I will play the devil's advocate on this one, my usual role.
The demand for a late afternoon Saturday orientation dive puzzles many of us. It is a freebie 12 hours later, but if you want a DM to work on his day off, that's where the $25 comes in.
It might be irrelevant if you were to be so focused all week that you managed to do all 27 dives that could be done in a 5x a day schedule.
Is it worth it to pay $25 extra for an orientation dive on the late afternoon of your arrival- only to skip 1.5 days worth of diving throughout the week? (As in the OP's logged 20 dives)
If you do the orientation dive on Saturday afternoon, that means that instead of doing it on Sunday AM, you get two boat dives that next morning.
I guess.
A lot of people do the standard (included) orientation dive and then do another shore dive that same morning after arrival.
This, it should be remembered, is
NOTa "check-out" dive. Yes, you are there to check your weights, but unless the DM has been given a reason to examine some minor skills, you will get a tour, an orientation, of the
Front Yard. Some DMs might have you perform some activities because they are on the path to instructor, and they are learning. Likely, if you get in the water and know what you are doing, you'll go on the short orientation dive and hopefully learn all the man-made land marks that dot the
Front Yard.
Memorize the above and you don't need the orientation dive.
This afternoon of arrival phenomena is relatively new, due to a change in the airline schedules. Not so long ago, you used to set foot at the resort at 5pm or so. Now, with early arrivals, you appear a lot earlier.
How to figure your arrival time? Lets' say you arrive at 1:00 pm on your flight. You will likely hit the resort by 2:30 at the minimum. After you find your room and your luggage arrives, figure 3:30, then maybe another :45 minutes to get weights and turn in your c-card. That's 4:25 and in the water. Call it about +3:15 hrs. after touch-down
IF all the planets align.
Everybody has finally started to listen to DAN about any number of warnings, but so far, not many have paid any attention to their one or two mentions about linking (all but universal) travel dehydration with DCS. Ignore it if you like, but diving while dehydrated is an obvious DCS risk. Travel dehydrates. Do the math.
So, are you really going to bang-out all 27 dives in a week, doing 5x a day? Maybe doing the orientation dive upon arrival for $25 works for you.
Or would you rather relax, learn your way around the resort in the daylight, rehydrate, wait 12 hours and save $25?
I don't have an inclusive sample, but I only know of one person who did the afternoon-of-arrival orientation dive and then went on to do those other easy 27 in a week.
