From what i recall when i looked into it, it was around 360-400 a person, plus accom for the weekend - which for you locals... and then add on 2x2-tank boat dives, gas and any other bits. That price includes the tuition, GUE and instructor travel fees (although i never got that travel fee part when they are in Ft Lauderdale anyway). For those up in cave country they arent running any DIR-F classes for a while due to the OW instructor training thing (ITC) going on, so its all in Ft L.
That was either through Brownies (w/Dean Martin & Sonya Tittle) or a guy out on his own (Cody Gardner). Dean offered a list of hotels etc for use and Cody rents out his house to students for the weekend, eat together, sleep in house, for an extra fee. All in all for out of towners, this looked to be about $800 for course, accom and food. Those in town only <$400. I would still contemplate doing the course, but with the additional costs on top it was looking unaffordable for me/us.
Cody runs about 1 per month, Dean 1-2 per month, so plenty of opportunities. Its a weekend course, you meet on friday night, chat things through, get questions answered etc. Then saturday you get into the meat of it and do your pool sessions, and possibly 2 OW dives, debrief etc and then sunday 2 more OW dives. There is a lot of time in there for you and the instructor to interact. The guidelines say that they can have up to 6 divers, but i think both Dean and Cody suggested they really didnt do more than 4 at a time - so not sure how that would work with an SB group. They are booked up pretty much through July, possibly have openings in August (at least that was what i found out last month).
BTW, i have looked into this and asked questions of the two guys involved.
