Hey there, new here, new to the sport...

[mrose]

Not sure where you obtained your information.
While it is a shops decision to not honor a certification, there is nothing in the standards about not being able to upgrade to a Open Water Diver after a year and have to repeat the course.

I stand corrected. I assumed that was a PADI rule since I had heard it from two different dive shops. I guess it was just two dive shops assigning an arbitrary time period for an allowable upgrade.



---------- Post added May 19th, 2014 at 11:59 PM ----------

From PADI.com:

• Complete your Open Water Diver whenever you want! Take your Scuba Diver certification to Open Water Diver with a few additional dives and knowledge development, and make the jump to Open Water Diver certification. You can start scuba diving independently whenever time allows or you’re up for more