Personally, I would rather have a crisis in front of an instructor back home that a group of experienced divers on a boat in Hawaii.
Exactly. Which is yet another reason to add to the list that first-time divers don't belong on a boat. Those dives should be done in what can truly be considered confined open water.
Incidentally, I have heard several stories of people that were like fishes in the pool, but had a panic attack being just waist deep in the ocean. How bad do you feel for them, considering they've done most of the certification but because of a fear they didn't realize have wasted that time?
The one thing people don't understand about cert classes here is that there really isn't much classroom time. The books get sent out ahead of time, or if it's a spur-of-the-moment decision, then they get to do that in their own time while lounging by the pool, or in their room after the sun goes down. The only classroom time is reviewing (and teaching prescriptively) the Knowledge Reviews, Quizzes and Exam, with a few dive logging exercises thrown in.
I've had several nervous divers that became completely comfortable once a fish swam by and distracted them from the idea of breathing underwater.
I think there's a lot to benefit from by doing it all with one instructor -- it saves time, you don't need to "re-learn" it the way the OW instructor wants to see it, and you gain a lot of experience just doing the "confined water" skills in "confined open water" -- basically, as long as you can do the skills in COW, you won't have a problem with the OW portion of the class.
Keeping this in mind, PADI is now developing a way to do all the academics online, so you just show up and go dive. That means five dives with an instructor, little-to-no classroom, and you don't have to find your way to a scheduled class every week back home in the middle of your *busy* lifestyle.
