did my open water cert. dives on a live-aboard on the Great Barrier Reef. At that time it was January and cold at home, and in fact, I had no intention of cold water diving (haha... I was such a wuss then) My brother flew up from Melbourne and joined me, but before we headed off for 3 days/nights, he had two long days of pool and class. While he studied I relaxed and went sight-seeing. The only thing that threw me a bit was the transition to metric and bar, and some of the signals were a bit different. (yes, although Canada is supposed to be metric we aren't when it comes to diving.. go figure?) It cost me a bit more to do it this way, but I have no regrets whatsoever. I had an absolutely fabulous time. The water was warm, the viz. was great, and I saw sharks even! That trip is what got me hooked on diving. I came back and did my drysuit orientation, then just get going to AI. Now cold water diving is most of what I do ..until Maui in 3 weeks
I personally recommend doing it this way to anyone who has the opportunity to give sitting in cold water waiting your turn to do skills a miss. But if you come back and want to continue on... you still can. Just make sure you have all your paperwork.

 

[chenry]

I was in a similar situation this year before my vacation to Sandals, Antigua. My wife and I did our confined dives locally. Due to work requirements, we couldn't get our open water dives completed locally before we went on vacation. We asked our LDS for an open water refferral, which is basically just a document with all the relevent info, including proof of the training and confined dives you already have under your belt. There is also a medical form you can download from the Sandals website that you can get filled out by your family doctor which states that you are healthy and there is no reason that you can't dive.

When you get to Sandals I suggest you find the dive instructor in charge and let him/her know that you want to do your open water dives and that you have a refferal. In Antigua they were very helpful with all of this. Regardless of your previous experience, they will probably want to see you in the pool before you do any diving. They just need proof that you can do basic skills like get your gear on and off and clear your mask without having any problems. Actually I suggest you contact the resort wel ahead of time to let them know you will want open water refferral dive training. That way they can make sure and plan to have an instructor for you. You might even have your travel agent let them know this is a priority, and Sandals will cater to your specific needs.

With my wife and I, they just had us meet with everyone else who wanted to dive on the beach for the first dive. All the "resort divers" and "certified divers" went out on the same boat. When at the dive site, the certified divers entered first with a dive master. The resort divers entered second with an Instructor and one or two divemasters, depending on the number of new divers. After that, My wife and I and our instructor got in the water and he took us out and had us do all the skills required for the open water cert. They will need to know ahead of time when you will be diving so they can make sure and have an instructor for you. After you do all your required skills and dives, they basically treat you as a certified diver. All dives with the resort staff will be supervised. In antigua, the boat went out twice a day. All you have to do is show up at the right time and they will get you geared up, on the boat, and ready to dive.

Now for the money talk. You have already paid to start your certification locally. In Antigua, it cost us an additional $200 per person to do the open water refferal dives to complete our certification requirements. It is possible you could do it for much less locally, for example, we could have done it for $80 each locally. If you don't mind paying the extra cash then you have nothing to lose.

Even if you decide not to do you open water dives at Sandals you can still dive at least once a day if you pay for the resort course which is $70, I think. Basically if you want to dive, you can pay $70 for the resort class and dive whenever you want, or you can pay $200 and do scheduled ow dives with your instructor, and be certified when you are done. When you have completed the OW dives you can dive as many times as you want after that for free. The instructor will issue you a temporary cert card and file all the paperwork for your permanent card. We got our c-cards about 4 weeks after we got home.

If you have any more specific questions about my Sandals trip, dont hesitate to PM or email me. We had a great time, the scuba staff was great to work with, and I got to go diving about 8 times for free :10: if you don't count the cost of the certification or staying at a Sandals.

Chris Henry

 

[joanna05]

My partner and I thought of doing this, we are going to Austrialia in March, but decided that a) we did not want to waste days of our holiday doing ow dives b) could choose the wrong dive school c) would not really have time to build trust with the instructor, in the event we took our complete PADI course in Northern England, trusted our instructor completely as we built up a relationship with him, we finished our course last weekend, in a Quarry in England, 11 degrees, 5m viz, in wet suits, we are still alive to tell the tale and free to do more fun dives in Aussie, and have more spending money while we are there. Still, what do I know, being a new newbie, but it worked for us

 

[pickens_46929]

Maggie,

I think Ken was a NAUI instructor. Found a reference to him on the web.

http://www.drdivers.com/history.html

Maybe you can contact D&R Divers to check that this is the same Ken.

 

[BarryNL]

My partner and I thought of doing this, we are going to Austrialia in March, but decided that a) we did not want to waste days of our holiday doing ow dives b) could choose the wrong dive school c) would not really have time to build trust with the instructor, in the event we took our complete PADI course in Northern England, trusted our instructor completely as we built up a relationship with him, we finished our course last weekend, in a Quarry in England, 11 degrees, 5m viz, in wet suits, we are still alive to tell the tale and free to do more fun dives in Aussie, and have more spending money while we are there. Still, what do I know, being a new newbie, but it worked for us

Not a bad way of doing it, but I'd consider a Scuba tune up session just before you go. Four months is a long time with no diving if all you've done is the OW course.