Agency comparisons

[steveann]

While I don't know much about PADI or NAUI (although I will say that I have seen an inordinate amount of PADI "courses") I am familiar with SSI and SDI/TDI. Between those two, there seems to be a large difference in skill/knowledge requirements. SDI, which takes a lot from NAUI (so I would guess NAUI is similar) requires a lot more in depth knowledge on dive physics and physiology. Whereas in my SSI OW class, we learned that stuff floats or sinks and you have to compensate for that (in a nutshell) the SDI course has you calculate the amount of bouyancy of objects. I thought this most interesting, as it helped me understand the weighting concept much better (no more magic or trial and error weighting, I can figure it out pretty dang close now).

As for AOW, SSI does have an Advanced class, although it might just be a shop by shop thing (most shops have them though) where you get your four specialties in a week or less.

Of course, in the end, it comes down to two things, really. The instructor, and the diver themselves. Would I have understood the weighting concept better in an SDI course? Probably. Did I understand it enough to realize that I had to compensate my buoyancy for gear changes. Yes. Would an SDI course have made me a better diver? Probably (from a knowledge point of view). Was I not a good diver before I knew about Archimedes Principle and it's application to diving? I wold hope not (although that would be something to ask my dive buddies). Each agency has it's ups and downs, I think the diver themselves brings about the quality of the instruction.

 

[GDI]

Walter defending PADI

wait now let me check to see if I am awake, (pinch yelp! I'm awake)

The best course is the one you take and ask alot of questions of and demand the most of your instructor. The instructor is willing to provide you the answers (or get the answers) and will demnad the most of you while challenging you and keeping you interested and having fun while learning.

 

[daniel f aleman]

The Master Diver is the new Advanced Diver. When asked, I tell others that one should take AOW after fifteen to twenty-five dives. The Master programs are great, really gets a diver a lot of time with an instructor diving different specialties. A Master C-card states, at the least, that one continuaaly dives and wants to learn.

 

[sewcopp]

As many of you seem to be trying to say. It's not necesarily the agency that sets the curriculuum that is responsible for the good or bad training or training experiances. What the instructor put into the training and how organized they are, as well as what the student puts into learning and how interested thet are in learning things correctly is what makes or breaks a course. The different agancies have different philosophies on how they think students should be taught, how quickly they should progress and how to break the courses down. It's up to you if want to go with an agency that does peice-meal certifications (specialty courses) that you pay for individually to get your experience and then be called an advanced diver

or​

You wnat to go with your bud's and get diving practice in and then take an all inclusive course without the necessity of individual C-cards to get the advanced diver cert.
It's personal preference as to the type of course(s) and the time you have to put into each cert. 1 class and 1-2 dives ---------individual specialty cards
numerous classes & numerous dives --- one inclusive course
If the instructor is good and you both put the effort into the course (no complacency pls) you'll get good results from it.

If your at home taking a course at your Local shop ------ talk to people who've trained with them in the past. If your not I guess you pays your money and you takes your chances.

:05:

ACUC, SDI (in progress)

 

[Walter]

As many of you seem to be trying to say. It's not necesarily the agency that sets the curriculuum that is responsible for the good or bad training or training experiances.

I wouldn't say that at all. The agency sets the stage. While there are exceptions, training from a particular agency is usually about the same quality regardless of where you take the class. Individual instructors in any agency can teach above or below average, but those are rare. The agency is usually the biggest difference from one class to another.

What the instructor put into the training and how organized they are, as well as what the student puts into learning and how interested thet are in learning things correctly is what makes or breaks a course.

That usually makes little difference, because the vast majority of instructors teach exactly as their agency requires and add nothing to the class. Few students do more than follow along blindly believing everything they hear in class (or see on the DVD).

The different agancies have different philosophies on how they think students should be taught, how quickly they should progress and how to break the courses down.

True. That's what makes the biggest difference in quality.

It's up to you if want to go with an agency that does peice-meal certifications (specialty courses) that you pay for individually to get your experience and then be called an advanced diver

or​

You wnat to go with your bud's and get diving practice in and then take an all inclusive course without the necessity of individual C-cards to get the advanced diver cert.
It's personal preference as to the type of course(s) and the time you have to put into each cert. 1 class and 1-2 dives ---------individual specialty cards
numerous classes & numerous dives --- one inclusive course
If the instructor is good and you both put the effort into the course (no complacency pls) you'll get good results from it.

Not at all. The class from 1975 wasn't simply broken down into stages. While some of that has happened, most of what was removed in some programs was simply disgarded, never to be covered in any advanced or specialty class

 

[Fred R.]

So, for those of you who have experience with the different certification agencies (PADI, SSI/TDI, NAUI, etc):

What are some of the similarities, both in methods and challenges?
What are some of the things that one agency does better than the others?
Are there differences in the focus of one versus another?
What are some of the differences in fees, both to the LDS and the student?
If you own a dive shop, which agency/agencies do you subscribe to, and why?

Since I have more than a little experience with more than a few agencies, I run a dive shop, have certified students and instructors with multiple agencies, I thought I would add my two cents.

First, I will say that I don’t care what agency’s logo is on your card, certified is certified. I have accepted cards that say ‘plongee’, ‘buceo’, ‘duiker’ ‘taucher’ and a whole lot of other words I don’t remember. I’ve accepted cards that didn’t have a word in any phonetic language I read, and for all I know, I took someone’s laundry ticket as a dive card Divers are divers, from wherever and whoever gave them their training.

Secondly, no one gets certified by an agency. Whenever asked, I say ‘I teach under the auspices of XXXXX’. No one from headquarters of any agency or club has ever taught my courses. ( I do a lot with BSAC, they certify and they aren’t an agency, they are the largest dive club in the world)

At the certification level, all certification agency cards are the same. Sure, on this and other boards, people will hold out these nit-picking differences, but they are all interchangeable and accepted EVERYWHERE Visa, MasterCard, or American Express are accepted.

The differences start to really appear at the instructor level, and my become noticeable to the point of intolerable at the dive shop or dive operation level.

I could tell horror stories for hours about the bad business practices of the different agencies, I could also tell you how those standards were hammered out, I could tell you of the personalities of the board of directors of several agencies, who’s who, and how they got their job, but this post is long enough and getting longer

I said goodbye to PADI several years ago. They are not fun, nor profitable to do business with. Their basic business model, as it was expressed to me, was one of extortion and intimidation. Their phone system was an expensive nightmare, customer service was non-existent, they don’t proof-read or check the listings before publishing them, and if you ever got what you ordered, as often as not, the order wasn’t right. When you are dealing across national boundaries, returns aren’t an option.

I said goodbye to SSI not long after, though much more politely. Their order department is about the best. I don’t get along with the things they let happen, or caused to happen in their name.

Same with NAUI, their rep in my area does not do his job to my satisfaction and since I am the customer, I walked.

Part of the reason stemmed from a little accounting I did one slow week. Each of these and other agencies have membership dues, for the store, for the boat, for each instructor and divemaster. When I added up all the ‘professional dues’, my shop was paying, there was just no way to justify the cost. When questioned, the agencies couldn’t really justify the cost either. They made vague promises of ‘help’ and direct threats of harm if I did not ‘cooperate’.

Having a couple of decades experience, I decided to do a simple experiment. I told them all what I thought of them, I was actually very polite to almost all, and I removed myself from their rosters. I decided to go with the ONE agency that met my needs. My choice was SDI/TDI. These guys are the best, in my opinion, for me and the shop I represent. Not only are they are the most forward thinking, willing to experiment with the business model, and have a philosophy based on ‘We can’t make money unless you are successful’, I also met the needs of two training agencies with one set of dues! More importantly, they have stuck to that.

My experiment paid substantial dividends. Suddenly, I had a couple of thousand dollars (yes, that is what it really was) to do other things with, which went into business infrastructure. More people came to my shop as a result, so business increased a bit at a slightly lower cost to the shop.

So there you have it, is my experience typical? I hope not for the sake of these different agencies. I know it isn’t unusual, which is why SDI/TDI is finding a growing audience among dive shops.

 

[divecon15]

That's an apples to oranges comparison. While both agencies certify you as "Advanced," SSI doesn't actually have an advanced course. Compare SSI's Advanced to PADI's Master Diver. They both follow the same concept - x number od specialties and x number of dives. I believe (but I'm not sure) they require approximately the same in terms of specialties, but PADI requires approximately twice the number of dives.

Walter talking about compairing apples to oranges you take the cake.... I was talking SSI advanced open water Vs padi's advanced open water... 24 dives vs 9 dives... you then compair SSI's AOW to padi's master diver... how about you compair it to SSI's Master Diver which is 4 specilities + Stress & Rescue and 50 dives.

So Walt next time you do some compairisons make sure YOU get apples to apples
Also there is no defending padi, as an oganization they have some very questionable practices, however they have some damn fine shops and instructors associated with them.

 

[Ana]

I didn't read all 46 replies, but I get the feeling that no one has touch the subject of actual customer service after training is done from the agencies.

I know people in general (an specially in this board) place a great deal of importance on training and following all the rules. On the surface it gives the appearance of such a responsible community, almost scary. But is it responsibility or laziness and self-importance attitute?

You hear this agency may be crappy but the intructor is so good it doesn;t matter the VXYZ on the top of the card. Well what about the student? Oh no... the student doesn't know anything, so it can't tell when he's being tought wrong. Royal BS It gets old to put the burden on the teaching... yes sure, it is great to have good instructors... But if Universities that pump engineers, attorneys, doctors and whatever, have some of the most pathetic excuses for instructors that have ever crawled in the planet, why would a recreational activity have only magnificent teachers? THE BURDEN IS IN THE STUDENT. and yes, I know you can die diving, well... you can die crossing a highway too, but road workers get it mostly right without a whole lot of hand holding.

For recreational activities the "instructor" should only give you the important stuff and the student should be the one that actively LEARNS. They don't know what is correct or incorrect? then better find out... Another thread in this board pointed out that most of the divers these days are middle age, kind of well off money wise, that means they have access to information, so they better get their behinds in gear and learn what they are getting into.

Back to the "customer service" point. I happen to have cards from a few different agencies. I don't have to show my cards often, the operators I use know me. I keep the few cards I have, in a little wallet separate from my everyday ID's. Well I haven't been able to find the stupid little wallet for the last couple of weeks. Because I know my luck, I better start the replacement procedure. I have electronic and xerox-like copies of all the cards so I figure it shouldn't be too big of a heartache. Here is what I've found so far:

TDI If you got the card thru a shop (I did) and the shop is still alive (it is) you call them, fax the copy and they promise to send you a replacement after a charge of $30 plus tax.

NAUI I'm not 100% sure if I interpreted it correctly but it looks like they want
- A replacement request form, filled up with data from the time the card was issued.
- Copies of you logged training dives(This is the part I don't quite understand/agree)
- $30 dollars, check or credit card.
Requesting the card does not guarantee that you'll get a replacement. I can't even start describing what that statement does to my brain.
This form can be faxed (with credit card info) or mailed, no verbal or on-line requests allowed. The form is a pdf document easy to download from their website. There is an 800 number for special cases, I didn't check.

PADI. You go to the website, click on the appropiate link and after giving your name and date of birth, you're presented with the list of certifications you have with them.
Click on the ones you want to replace and then you are presented with half a dozen options. From the plain replacement card for $30 to I do'nt know how many silly ways to get said piece of plastic, for additional $'s you get the card in a floating plastic case, or x$ the limited edition this, or the super special that. Then if you have a digital photo to upload and submit your credit card #'s the card will be on its way with 2 business days. They also have the 800 number for last minute stuff, didn't look.

YMCA and SSI, both are similar to NAUI but no mention of logbook or statements about not granting the request. Download the replacement form, send money and wait. Difference here, they didn't seem to accept faxes or online request, only regular mail. They also had an 800 number and again I didn't check that.

So this is what I found out about replacing cards. Not exactly the most important argument when choosing who will you use for the next certification. Some people pick the closest dive shop to their home for their training. If you are the type that looses wallets often this may be a better way to choose. I don't know how difficult will be getting the NAUI card, I hope I didn't understand what they meant and the form with the photocopy and the money will be enough.

 

[SharkDZ]

I've seen lots of padi divers with less than a dozen total dives holding an advance card. Padi does not require dive totals to get their advance card.

I'm one of those. Does that make me any less of a scuba diver?
I took AOW because it allowed me to keep diving with my classmates.
Besides, it was also a 50% off deal as well.

As a newbie I often wonder if people on SB actually enjoy diving.
Seems like every other person is bashing this agency and that agency.

I just like to dive; don't judge me by my agency and dive numbers.

Unfortunately my day job as a skydiver keeps me out of the water most of the time.

 

[Walter]

That's an apples to oranges comparison. While both agencies certify you as "Advanced," SSI doesn't actually have an advanced course. Compare SSI's Advanced to PADI's Master Diver. They both follow the same concept - x number od specialties and x number of dives. I believe (but I'm not sure) they require approximately the same in terms of specialties, but PADI requires approximately twice the number of dives.

Walter talking about compairing apples to oranges you take the cake.... I was talking SSI advanced open water Vs padi's advanced open water... 24 dives vs 9 dives... you then compair SSI's AOW to padi's master diver... how about you compair it to SSI's Master Diver which is 4 specilities + Stress & Rescue and 50 dives.

So Walt next time you do some compairisons make sure YOU get apples to apples
Also there is no defending padi, as an oganization they have some very questionable practices, however they have some damn fine shops and instructors associated with them.

Who's Walt? Hey, I don't care for them either, but comparing a certification in which they offer a class to one in which SSI does not is ridiculous. Yes, a comparison of SSI's Master Diver to PADI's Master diver is more even, but my point was the concepts involved in PADI's AOW is not remotely the same as that in SSI's Advanced. IMO, charging for a card in which no class is given, a practice both SSI and PADI follow, is a rip off. Is PADI's Advanced class any good? Not in my opinion, but it's infinitely better than either PADI's Master Diver, SSI's Advanced or any other card that you can obtain without taking a class. You want to get down to apples and apples, compare PADI's Advanced class to SSI's Advanced class. SSI doesn't have one.