Anyone ever done the Scuba refresher on Royals Alllure or Oasis of the Seas

[BillOh]

Hello all! As mentioned previously I did a discover scuba dive in St Thomas in 2011. I loved it. I got certified in 2012 taking my classes in late spring and did my open water dives in July in a local quarry. (water was 73F) I have reserved my dive for St Thomas on May 1st of this year. Last week I went back to the pool I trained at, rented equipment and just practiced my skills for about 30 minutes while playing with a new underwater camera I bought. I just learned the onboard scuba program has a scuba refresher for $40. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable price, especially for a cruise ship. Most cruise ships pools are lucky to be 5 feet deep, but this class of ship has a pool in the back for entertainment that is 16ft deep. I am really hoping they take you in this pool. Has anyone done this before?

[Dabaras]

$40 does seem pretty reasonable for a cruise ship. Places here charge that for a Discover Scuba in a pool. Good luck with the new underwater camera. Try not to get too distracted by it if you haven't been diving much. My wife almost killed herself by losing track of where she was playing with one.

[BillOh]

Try not to get too distracted by it if you haven't been diving much. My wife almost killed herself by losing track of where she was playing with one.

 

 

 

That is a good point that I only partially considered. If you can share more I would appreciate it. I deliberately took the camera with me for that reason. I figured I want to make sure I could put it in a place where I could get to it, not lose it easily and have it not interfere with equipment. I also wanted to see how easy it was to operate. I did get a few pictures and I accidentally switched it from still pics to video and had difficulty remembering how to get it back. In this case, I knew I still had 30 minutes of air left and I was in a controlled environment so I just sat in the corner and figured it out. In this scenario I can see what you mean by losing track. Thanks for the thought.

[Dabaras]

Cozumel is drift diving. A drift dive will cover over a mile from start to finish. She got so distracted trying to get a perfect picture that she was way behind the group. I am usually the last person in a group, and she was way behind me. I finally took the camera away from her and swam like hell with her and we caught up to the group when they were surfacing. Another couple of minutes and we wouldn't have seen them go up.

 

Once it sunk in what happened, she decided she doesn't need a camera. She'll just be a spotter. The worst dive buddy in the world is a photographer. They are not paying attention to you at all.

 

The best way to avoid that is two-fold.

1. Situational awareness. Don't just pay attention to the picture, make sure you are aware of your surroundings and your depth, time, air pressure, etc.

 

2. Know your camera and your gear. The less time you spend trying to figure out what button to press to change modes or whatever on your camera, the easier it is to pay attention to everything else.

 

No picture is worth your life.

[Middleager]

$40 sounds like an incredible price for a scuba refresher.

 

If they have a 16' pool, they must be using that, as it is not really a refresher if done in 5' of water. $40 would not include real open water dives. But at least getting people in scuba gears, in 16' of water, is a lot better than nothing.