Recommendations for divemaster course in Thailand

[stiggy]

Are you looking at Professional level course to work within diving ?

If so there are plenty offering good courses < but the overall environment/lifestyle changes significantly. So please give more info .

How long you have ?
preferred location ?
Budget ?
Current experience ?

]

Or looking at it as a course to simply further your knowledge and get a whole bunch of dives in ?

If its the latter decide what interests you and get some specialties under your belt, You can get some really good packages in this area including liveaboards etc great fun.

If you have allready stated this in the past, please forgive me asking again.

Im sure you understand why I havent read all the last posts..

 

[daveray]

Buddha View Koh Tao. Honestly, after working in several locations around the world, the Divemaster and instructor courses at Buddha View are the best structured courses that I have seen.

 

[penguintom]

So, anyone have any recommendations for divemaster course in Thailand?

Personally I wouldn't recomend doing training in Thailand. With my recent poor experiences at several shops I decided to do my rescue and DM course back at home in the UK. I am so pleased I made that decision.
More challenging dives and conditions which I feel makes a more accomplished diver ready to deal with all conditions. Also a 100% professional service.
Why not do your training at home and save your holidays for the fun part of the diving.
And on top of that, saved myself some money on the cost of the courses.

 

[limbo]

penguintom,
although you had personal bad experiences in Thailand with dive coruses in one single location, that doesn't mean that you can generalise this istuation to all dive shops all over Thailand or SE Asia.

 

[InDaWata]

More challenging dives and conditions...[in the uk]

I definitely agree with that, but can we rule out ALL the shops in Thailand?
Seems a little drastic! There are some great DC's here!

 

[stevenl]

What really is surprising though is that the price of diving course in the UK are lower than in Thailand?

 

[InDaWata]

the price of diving course in the UK are lower than in Thailand?

Really?! How much are we talking?
I'd like to know other details though as well... Ex- I'd think you wouldnt be able to get as many dives in a course in the UK? Seems like some people take better part of a year to do their DMT in Thailand and around.

 

[lord khram]

What really is surprising though is that the price of diving course in the UK are lower than in Thailand?

Yes very surprising, but in many cases it is true.

 

[penguintom]

Really?! How much are we talking?
I'd like to know other details though as well... Ex- I'd think you wouldnt be able to get as many dives in a course in the UK? Seems like some people take better part of a year to do their DMT in Thailand and around.

I have already described basically my divemaster course, on the divemaster course thread, see posts 125 / 127.
I paid for my rescue course £199 & DM course £359 (around 10500 / 19000 bart) this included all materials and manuals, only addition was the Padi registration fee for the DM course.
I did actually see the DM course even cheaper at one shop but chose to carry on with the same outfit I had done all my previous training with as I was very pleased with them.
When you are drawing any comparisons also bear in mind the time scales of the courses, in Pattaya I was offered 2/3 day rescue courses and 1 week / 10 day DM courses for significantly more money and some I think did not include the Padi materials. The courses I did were of 4/5 days for the rescue and around a total of 4 weeks for the DM.

 

[daveray]

YOu can gain so much from Divemaster training. It is a great way to launch a career in the dive industry, you can use it to gain so many dives economically and it is also a great way to hang out for a month or two. Koh Tao offers all of this. The dive industry is booming here. They are doing about half of all the certifications in Thailand. That really opens up plenty of career opportunity. Training in a dive industry hub like this really allows you to gain so much experience with courses that would take years back home. Excellent preparation if you ever want to go through to dive instructor. There are also four or five dives a day. I do not know of anywhere else in the world where you can get unlimited diving for 25000bht. Even in just a month of training, but many spend longer, you can get 90 dives pretty easily. That is if you don't end up socialising too much, which is always a temptation on Koh Tao. Koh Tao offers great divemaster training.