Hello All,
Who's best? Well, don't ask me. I'm obviously biased. I would say, however, that it's impossible to accurately say who you think is best unless you've actually dived with all the choices. So PeterBKK, if you've never dived with Aquanauts, come join us -- for free -- for a day THEN give us your opinion.
I will say that, as far as instructor training, one could make a strong case that our program is the best choice for an internship. That's not to say Mermaid's is bad. Far from it. They've been training large numbers of instructors for a long time with a respectable IE pass rate.
We at Aquanauts looked at their program and asked ourselves "how can we improve on it." The biggest thing we found people wanted was a small-group environment. While IDC classes of 20-25 are great for some people, we find many others prefer our classes, which max out at 4 people per Course Director (We are the only Pattaya program with 2 in-house CDs, by the way.)
Keeping things small allow our 2 CDs and Master Instructors to personally tutor each and every student. That kind of personal attention has resulted in some impressive results on the PADI IEs. In March, we put through 5 candidates with a possible 60 marks on the IE. Our guys scored fifty - 5 0 -- perfect marks of 5.0 or 100%. On the just completed IEs, all 6 of our students scored perfect 5.0 marks in the confined and open water.
Kudos to the students. It's their hard work and talent that determined their scores, but the fact our students score like this each and every IE says something, we think, about our method. That's why we, in fact, GUARANTEE our students will pass the IE their first time or we pay for them to take it again. Only Aquanauts makes that offer in Pattaya.
When choosing an internship, price is also a consideration. And we are as much as $1,100 less expensive than Mermaid's, at 35 baht to the dollar. Hard to argue with that.
In the end, your choice of an internship comes down to what kind of experience you want. Riverserf, I'd still love to have you join us and I'd be willing to cut a sweet deal to do it, but I understand and respect your choice. Pattaya is not for everyone.
Same for Carribeandiver. The CDC in Utila runs a class operation. Two of our OWSI interns just went there to do their MSDTs.
But all the programs and areas mentioned here -- Pattaya, Phuket, Koh Tao and Utila -- are very different and appeal to different people. People who come to us want the conveniences of city life, the very things Riversef wants to get away from.
We believe it you spend months in a place a certain amount of creature comforts are needed, such as modern supermarkets, cinemas, international hospitals, good restaurants, etc.
Utila and Koh Tao pretty lack a lot of that. They are well-known backpacker destinations and have that kind of feel.
Phuket is beautiful and is a bit more urbanized, but until that Carre Four supermarket opens, you still have to go 30 minutes into Phuket Town to go to the mall or the movies. Then again, when in season, the diving is arguably better than Pattaya, although it's pricier than here.
I said in another thread that if the quality of diving is your main concern, Pattaya is not for you. But I still maintain Pattaya has the best professional training conditions than anywhere in Thailand for the exact same reason that the fun divers don't like it: It's got rippin' currents at times and the viz plain sucks at times.
But if you want to be challenged and tested so that when you graduate your internship you can stay you truly have faced some tough conditions, then you want to come to Pattaya.
We know we have some challenges in topography to overcome here in Pattaya. That's why we at Aquanauts have tried to put together a very compelling internship package. Take a look at the website -- the link is below -- and call our free worldwide telephone lines and we can discuss your needs and desires in person.
