Which is better, Aquanauts or Mermaids?

[Globaltrailblazer]

I am hoping to do a Scuba Diving internship when I graduate and I would like to do it in Thailand. I am unsure about which of the two companies is better. Does anyone have any experience with them?

If anyone else knows a really good school in another country that is not really really expensive then feel free to say but if I do it in Thailand I have already decided that I want to do it in Pattaya. Diving spots further south may have more constant visibility and have no issues with strong currants and be better from a holiday perspective but Pattaya is better from a learning perspective, it has more challenges. And I really want to do wreck diving. So please just info on which company is best. I have my first certificate already so know that I like diving.

I like both as they both have unlimited dives if you take the full package not the value one.

Mermaids seems to have a brilliant job service after you graduate from looking at their website
Mermaids has two full time platnum instructors

but

Aquanauts is cheaper than Mermaids
Aquanauts off free specialty courses with complete course - I'm not quite sure how this works I've heard varying reports of six to eight extra specialty courses. Anyone know?
Aquanauts allow you to take the instructor examination again if you fail


How organised are they?

Are the instructors usually good?

Did you feel rushed on the course?

Do they have a good job placement service in practice not just on paper? (I want to be an instructor, maybe a specialty instructor)

Are there any extra hidden costs?

 

[VicScubaVentures]

Sometimes you feel like a naut, sometimes you don't.


Sorry, I couldn't resist. Unfortunately I don't have any advice for Thailand diving.

 

[Buadhai]

I'll probably regret writing this, but here it goes...

I've only been diving in Pattaya a few times. Every time I go I plan the date of the dive to correspond with what the dive operator's website says will be a trip to the Far Islands or one of the wrecks. And, every single time I've ended up diving the near islands. Frankly, it's not very good. I don't think it's the dive operator's fault that so many trips end up at the near islands. I think it's just a fact of life of diving in Pattaya combined with my incredibly bad you-should-have-been-here-yesterday luck. (Big waves, whale sharks, great snow, whatever. I always seemed to hear, "You just missed it....")

And, every time I've dived Pattaya I end up with a very nice intern as a dive guide. I usually end up feeling sorry for them. Do you really want to spend day after day diving in conditions like that?

 

[lord khram]

I can assure you Buhadai it is not your bad luck it is standard practice for a number of dive shops in the area. I have dived extensively in Pattaya over a number of years and heard the same excuses countless times. Quite often the things you 'have just missed' were never there at all. One shop owner in Pattaya openly said to me on one occasion 'it doesn't matter about what the customers think, most of them are just here for a short holiday and will not come back anyway'.
With regard to the internship course I simply would not recommend anyone to do one, in my mind they produce second rate dive professionals with limited experience of diving in only one location. Move around and do your courses at diferent locations with a variety of businesses and instructors, this will provide you with a much greater experience base to learn from, and if possible select shops that will carry out all of your training by fully qualified professionals, during internships some of your lower level training will be done by other interns that are just further progressed than yourself. Just think of finding yourself in the situation of paying all your money up front to one shop in Pattaya and finding that you do not like the city or maybe do not get on with the shop staff. You are then stuck with it for the duration because all will tell you 'NO REFUNDS'.
With regards to the quality of diving in the area it is poor. Yes there are two small wrecks that were sunk by the Thai Navy that are dived regularly. Once you have dived them a few times, you will soon find that they are neither challenging and are no longer interesting dives. Having said that, for those that are in Pattaya for other reasons there is some ok diving to be found. But in all the years I have spent here have never seen anyone visit Pattaya for a dive specific holiday. Draw your own conclusions from that one.
With regards to employment. The vast majority that complete internships in Pattaya will not find employment in the area.
Having said all that, if diving is not your main objective and you want to have a good time for a few months with some like minded people, and get a diving qualification along the way, Pattaya is a great and very entertaining city and this type of course may well suit you.
With regard to specific shops I am not going into detail on here I have been criticised too much for doing so too many times, but if you have any specific questions feel free to PM me.

 

[Globaltrailblazer]

The reason I thought Pattaya looked good from an internship perspective is because of the variable visibility and strong currents. If you learn to manage yourself and dive and and navigate and learn all your rescue skills in a tougher environment then won't it make you a better diver? Learning how to navigate in lovely clear beautiful water would be lovely but its the times that it is less clear that navigation will be dificult and its the times that there are strong currents that there is more likley to be an emergency situation that you need to deal with.

Also with wreck diving, none of the dive schools down south that I have found even offer it as a specitality.

I know most people would not go there for a specific diving holiday. I'm not looking at going there for one. I want to learn.

I know that that most interns won't get a job in Pattaya, there are too many. Its ok I would not want to stay there long term. My aim is to use scuba diving as a way to cover basic costs while I stay and look around a country during my travels. Meremaids seemed to have a good job placement service on their website that had contacts in many countries.

Hope this clears up what I am thinking.
Thank you for all the responses so far.

Does that clear up my thinking any? I tried to make myself clear when I asked the question but I don't think I did a very good job

 

[Buadhai]

Last time I dove Pattaya was with one of the dive shops you mentioned. There were so many interns that they were paired one on one with the customers. Although the schedule promised a Far Islands dive, we simply did several shallow (8-9 meters) dives off Hat Nuan. Although the viz was rather poor, there was nothing challenging about any of those dives.

I talked to the intern at length. She, in her mid-30s, had quit a promising banking career in London to learn how to dive and become an instructor in Pattaya. After four months her money was gone, she had no job prospects and was headed back to England.

I asked her about her diving experience during her internship. Although she had done a few wreck dives, most of what she did was exactly what we did that day. Easy, profitable dives with customers of unknown ability. She felt that while she did learn a lot, her internship was essentially a long period of unpaid work as a dive guide.

As I mentioned above, I felt very sorry for her. Thailand has some really great diving. But she'd pretty much missed it all. She was going back home with a pocket full of certificates, memories of a whole lot of mediocre diving and not much else. (Well, she did have a load of crazy nightlife experiences totally unrelated to her dive internship, but that's another story.)

 

[lord khram]

I would agree entirely Buhadai. I have come into contact with lots of dive inters (some would say dive slaves) over the years. Out of these I know of two that managed to secure paid employment in Thailand and are now existing working extremely long hours for money which is little more than enough to survive on (not in Pattaya). I know many that came and went home with all their certificates and memories and never dived again, and I know many that came on the assurances of 'a good chance' of paid employment within the dive industry at the end of the course and went home disappointed when their money ran out.
Most I have spoken to (and there have been lots) over the years have regretted doing the internship courses for varying reasons. this is one reason why I would never recommend such a system to someone.
With regard to pattaya diving being challenging it is simply a myth, there are not that many dive sites in the area, and after a few weeks of diving the same few sites you know then like the back of your hand and dont even need a compass to navigate them, and as you said most are only 5-12m deep where speedboats and jet ski's abound.
With regard to doing a course in Pattaya making you a more accomplished professional, again it is a myth, people qualify as dive professionals based on their experiences on a few relatively poor dive sites and learn the methods of only one shop. This in my opinion is why all too often these 'professionals' who think they are doing a good job, because it is what they were tought by one specific shop, quite often leave their day customers disappointed with their experience. Also yes in Pattaya you get currents in the sea, but no more so than most other locations that I have dived, and significantly less than some places. but in my mind when diving in strong currents it is a result of poor dive planning, it can and should be avoided by planning your dives around the tides, not by the clock. Just one skill that an accomplished dive professional should have but will never learn in pattaya. All shops have the time they leave every day and seem to follow that regardless.
Also all of the diving in Pattaya is done from boats, interns complete their course and go away proudly with their instructor qualification having never made a shore entry into the water. I hardly call someone who is 'qualified' to teach this skill an acomplished instructor when they have never even done it themselves.

 

[Poggus]

I work with two instructors who did an internship at Mermaids. They are both very good instructors and I enjoy working with them. They've told me it was an experience they'll never forget with it's ups and downs. They always mention how bad the diving was there in comparison to where we work now, though. Maybe you should consider that if you're paying all that money, wouldn't it be nice to see something while you're learning?

 

[Ex-Aquanaut]

Hello Globaltrailblazer (and thank you Poggus),

Lord Khram has a long and repetitious history here on SB trashing all things Pattaya and its dive operators. Do not weigh the value or veracity of his comments, however, based on the amount of times he makes such remarks. Consider it the opinion of one diver with an axe to grind. Also, you should note he has dived exactly once with Aquanauts and that was TEN years ago. Likely, it's been just as long or never with Mermaids. So he has no first-hand knowledge of how our programs work.

His comments about the quality of instructors certainly is false. Aquanauts, at least, turns out some excellent instructors, a fact that can be checked by speaking with their employers here in Thailand who often hire Aquanauts graduates on the spot after learning where they did their training. This was the case not 2 weeks ago in Phuket where Thailand Divers hired one of our recent grads.

Aquanauts has an unsurpassed success rate in training quality instructors. No one has failed a PADI Instructor Exam here since June 2007. That 100% pass rate over 4 years cannot be matched by Mermaids nor any other PADI IDC or CDC in the Kingdom. We do fail a number of IDC candidates, however. Some even try again and still don't make it through our rigorous standards. (Unsurprisingly, more than a few of them went to Koh Tao and were passed...)

In the end, however, internships are what YOU make of them. If you work hard, put effort into improving something in yourself every dive (and not just go underwate sight-seeing) and studying diligently, you are going to do well and be good when you finish. If you come to Pattaya, hang out with Lord Khram at the cheapest beer bars you can find and commiserate about how unfair the world is, then you're not going to do well.

I can't / won't really comment on the points above, only to say Aquanauts has a set, published schedule (PATTAYA DIVING / SNORKELING: Daily Dive Trips, Schedule, Prices, Photos, Info | Aquanauts Dive Centre Pattaya Thailand PADI 5-Star CDC Career Development Center Scuba Diving) and sticks to it religiously, WEATHER PERMITTING. During rainy season, it may not always be possible to reach the far islands. Wind is more of a factor than rain in this area. But I can assure you we are not like Lord Khram's main whipping-boy shop and changing the destination simply for economic reasons.

And as for comments about "so many interns," I can only say, it's not our program that's being referred to.

To answer the OPs question as best I am permitted to say, we have a page on our site that highlights what we call the Aquanauts Advantage, the things that set us apart form not only Mermaids, but others: Why Choose Us? The Aquanauts Advantage | Aquanauts CDC Thailand PADI Instructor Internships Divemaster IDC MSDT Staff Training Courses

The main point, though, is size: Consider Aquanauts a "boutique" training environment vs. the other man's Tesco. We limit enrollment to keep overall numbers small, assign personal instructors to each intern to oversee training and do most classes on an 1-on-1 basis. The largest classes are 4 people per Course Director (and as a CDC, we have 2.)

That is the major reason for our 100% pass rate over 4+ years and the reason why only Aquanauts offers a written guarantee that if you follow our guidelines, meet all deadlines, attend all your classes you will pass the IE the first time or we pay for another exam.

To date, we've never had to do that.

You'll also find upon closer examination Aquanauts courses are far less expensive than Mermaids, yet offer more courses and more equipment in the packages. More value overall.

Globaltraveler, if you have not already done so, I encourage you to contact us directly at Internships@DivingInstructorTraining (or through our website), or call us FREE at 866-995-5959 in the US, 0800-8456-710 in the UK or 1800-654-387 in Australia. Those free lines are also one of the Aquanauts Advantages. Other shops will make you pay to call them.

Hope to hear from you soon,

 

[Thai_Diver]

LK... Over to you