I have not settled on an instructor yet. What advantage would I get? I like advantages.
I am not an instructor, so I don’t really have any personal interest in who you chose. Here are just a couple thoughts based on my experience and having three kids who also dive.
Be careful if you are price shopping. I have seen how some instructor operate with large class sizes and a “push em through” style. This is not the place to try and save 100bucks and end up with a bad experience.
If you plan to really get into diving, you will likely move on to AOW and maybe other training. So developing a relationship with local instructor you mesh well with can pay off over time.
In Florida, Nitrox (enriched air) is very common, and some instructors will let you add this cert to your OW at a discounted rate. +$75 is not unusual. I would recommend this for anyone. Taking OW in this area.
Most instructor in this area are affiliated with shops, but operate independently. You should seek out a reference based on the type of diving you plan to do.
Full disclosure: I am biased towards cave/cavern/spring diving, and really think this is an awesome place to start diving, even if you are destined for the Caribbean. For my kids, I found an OW instructor who was also an experienced cave-tech diver. This means they were taught advanced skills right from then start, and made them much better divers, on a faster pace than most. There are still OW instructors who are teaching new divers bad habits. Things like a fin-pivot, or doing drills while kneeling, are just wrong. (IMHO) and will get you into bad habits that are hard to break.
