Kfinn27
New
I just finished my AOW cert - something I've been looking forward to for a while. I have been diving for about two years and before the cert class had completed 25 dives - 5 in CA, 10 in the Maldives, and 10 in the Caribbean. I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to dive such great places.
My AOW cert was extremely underwhelming. Navigation dive was cursory, the "deep" dive went down to 62 feet, there was a "boat" dive that was nothing more than any other boat experience, and the fish identification was a joke. All of the other divers in my various dives were right out of OW cert and had no experience diving outside of a class setting. During the navigation dive, one of the divers even kept popping up to the surface due to his inability to control buoyancy...and he was still passed to the next level!!! Most appallingly, not once did a dive instructor instruct us to do a safety stop at the end of dives. Although most dives weren't deep, shouldn't a safety stop be SOP?
At $400 for this class I expected to learn more about being an effective diver and coming away with new skills. Sadly, I think this cert was pointless and I would have done better spending that money on recreation dives. I'm thinking about writing a bad review of the dive shop and even asking for a partial refund. Am I overreacting? Would appreciate your thoughts!
My AOW cert was extremely underwhelming. Navigation dive was cursory, the "deep" dive went down to 62 feet, there was a "boat" dive that was nothing more than any other boat experience, and the fish identification was a joke. All of the other divers in my various dives were right out of OW cert and had no experience diving outside of a class setting. During the navigation dive, one of the divers even kept popping up to the surface due to his inability to control buoyancy...and he was still passed to the next level!!! Most appallingly, not once did a dive instructor instruct us to do a safety stop at the end of dives. Although most dives weren't deep, shouldn't a safety stop be SOP?
At $400 for this class I expected to learn more about being an effective diver and coming away with new skills. Sadly, I think this cert was pointless and I would have done better spending that money on recreation dives. I'm thinking about writing a bad review of the dive shop and even asking for a partial refund. Am I overreacting? Would appreciate your thoughts!