Padi Dry Suit Course VS Advanced Course

[ScubaTodd77]

So winter is approaching, and I've decided that I wanna learn to dive dry. Which course would give me the more bang for my buck...Padi's Dry Suit Course or the Advanced Open Water? I wanna do both but can't afford them right now. Any suggestions?

 

[TheScubaBOB]

Why not to the AOW with Drysuit as one of the Adventure dives?

Then later when you do the full Drysuit Specialty you can "opt-out" of Dive #1 if you want and most LDS will reduce the course cost as a result.

 

[elan]

So winter is approaching, and I've decided that I wanna learn to dive dry. Which course would give me the more bang for my buck...Padi's Dry Suit Course or the Advanced Open Water? I wanna do both but can't afford them right now. Any suggestions?

Though Dry Suit can be part of AOW those are just 2 different things and cannot be compared. Besides if you plan to buy your own Dry Suit many stores throw a dry suit course for free. I do not know how much it costs to rent the suit in your area but here it's just not worth it. With 10 rent payments you can buy a simple dry suit.

 

[300bar]

Can't speak for you but most of my students have enough with the AOW drysuit dive.
Drysuit diving can only be learned with experiance.So the skills in the AOW dive, might suffice.
But it all depends on you.
IMO it's a good choice for the AOW.

 

[fobturbo]

You said you couldn't afford to do both, but check the price out anyways. When I was looking to do my AOW certification, there were some others that I knew I wanted to do as well (nitrox, drysuit). I ran into my OW instructor by chance one day and he told me he runs a "special AOW" where he packages AOW + nitrox + drysuit in the same course and offers a discount.

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree with all of the above. DO dry suit raining as a part of AOW if you can only do one dive. Then dive, dive, dive in your dry suit until you get the hang of it.

 

[ScubaTodd77]

Thank you all! Looks like I'll be doing the AOW

 

[300bar]

Thank you all! Looks like I'll be doing the AOW

I love it when a plan comes together.

 

[Sas]

So winter is approaching, and I've decided that I wanna learn to dive dry. Which course would give me the more bang for my buck...Padi's Dry Suit Course or the Advanced Open Water? I wanna do both but can't afford them right now. Any suggestions?

I personally would do AOW in your shoes. Drysuit you can learn yourself with advice from experienced divers and just practicing in the water - it is not something you need a course for. AOW skills are in the same boat (unless your instructor is one of the rare ones that make this course hard), but at least that card will certify you to 30m so if you wish to do deeper dives at some stage you have that card to show charters.

Good luck with your AOW!

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

I personally would do AOW in your shoes. Drysuit you can learn yourself with advice from experienced divers and just practicing in the water - it is not something you need a course for.

Ya but most places won't sell or rent a drysuit without the certification (or at least they say they won't, I've never tried).

To the OP: if you're concerned about money, have you looked into what a drysuit costs to buy (or rent, but renting is a downright ripoff)?