Where is your money going?

[oly5050user]

I have never dove Nitrox nor have I been trained, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn once! Seriously, I have never been Nitrox certified but $125 does seem reasonable to me. I pay a guy $85 a month just to mow my lawn!

Used to cost me $150.a week to have some one walk my 2 dogs for 20 minutes a day for 5 days while I was at work-now retired so no longer have that prooblem-....thats $600. a month..things cost today.At $125. for nitrox course how much time did you spend with an instructor? If it was 2 hours that is VERY reasonable,if it was more than 2 hours you got yourself a bargain.. Did that fee also include learning materials? If it did you were charged at bargain basement price for my area.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

$100 to $150 is the going rate for a nitrox card. All you really need is nitrox and advanced certs as far as I'm concerned. The nitrox because it makes you feel good and the advanced so you can get on the boats that might be going to some "advanced" spot. The rest is all just getting dives in and learning what you can from experienced buddies and mentors. Like Max said, just get out there and dive and have fun.
The nitrox card is worth it. You can't get a fill with out it, and boy do you feel good after a day of diving with nitrox.

 

[Dive Junky]

It seems to me that every time you want to learn a new skill in diving or want to go just a little deeper you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to a training agency.
i just paid $120 for a nitrox course that is really a 15 minutes quiz, paper and pencil.

is it just me or are the cert agencies just stealing our money

Thats funny my nitrox class takes six hours to teach not even counting the time it took to make the power point presentation and the time it takes to review my slides before each class. If you paid $120 and only got 15 minutes of instructor time you did get ripped off. But then again whose fault is that?

BTW my instructor course took 100 hours to complete and about $2000. If you think I am gonna teach for nothing you are crazy.

 

[rstofer]

Around here:

Course $75 Enriched Air/Nitrox Diver Certification with Dolphin Scuba Center - Sacramento, California
Material $60 PADI Enriched Air Diving Crewpack
PIC Card: $17 PADI Pic Envelope Cert Card
Air RDP: $17 PADI Recreational Dive Planner

Total $169 with Air RDP
Total $152 if no Air RDP is required

Class time including review, test and gas analysis is about 3 hours. But only $75 of the cost went toward instructions. Everything else was learning materials.

Richard

 

[highlandfarmwv]

Our LDS charges $65 for the Nitrox cert.

 

[RonFrank]

I found an online Nitrox certification course for $80 + materials. The book is $23, so jut over $100.

I took my Nitrox class with my AOW class. It was a way for the LDS to get people into AOW. Take AOW, and get Nitrox on the cheap. I think I paid about $75 including materials for Nitrox, but that was many moons ago. That also did NOT include AOW, which I think was maybe $175 + materials for both classroom and dives.

Diving is a luxury sport, and I would expect that folks that can afford to dive don't complain too much about a class costing $120.

 

[Sas]

It seems to me that every time you want to learn a new skill in diving or want to go just a little deeper you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to a training agency.
i just paid $120 for a nitrox course that is really a 15 minutes quiz, paper and pencil.

is it just me or are the cert agencies just stealing our money

If you agree to do a course with an agency knowing the price in advance, then they are not stealing off you. That's business. If you don't like the price, why did you sign up to the course?

My nitrox course was 240AUD (or 150USD) and included eight hours of theory, materials and the card. So basically my instructor was on less than $30 an hour, which is not a high rate, so I was happy with this price. It was the cheapest course around too as it did not include dives like all other stores (usually they are >$400)

If you are new to diving, often it is hard to learn things as you don't know anybody more experienced to teach you (this was my experience). So many new divers keep paying for courses that are most likely unnecessary. However, look around for clubs/people that are happy to mentor new divers and you can get a lot of help without course fees from others (this is my approach now!). Many skills can be learned easily from a more experienced diver, as opposed to doing a course about it (night, drysuit, navigation PADI-style specialty classes come to mind...)

 

[Joe-Diver]

i just paid $120 for a nitrox course that is really a 15 minutes quiz, paper and pencil.

It takes me at least 3 hours to teach the course. (exceptional students, no issues) We have to go over knowledge reviews, conduct 2 separate labs and 2 simulated dives. We also work through many table problems, using the RDP/DSAT EAD, O2 Exposure tables, RDP EANx32 and RDP EANx36 tables. Finally we do the exam and go over that.

All of this is just not possible to do in 15 minutes. If this did actually happen and it was a PADI course, feel free to PM me here and we'll follow up on this. There is no possible way to issue PADI EANx certification in 15 minutes within standards.

 

[dkktsunami]

It seems to me that every time you want to learn a new skill in diving or want to go just a little deeper you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to a training agency.
i just paid $120 for a nitrox course that is really a 15 minutes quiz, paper and pencil.

is it just me or are the cert agencies just stealing our money

I haven't seen too many people involved in the business end of scuba diving that I would consider wealthy. It requires a stream of revenue, from any source possible, and some cost control, to operate a business long term. We are lucky to have shops available to fill our tanks, repair our gear, provide education and certification, arrange trips, etc. Without them most of us would feel their absence in a very negative way.

 

[Garrobo]

In the case of the two certs which I paid for (AOW and Nitrox) the answer to your question is:"Yes", they are stealing your money.