PADI specialties and money

[daniel f aleman]

Judging PADI is pointless - they are what they are. Don't like it, move along...

 

[Mako Mark]

for someone that has done 150 beach dives in California, perhaps the boat diver specialty is not just "fluff"

the main point of the thread is that htere is not a great deal of money to be made by specialty training by either the dive shop or the instructor. If you want to become rich, do something else.

 

[matts1w]

Perhaps, for a 12 year old diver, the Boat Diver speciality is a great introduction to boats, safety on the water, correct terminology, etc...

For a 40 year old who has grown up on the water it is total fluff, but why in the world would he/she sign up for the class?

There are all sorts of gray in this world.

 

[BarryNL]

Here's my rub. I did the PADI DM class and several of the 'specialties'. I can honestly say many of them ARE fluff and nothing more. The example of 'Boat Diver' is good one.

"Listen to the crew and do what they say."

There, that's my free boat dive course.

 

[stu_in_fl]

Perhaps, for a 12 year old diver, the Boat Diver speciality is a great introduction to boats, safety on the water, correct terminology, etc...

I still call it the pointy end and the round end...

 

[stu_in_fl]

..but in all seriousness, some specialties are useful - I did a hunting one...I could have just bought a speargun and headed off into the sunset shooting anything that moved (and probably myself), but the course went over important things like saftey, technique, fish id and even some ideas on how to cook them........needless to say I can still only shoot very stupid hogfish...but they are tasty and i haven't shot myeslf or any fellow divers yet

 

[mdmbike to scuba]

Seems like a good spot to throw this in....


Three instructors and their students are on board a dive boat in the middle of the ocean— there's a NAUI instructor, a PADI instructor, and an SSI instructor. Everything is going fine, until the boat springs a leak, and starts to sink. The SSI instructor says to his students, "Okay... we're in the middle of the ocean, so we might as well do our deep dive." The NAUI instructor says to his students, "Okay... we might as well do our navigation dive, so let's get our compasses out and swim towards shore." The PADI instructor says to his students, "Okay... for $25 extra you guys get to do a wreck dive!"

 

[Scuba_Steve]

As far as the conception that the specialties are there for PADI just to make money, let me break it down for you. If, say, the Boat diving specialty, is $75 including the certification fee, Padi just made about $15, depending on the number of students that particular instructor certifies in a year and orders materials for. $15 goes to PADI for the PIC card or online PIC for all specialties and recreational certifications except Master Diver which is about $40. The materials cost are layered by the number of materials ordered by that instructor but the highest cost for a single book is around $30. So in a Wreck diving course where you are charged $200, $15 to PADI for the Pic card and maybe $35 for the crew pak. The instructor or dive operation gets the other $150.

Where PADI does make quite a bit of money is through fees charged annually to Divemasters, AI's, Instructors and above. Application fee for Divemaster in 2006 is $70. Annual fee for Divemaster, from Jan. 1 - Dec. 31 is around $100 plus $325 for insurance.

Don't forget the fee Instructors have to pay for either the course from a CD to teach a specialty, or the cost to even teach it based on experience, and the accompanying fee paid to the agency of course.

That in and of itself is a hefty haul for the agency.

I guess you can uncle-in on the AOW portion of the various dives (lets say the Nav or Deep dives), but ya gotta be some kind of rocket scientist to teach the entire specialty. Nonsense.

After all, what kind of instructor would you be if you aren't officially qualified to teach a boat specialty!, so everbody ante-up!

I agree Barry, listen to the briefing on the boat..bingo, there's your average boat specialty wrapped up.

Can't wait to hear the defense for this one..................

LOL

What a perfect pyramid scheme! Trust me Don, the ONLY reason half these POS's exist are for revenue, and that alone.

The rest is basic knowledge you get from just diving, and I don't mean into your wallet, just for most basic of info.

Questions and answers are generally free with respect to what you're going to learn with most of these things, and take 15min of a person's time, which they'd gladly give up I am sure.

The shame of it all.

regards

 

[Don Wray]

Don't forget the fee Instructors have to pay for either the course from a CD to teach a specialty, or the cost to even teach it based on experience, and the accompanying fee paid to the agency of course.

That in and of itself is a hefty haul for the agency.

I guess you can uncle-in on the AOW portion of the various dives (lets say the Nav or Deep dives), but ya gotta be some kind of rocket scientist to teach the entire specialty. Nonsense.

After all, what kind of instructor would you be if you aren't officially qualified to teach a boat specialty!, so everbody ante-up!

I agree Barry, listen to the briefing on the boat..bingo, there's your average boat specialty wrapped up.

Can't wait to hear the defense for this one..................

LOL

What a perfect pyramid scheme! Trust me Don, the ONLY reason half these POS's exist are for revenue, and that alone.

The rest is basic knowledge you get from just diving, and I don't mean into your wallet, just for most basic of info.

Questions and answers are generally free with respect to what you're going to learn with most of these things, and take 15min of a person's time, which they'd gladly give up I am sure.

The shame of it all.

regards

But lest we forget, many student divers have never been on a boat in the ocean, much less large lakes...But we digress, my point is the instructor or dive shop are the one's making the larger sums of monies regarding specialties....an instructor has paid their dues and deserve, IMO, what they make. It is not the certifing agency making the big bucks on the students. Instructors have paid their way by taking courses leading to IDC and IE, plus specialty courses to teach them. The specific point of this thread was to clarify that PADI is not making all the money from specialty courses. They make $15 + learning materials from the course. They make their money from the annual fees charged to instructors to teach the classes. Are you telling me, except for YMCA, that the instructors are not making money from the classes they teach. If so, why would anyone teach the courses? In my research, the most comprehensive course is taught by YMCA and LA county. But, in the vast world, the availability of those courses are minute. YMCA is a member of RSTC, why not make the basic requirements more in line with those ideas. If not, why *******ize PADI with every breath? I have taken PADI courses that I wish were better. My concern comes from the Instructor's rushing the confined water courses so they could dive the Blue Hole in Belize. I still am trying to confide into the general public that, PADI is not the entity that sets the prices for specialties and are not the one who prescribes the criteria for the classes. It is PADI instructors who have seen the need for the class, recommended the specialty for acceptance, and submitted a course plan for the course.

 

[TheRedHead]

All certifying agencies have large captive markets who buy their books. They make most of their money just selling books and DVDs. Don, did you know that the owner of our local dive shop is the VP of SSI? I had an interesting conversation with someone there about certifying agencies as booksellers.