How Much Consideration Goes Into Your Choice of PADI/NAUI/SSI etc. for New Divers?

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A certification is just that, I am certified to have met certain requirements. I did not worry much about who did the certifying (PADI, NAUI, SSI). I did research the shops and the instructors extensively. I ended up taking the course that required the most number of hours for completion and with what little knowledge I had before certification, seemed to have the most rigorous requirements. I have no regrets, it was worth the time and the effort.
 
We certified with a person, not an "agency." We certified with a person that is super anal and we knew would only pass those of us that he felt comfortable passing...and he did just that. 2 people in our class of 6 were not certified even though they passed the written portion. He often pulled them aside to work on skills they could not grasp in the larger group. In the end, they should not and were not certified. That he happened to be a PADI instructor meant nothing. We are now going on to do our AOW, nitrox and then rescue diver after and we've again selected an instructor that cares and seems like a good fit for us. Again, this gentleman happens to be PADI but we picked him off the referral from our original instructor.

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I'll probably get beat up for saying this, but IMHO the agency really doesn't make that big of a difference, it's the instructor and you that determines how good of a diver that you will become. If the instructor's skimping on service and hasn't been reported, is that really the agency's fault, and if the student want's to be a vacation, everyone does every thing for me diver, is that the agency's fault? I know it's hard for a student to know if they are getting good service, but after diving a few years you know how good your training was. When I did my training I looked at what was offered in the area, did a self comparison and saw that the PADI shop around the corner had the same course outline as the NAUI and SSI only they did it in 3 1/2 days instead of 2hrs 1 day a week for six weeks. And my LDS stressed do not wait until a week before the class to come in get the training material, he wanted you to get in time enough to finish the training manual and ask any questions if you didn't understand! I had some trouble with my float/tread test, I could only do about 3 mins and he wouldn't pass me until I could do 15. But I was getting in some pool time where a NAUI instructor passed a student after 1 min float, and about a 20ft swim.

^^This
 
Hi :). The case for my wife and I, when pursuing Open Water certification, was probably similar to a lot of folks. We didn't know anything about diving, didn't know different agencies existed, and simply ended up getting open water certified with PADI because that happened to be the agency affiliated with the only dive shop we were aware of.


As it turns out - we have ditched PADI in favor of SSI for our Advance Open Water certification. We were dis-satisfied with PADI on a few levels. The first being that we were not happy with our PADI dive shop, Chattahoochee Scuba, in Columbus, GA. The shop is a very small place, and likely continues to exists from the number of regular swimming lessons which it provides for kids and adults. My wife and I were very excited about getting certified and knew we were going to continue diving, so rather than purchase equipment from the dive shop, which was very, very limited, we sought out a larger retailer and found Diver's Supply in Macon, GA, which is like the Walmart of diving equipment. We were able to view and try on equipment we hadn't seen before and the shop helped educate us on our purchases.


Excited to try out our new stuff we went back to Chattahoochee scuba to rent air tanks and use their pool. No sooner than we walked in, were we accusingly asked, "Where did you get that stuff?" We told them where, but the employees had an attitude with us. I'm guessing their behavior was because we didn't order through them so they could get a cut of the purchase. Our previous experience ordering through them was that a set of fins ordered for my wife will take more than two weeks to arrive. We received the same attitude from them when I mentioned that I got an underwater camera for my wife for her degree completion gift. They were sore that I bought it on the internet and not from them.


In the mean time we signed up for a deep class through SSI, as we had found the other scuba shop in Columbus, GA, Planet Ocean Scuba, which was professional and which we felt comfortable with right away. We understood that PADI, SSI, and other dive agencies all subscribe to international standards for class requirements, and told our local PADI shop that we wanted the SSI deep class to count for our advanced open water cert. The shop owner at Chattahoochee scuba refused, so we called PADI's national phone number. The person which we talked with there also said that they wouldn't credit us with the deep dive class taken through SSI. We were done with PADI at that point. We returned to SSI and are one dive now from Advance Open Water Certification.


The last gripe with PADI is that their requirements for, "Adventure Dives", seems to be just a way to milk students out of extra money.


All in all though, we are happy with the problems we experienced with PADI, as without that grief we never would have found a much more professional, SSI, dive center and the shop owner there who makes you feel like part of the family as soon as you walk in the door.
 
Excuse my ignorance but untill I found Scubaboard while I was taking my OW course with PADI I did not know there was anything else. Would it had made a difference, probably not becouse the LSD/Padi Asociate is only 5min. away from my home and there OW training site is only 100 yards outside there Office, can hardly get more conveniant then that. I had checked them out 2 years prior so I knew this was not a fly by nite Operation.
 
Hi :). The case for my wife and I, when pursuing Open Water certification, was probably similar to a lot of folks. We didn't know anything about diving, didn't know different agencies existed, and simply ended up getting open water certified with PADI because that happened to be the agency affiliated with the only dive shop we were aware of.


As it turns out - we have ditched PADI in favor of SSI for our Advance Open Water certification. We were dis-satisfied with PADI on a few levels. The first being that we were not happy with our PADI dive shop, Chattahoochee Scuba, in Columbus, GA. The shop is a very small place, and likely continues to exists from the number of regular swimming lessons which it provides for kids and adults. My wife and I were very excited about getting certified and knew we were going to continue diving, so rather than purchase equipment from the dive shop, which was very, very limited, we sought out a larger retailer and found Diver's Supply in Macon, GA, which is like the Walmart of diving equipment. We were able to view and try on equipment we hadn't seen before and the shop helped educate us on our purchases.


Excited to try out our new stuff we went back to Chattahoochee scuba to rent air tanks and use their pool. No sooner than we walked in, were we accusingly asked, "Where did you get that stuff?" We told them where, but the employees had an attitude with us. I'm guessing their behavior was because we didn't order through them so they could get a cut of the purchase. Our previous experience ordering through them was that a set of fins ordered for my wife will take more than two weeks to arrive. We received the same attitude from them when I mentioned that I got an underwater camera for my wife for her degree completion gift. They were sore that I bought it on the internet and not from them.


In the mean time we signed up for a deep class through SSI, as we had found the other scuba shop in Columbus, GA, Planet Ocean Scuba, which was professional and which we felt comfortable with right away. We understood that PADI, SSI, and other dive agencies all subscribe to international standards for class requirements, and told our local PADI shop that we wanted the SSI deep class to count for our advanced open water cert. The shop owner at Chattahoochee scuba refused, so we called PADI's national phone number. The person which we talked with there also said that they wouldn't credit us with the deep dive class taken through SSI. We were done with PADI at that point. We returned to SSI and are one dive now from Advance Open Water Certification.


The last gripe with PADI is that their requirements for, "Adventure Dives", seems to be just a way to milk students out of extra money.


All in all though, we are happy with the problems we experienced with PADI, as without that grief we never would have found a much more professional, SSI, dive center and the shop owner there who makes you feel like part of the family as soon as you walk in the door.

Sounds to me (especially with only 1 post to your name) that you are more unhappy with a dive shop than the company doing the certification and are now bashing an entire organization over a bad experience with a specific place/people. Also, as one experienced diver told me, the adventure dives are more for getting you time in the water than for milking money out of people. If you happen to sign up for something extra, more power to the organization to have gotten you to do that.
 
[h=4]I have certs from several agencies NAUI, PADI, PDIC, SSI & TDI. I started out with NAUI in high school in Davis California. At that time the shop, “The Diving Bell” (I think the name was) was affiliated with UC Davis, the owner was a UCD prof. Dr. Dick Bell and it was pretty much the only game in town. I thought it was interesting that when I went to NDSTC scuba school (NEC 5344) in the Navy I was issued a NAUI c-card (paper card laminated); whereas, my OW NAUI card was more like a credit card (plastic). Anyway I digress, I guess first it’s what agency(s) is/are in the area, followed by vetting the instructor and go on from there. In summary the agency is not as important to me as the quality of the instructor.[/h][h=4][/h]
 
When I first learned to dive, I went to several shops and talked to the people there plus talk to others about their thoughts on these shops. I went with the shop that gave me the best warm & fuzzy. It happened to be PADI. Later on, I found another shop who is more amenable to my training needs, and I loved the owner/instructor's enthusiasm for teaching and his skills were beyond reproach. It was NAUI. I don't have any allegiance to a specific diving organization, I go to whichever shop/instructor that would meet my needs.
 
When I first learned to dive, I went to several shops and talked to the people there plus talk to others about their thoughts on these shops. I went with the shop that gave me the best warm & fuzzy. It happened to be PADI. Later on, I found another shop who is more amenable to my training needs, and I loved the owner/instructor's enthusiasm for teaching and his skills were beyond reproach. It was NAUI. I don't have any allegiance to a specific diving organization, I go to whichever shop/instructor that would meet my needs.

And this sounds like the best approach to me!
 
Hi :). The case for my wife and I, when pursuing Open Water certification, was probably similar to a lot of folks. We didn't know anything about diving, didn't know different agencies existed, and simply ended up getting open water certified with PADI because that happened to be the agency affiliated with the only dive shop we were aware of.


As it turns out - we have ditched PADI in favor of SSI for our Advance Open Water certification. We were dis-satisfied with PADI on a few levels. The first being that we were not happy with our PADI dive shop, Chattahoochee Scuba, in Columbus, GA. The shop is a very small place, and likely continues to exists from the number of regular swimming lessons which it provides for kids and adults. My wife and I were very excited about getting certified and knew we were going to continue diving, so rather than purchase equipment from the dive shop, which was very, very limited, we sought out a larger retailer and found Diver's Supply in Macon, GA, which is like the Walmart of diving equipment. We were able to view and try on equipment we hadn't seen before and the shop helped educate us on our purchases.


Excited to try out our new stuff we went back to Chattahoochee scuba to rent air tanks and use their pool. No sooner than we walked in, were we accusingly asked, "Where did you get that stuff?" We told them where, but the employees had an attitude with us. I'm guessing their behavior was because we didn't order through them so they could get a cut of the purchase. Our previous experience ordering through them was that a set of fins ordered for my wife will take more than two weeks to arrive. We received the same attitude from them when I mentioned that I got an underwater camera for my wife for her degree completion gift. They were sore that I bought it on the internet and not from them.


In the mean time we signed up for a deep class through SSI, as we had found the other scuba shop in Columbus, GA, Planet Ocean Scuba, which was professional and which we felt comfortable with right away. We understood that PADI, SSI, and other dive agencies all subscribe to international standards for class requirements, and told our local PADI shop that we wanted the SSI deep class to count for our advanced open water cert. The shop owner at Chattahoochee scuba refused, so we called PADI's national phone number. The person which we talked with there also said that they wouldn't credit us with the deep dive class taken through SSI. We were done with PADI at that point. We returned to SSI and are one dive now from Advance Open Water Certification.


The last gripe with PADI is that their requirements for, "Adventure Dives", seems to be just a way to milk students out of extra money.


All in all though, we are happy with the problems we experienced with PADI, as without that grief we never would have found a much more professional, SSI, dive center and the shop owner there who makes you feel like part of the family as soon as you walk in the door.

Okay, when you were upset with the only shop you knew of, you found another shop in town, what Columbus didn't have any yellow pages? Also they wouldn't credit the deep dive for you AOW, why would you make a big deal out of doing a knowledge base, and 1 dive? Like a previous poster said you had a problem with the dive shop and decided to bring the agency into it.
 
Without reading the whole string of posts... personally I had never heard of anything but Padi until midway through OW when my instructor mentioned a few of the other organizations.

Had I known, and had lessons not been a gift, I'd likely have researched and made a decision based on what I learned.
 
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