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heatseeker
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Great. Thanks a lot for all of the advice everybody!
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Course Recommendations, Nitrox, Tipping
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kmurray719
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I am an instructor, and while I never expect to get tipped, it is a very nice gesture when people do it. It happens most often in private courses, when I work with children (parents are very appreciative of having an instructor skilled in working with children) , or when I've done something that saved their days diving (loaned out my back up mask, switched fins if theirs aren't working out well, etc). It's not the money that makes it a nice gesture, it's about someone recognizing that you've gone above and beyond to give them a good experience. I've had people buy me lunch, buy me ice cream, bring me baked goods, write emails to my bosses praising me and give me cards with really sweet notes in them. Whether you tip in cash or not, if you have a great instructor, please let them know somehow that you appreciate it, I promise it will make their day.Hey Everyone,
Being that I'm new to SCUBA diving, I'm looking for some advice regarding the following three things:
1 - Can anyone recommend a good place to get (PADI) certified in the Fort Lauderdale area?
2 - I saw that certain places offer a more expensive course which includes nitrox certification. What're the advantages of this, and is it something worth having?
3 - One of the course websites recommended tipping not only the mate on the dive boat, but the course instructor as well. Being that it's customary to tip fishing mates $10-$20 pp, I wasn't at all surprised by the suggestion to tip the mate. But is it normal to tip the instructor 10% of the course cost??
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance!.gif)
It varies cosniderably by location, shop policy, etc. I will tell you that on many occasions I did not make anything close to minimum wage. I have calculated my pay on some occasions to $2-$3 per hour. In some cases, the pay scale was $15/student. Get a 1-student class that takes you a few hours including all your setup work, and you don't make a lot of money. The student may have paid the shop about $150 for that class, but the instructor gets only a tiny fraction of that.
We recently learned in another thread that either the announcement is a lie in order to get you to pony up, or the dive operator is breaking the law. There is a specified minimum wage for boat crew, and if they don't get that in tips, then the management is supposed to make up the rest.
This applies to what I wrote about scuba instructor pay above. A scuba instructor, like anyone else, is supposed to make minimum wage. The dive shops that pay less are breaking the law, and they get away with it because suckers like me (formerly) allow it. You either accept the pay or you quit, and they find another sucker to take your place. As the shop's director of instruction said to me when I talked about this, "Instructors are a dime a dozen. We get somebody coming in looking for a job about every two weeks."
I don't work for them anymore, BTW.
I would take a tip.. My tips have been anywhere from $20 to $100, to all expense paid trips to Cayman Islands, and key biscayne..
I think tipping instructors is pretty unusual in general. When I have been tipped, it was appreciated. In most cases, the tip I received was more than I was paid.
...in your case.
Where I last worked, students had to pay more for private instruction. My original assumption as the instructor was that this meant the instructor got more money per pupil, since the instructor was now getting much less pay for doing roughly the same amount of work. But no, all the extra pay went to the shop, because, um, because, well, I guess it must be because in a private class it is more effort per student to write their names in the book. I don't know. There has to be a reason, though.
Private class cost for 1 student is $ 650 , instructor gets 40% so that is $260..2 students tuition is $500 each, instructor gets $400 .. 3 students tuition is $450 each,instructor gets $540..4 students tuition is $400 each instructor gets $640. pool and classroom onsite, no loading or unloading gear..this is for academic and confined water only..the 4 training dives in a group get instructor $80 per diver in a group setting, the 4 private ow dives pay can be $160 per student or more, depends on schedule,location,etc
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Wow!
For full OW (classroom, pool, and OW dives) our instructors would get $70 per student, regardless of the number. With a class of 8, you would get $560 for 36 hours of work, or about $16 per hour. If you had a class of 2, you could get done in less time--say 34 hours, or about $4 per hour.
A group class takes me 16 to 18 hours..@ $16 per hour that's only $288..pool and academics only, can be up to 6 students ..remember no time to transport gear or set up a class, all onsite in LDS. I have had private class for 2 that involved elearning and students had been competitive swimmer in college, all done in 4 hours , comes out to $100 per hour. Private acad and pool usually takes up to 8 hours, works out to $32.50 for 1 student to $80 per hour for 4 in class
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