ScubaDon
Contributor
OK, here is the scenario. I took my open water certification a couple of months ago through PADI, sponsored of course by a local dive shop. My dive buddy and I thought w had a pretty good class..........that is until we started diving with several people with similar amounts of dives but having been certified through different agencies and we quickly realized how lacking in skills we were.
My son started his open water classes last week, through a different agency, and I was able to sit through a couple of his classes. I was absolutely appaled at the difference in what kind of experience and amount of time the instructors were spending with this class as opposed to what we had. His first class he had a little more than an hour of class room time and almost 3 hours of pool time. The amount of information and instruction he got made me feel like I had gone through a resort certification. My first class session lasted all of 45 min. and then we had about 45 minutes of pool time. It didn't get better from there. The second class we spent 15 min. in the class going over the questions from the book and then we had a different instructor for the pool session and he was in a hurry and we spent a whopping 15 min. in the pool. We complained to the LDS and it was passed off as the instructor was having a bad day.
My son got more pool time his first class than we had our entire course. We didn't cover altitude diving, we live in Salt Lake which is at 5000 feet altitude, we were told that they couldn't teach that because it was a different class, underwater nagigation....spent all of 5 minutes on it. We learned only 1 kicking technique, the fultter kick, my son has learned 5 so far. I could go on and on about the differences. It was really making me mad sitting there.
My question is, does PADI care whether or not their divers are prepared or are they more interested in selling you the next class. I thought at first we just had a bad experience at this particular dive shop or possibly this class, but after talking to several different people who had similar experiences with this LDS and PADI in particular I am beginning to wonder.
I am planning on writing a letter to PADI about my experiences. I won't continue my dive education with them but have already signed up for other classes throught a different agency.
I'd like to hear if anyone else has had similar problems.
My son started his open water classes last week, through a different agency, and I was able to sit through a couple of his classes. I was absolutely appaled at the difference in what kind of experience and amount of time the instructors were spending with this class as opposed to what we had. His first class he had a little more than an hour of class room time and almost 3 hours of pool time. The amount of information and instruction he got made me feel like I had gone through a resort certification. My first class session lasted all of 45 min. and then we had about 45 minutes of pool time. It didn't get better from there. The second class we spent 15 min. in the class going over the questions from the book and then we had a different instructor for the pool session and he was in a hurry and we spent a whopping 15 min. in the pool. We complained to the LDS and it was passed off as the instructor was having a bad day.
My son got more pool time his first class than we had our entire course. We didn't cover altitude diving, we live in Salt Lake which is at 5000 feet altitude, we were told that they couldn't teach that because it was a different class, underwater nagigation....spent all of 5 minutes on it. We learned only 1 kicking technique, the fultter kick, my son has learned 5 so far. I could go on and on about the differences. It was really making me mad sitting there.
My question is, does PADI care whether or not their divers are prepared or are they more interested in selling you the next class. I thought at first we just had a bad experience at this particular dive shop or possibly this class, but after talking to several different people who had similar experiences with this LDS and PADI in particular I am beginning to wonder.
I am planning on writing a letter to PADI about my experiences. I won't continue my dive education with them but have already signed up for other classes throught a different agency.
I'd like to hear if anyone else has had similar problems.
