I recently completed my Open Water Certification and am super excited about scuba. In my college days, I used to scuba dive and was certified by IDEA. This time, I got my certification with PADI. It was only after signing up, I started sensing a general dislike for PADI from the scuba community. From what I pick up, PADI tends to push courses (other agencies may be guilty of this too), rush divers through programs and reward dive centers based on their revenue production with little regard to quality.
Is that the gist of it or is there more? Do PADI divers tend to be over confident or jerks? Having just gone through the course, I felt ok with it. However, I am extremely comfortable in water so I may not be a good judge. It may be more dependent on the instructor versus the agency and I'll say that our instruction did not let anyone take any shortcuts; everyone had to do everything.
Just interested to know what I've got myself into and if I should hide the fact that I got my certification via PADI.
Your fellow divers will not care who certified you. We all just want to dive. The dive shops really don't care either...they just want to see your proof of certification. My certification is from PADI, and I have come to learn that it is a well-recognized brand worldwide, so it's like your passport. You can use it anywhere in the world. As far as the quality of my training, it was poor. That's not PADI's fault, but the instructor. PADI provides them the coursework and it's up to the instructor to do his job well. What
IS PADI's fault is not providing a more comprehensive course with longer instruction time and requiring, say, 25 dives to achieve OW. And I think the Nitrox training should be included in the OW course. PADI's core instruction model is really flawed.
Retrospectively, to think that I could competently perform the tasks of SCUBA after just 5 dives and some classroom time was insane. I never felt pressured to take classes, but they did offer to teach me the OW and AOW in a combo-style class, which I declined. It was several years between getting my OW & AOW, and by the time I took the AOW, I already had comfort in the AOW skills doing regular, diving so the course was easy. And, as a side note, my AOW was done in Hawaii, and given the high cost of diving in Hawaii, the cost of the AOW course was only about $50 more than if I had paid for those dives. I did all the book work at home, then did the classroom review and diving in Hawaii. It worked out great!
In summary, my opinion is that all you really need to pay for in courses would be OW, AOW, & Nitrox, since these are the most basic and necessary skills to be on your way to becoming an experienced recreational diver. I have learned so much from other, more experienced divers over the years, so I would rather spend the money I would have paid for the "fluff" specialties on actual diving. Just my opinion.