How many pool sessions in OW

[Alex777]

I must say I'm surprised at the results. My own PADI OWD course on Grand Cayman contained exactly ONE pool session of around 3.5 hours. I understand that to be the norm around here. Don't get me wrong - I thought it was inadequate at the time, and still do.

 

[eckybay]

I had a weekend class - two 8 hour days. The first day there was a few hours of classroom work and the rest of the time was pool time. The shop also offers evening classes over the course of several weeks, but we opted for the weekend setup due to having some distance to drive to the shop. The class consisted of just my sister and myself and we both caught on to all of the skills quickly, so neither of us felt rushed.

The OW dives where completed on the following weekend.

 

[jbd]

The class I took was 5 sessions over two and a half weeks. There were ten in the class which meant there was a lot of time spent waiting on others to do the various skills. There was some time to "dive" but not much. Went to OW cert dives with little if any real skill or ability. Came very close to giving it up altogether which the other nine did. This experience is the very reason why I teach the way I do now.

 

[jbd]

OK, own up, which comedian said zero in the survey

I have certified a person who never had any formal training, never been to any pool/confined water training, never read the first book on diving. Even the time I spent with this person was all in open water.

 

[RonFrank]

We ended up doing 7 pool sessions (3-4 hours each) with lectures after each pool session (2-3 hours).

I'm curious, for those that had these marathon sessions, both pool and lecture, how much were you paying?

I did a lot of checking in FL, and CO, and Coz before signing up for OW, and 2~8 hour days which included pool and lecture seemed very normal (PADI) with most LDS's in three very different regions. Prices were also similar with FL being the lowest as they generally do the OW checkout dives at a much lower cost than CO, or COZ diveOps.

 

[letsgodiving]

I'm curious, for those that had these marathon sessions, both pool and lecture, how much were you paying?

Most shops we spoke to charged $190-200 for OW for everything excluding the cost of check out dives. We had unlimited pool time because the LDS have the local dive pool two evenings a week. If a student needed a little more time you just need a flexible instructor.

 

[piikki]

I'm curious, for those that had these marathon sessions, both pool and lecture, how much were you paying?

I did a lot of checking in FL, and CO, and Coz before signing up for OW, and 2~8 hour days which included pool and lecture seemed very normal (PADI) with most LDS's in three very different regions. Prices were also similar with FL being the lowest as they generally do the OW checkout dives at a much lower cost than CO, or COZ diveOps.

If you count mine as marathon (6 intended sessions, 5 executed/over 7 weeks because instructor had one week's vacation in the middle too), the price was $295. My course was in 2005.

The price included all confined water sessions and all four OW dives from a boat (except optional tips). Also included were written materials and cert cards. All other gear but mask, snorkel, boots, fins and weights were provided for confined and OW dives. (I add that we used wetsuits also in pool, so price included two types of thermal protection per student. You might not have gotten anything great but it was in the price).

 

[Centerius]

I'm doing my OW through a class here at Florida State University. I'll be finishing up my open water cert on Thursday night (going over the final exam we took last night). I only paid $110 tuition for it, and we had 10 pool sessions (2-3 hours each), 13 lectures, and additionally included 2 dives at Morrison Spring, 2 dives on a boat in Panama City, and all gear/air/etc. We have some of the best instructors (in my opinion), due to being in an academic environment and it being very rigorous. If you ever needed help outside the pool session, you just needed to talk to one of them.