Hi guys! I'm an ESL teacher in South Korea, and Christmas break is coming up. From the 25th to the 1st, my girlfriend and I will be on Cebu, and we're thinking about learning to dive. Neither of us have done it before, and so we have a few questions, if you wouldn't mind:
1) First of all, is it worth it? We'll only be there for a week. How much actual dive time will we get in a 3-5 day open water course? Are there fun diving things you can do that don't require a cert? I'm honestly a total newbie here.
2) If we do decide to learn, where's the best spot? It seems like northern Cebu is still going to be a post-typhoon mess by the time we get there, so we were thinking Moalboal or maybe Oslob. Which one's nicer / more likely to have whale sharks? (I REALLY want to dive with a whale shark.)
3) How much should we be paying? Friends of ours who went claimed they paid $120, but the courses I'm seeing seem more like $350.
4) Is it worth it to do PADI eLearning beforehand? Do dive shops actually accept the printout from that in lieu of their written portions?
Thank you so much for your help! Don't hesitate to tell us anything else you think we should know.
-Michael
1) First of all, is it worth it? We'll only be there for a week. How much actual dive time will we get in a 3-5 day open water course? Are there fun diving things you can do that don't require a cert? I'm honestly a total newbie here.
2) If we do decide to learn, where's the best spot? It seems like northern Cebu is still going to be a post-typhoon mess by the time we get there, so we were thinking Moalboal or maybe Oslob. Which one's nicer / more likely to have whale sharks? (I REALLY want to dive with a whale shark.)
3) How much should we be paying? Friends of ours who went claimed they paid $120, but the courses I'm seeing seem more like $350.
4) Is it worth it to do PADI eLearning beforehand? Do dive shops actually accept the printout from that in lieu of their written portions?
Thank you so much for your help! Don't hesitate to tell us anything else you think we should know.
-Michael