Recommendations Required For Dive Shops In Negril To Complete A Referral For Open Water Dives

[Stufanu]

Hi everyone,

I appreciate you taking a moment to read my post and provide any suggestions/insight you may have based on your experience.

I am travelling to Negril, Jamaica in May 2016. I was planning on completing my classroom and pool part of the PADI open water diver course in Canada and then completing my 4 open water dives in Jamaica. Any recommendations of dive shops to use in the area? I have looked into Beaches Negril Resort, which is about $250 USD for the open water referral completion. Where as Sun Divers Negril is about $308 for the referral for open water dives.. Suggestions on dive shops that you have had positive experiences with are appreciated.

I was also wondering if anyone could speak to completing the entire PADI course in Jamaica as opposed to part in Canada and then open water in Jamaica... as from my research it actually appears more cost effective to complete the entire certification in Jamaica (even with the exchange rate from USD to Canadian dollars). Any thoughts on the pros and cons of completing the entire certification in Jamaica are welcome.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide your input. Much appreciated. Any other tips are welcomed!

Steph

 

[rhwestfall]

The staff at Marine Life Divers at Samsara (Negril) were extremely good natured. I don't know what they do for the confined portion, but they have a house reef that is 40' to the sand. Due to a week of bad weather, we were unable to dive until the last day on our recent vacation there. A scheduling conflict with an Island activity that we had set up would not allow us to go out on the boat the day things finally settled down. We were basically looking at getting no diving in at all, and were pretty disappointed. The shop called in one of it's instructors to do a shore dive with us (they require you to dive with a DM) and he was great. He assessed our abilities, and basically let us enjoy ourselves, but did assist in pointing out critters. We stretched it to almost an hour dive, and he went with it happily.

As to whole class vs. referral, I feel it is a double edged sword....

Referral usually is going to cost you a bunch more $$ that completing at home, but you do benefit from being in potentially nicer waters. We are still on the fence of considering this for our daughter....

A full course over a vacation to me seems "silly". First, I'd be skeptical of what you can accomplish relating to a comprehensive class in a weeks vacation. Secondly, do you want to spend your entire vacation doing that?

YMMV

 

[creamer]

Sun Divers was fantastic.
I completed my confined water in Calgary and then went to Sun Divers for my referral. Had no issues getting my C-card.
The main reason I chose sun divers was because they were boat dives which allowed more access to different dive sites.
For my referral I was the only one completely so it was a private lesson. They use a small boat as well so it is not crowded at the dive sites. One day it was me plus three others, my instructor and a DM and the second day, two others, instructor and DM.
I would gladly go back and dive with them again. Feel free to contact me if you want more information.