Advice on getting OW cert. while on Destiny

[vicki sue]

We are sailing on the Destiny 4/6. My husband will complete the classroom and confinement portion today. Since we live in WI he can't complete the OW portion before we leave. Has anyone on this site completed their OW cert. while on a cruise? I know he'll need to do it in 2 ports. Any suggestions for cruise operators (there are so many to choose from), suggested ports, etc. would be really appreciated.

[islandwoman]

The first thing he should do is check with the dive shop where he's doing his classroom work about getting a referral. They can tell him which dive ops at which ports will accept a referral for the open water portion of his certification.

 

[vicki sue]

Sorry. He did ask his instructor. He was told to contact Carnival about arranging his OW cert. I called Carnival last night and they told me to call the excursion dept. on Monday. I'm not sure if they will be able to help or not. I tend to not book our excursions through Carnival anyway, but based on what I learn I'll see. I have called several dive operators in St. Thomas since this is our 1st stop. Not sure if I should book by price or not. Are they all reputable here?

[ezmack]

Sorry. He did ask his instructor. He was told to contact Carnival about arranging his OW cert. I called Carnival last night and they told me to call the excursion dept. on Monday. I'm not sure if they will be able to help or not. I tend to not book our excursions through Carnival anyway, but based on what I learn I'll see. I have called several dive operators in St. Thomas since this is our 1st stop. Not sure if I should book by price or not. Are they all reputable here?

 

Check out cokidive.com is St. Thomas.

[scubaran]

We are sailing on the Destiny 4/6. My husband will complete the classroom and confinement portion today. Since we live in WI he can't complete the OW portion before we leave. Has anyone on this site completed their OW cert. while on a cruise? I know he'll need to do it in 2 ports. Any suggestions for cruise operators (there are so many to choose from), suggested ports, etc. would be really appreciated.

 

Hi,

 

Could you specify WHAT ports you're going to on your cruise? Once we see what ports you're going to more people can make recommendations. Also you'll pretty much have to do this on your own. The Carnival operators will be scheduling straight dives and may not have the certified dive instructor you need for your checkouts. Also the dive operation may have additional requirements to do the referral (I suggest once you find them to call and talk to a person rather than rely on web site or e-mail information. You'll get a lot more information in a few minutes than you'll get in days of e-mail exchanges). Finally, if you do this on the cruise, don't expect to dive after checkouts. Your concentration should, and will be, confined to getting the exercises done so you problably won't dive unless you have a port to dive after your checkouts (the dive instructor may take you on a brief tour of the reef but it'll not be the same as doing a 2-tank dive). If possible, an alternative is to find a dive operation in your departure city (don't know where you begin but Ft. Lauderdale has several dive operations) and you could go in a day or two early and get your checkouts done which would allow you full reign to dive on the cruise (make sure you get a temperary certification card (c-card) as the cruise operators will ask for one).

 

Randall

[vicki sue]

Good point about listing our itinerary. We're going to St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St.Lucia, Antigua, and St.Kitts. Our departure city is San Juan, Puerto Rico. We are arriving in San Juan 2 days early. Has anyone scuba dived here? If so, is there anyone you would suggest getting the OW cert. done with in San Juan?

[scubaran]

Good point about listing our itinerary. We're going to St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St.Lucia, Antigua, and St.Kitts. Our departure city is San Juan, Puerto Rico. We are arriving in San Juan 2 days early. Has anyone scuba dived here? If so, is there anyone you would suggest getting the OW cert. done with in San Juan?

 

Hi,

 

Sorry, San Juan isn't the scuba capital of the world. :) But I know there was one operator in San Juan that did diving so they might do check out dives (I think I found them googling scuba diving San Juan). Anyway, most of the diving is in the southern part of the island. If you have a car there you could possibily do check outs there, again google. I haven't really dove there since I've only departed from San Juan or stayed there for sightseeing but it IS an option. As far as the other locations,

 

St. Thomas - I agree with Coki divers

Barbados - I like West Side Scuba Centre. They were a really good group and the owner was very saftey conscience.

Dominica - I haven't found a dive center there yet, but still looking

St. Lucia - Another good alternative but haven't dived there but lot's of people on this board have so stay tuned

Antigua - Another good island but forget who I dove with but again I'm sure you'll get recommendations (someone just asked about Antigua so check this board for recommendations)

 

BTW, you can also check with scubaboard.com. You should have no problems finding recommendations for dive centers there.

 

Randall

[sunchasers64]

newly certified here, so sorry if I'm incorrect. But isn't it advised NOT to dive within 24 hrs of flying? So San Juan checkout dives would be out of the question.....

[KJHorton]

You should not dive within 24 hours BEFORE flying. It doesn't matter if you are flying before diving.

 

Also, if his class is through PADI, I know they have a list of PADI dive center locations on their website. You can check there. I don't know if the other certification agencies have similar lists.

[scubaran]

newly certified here, so sorry if I'm incorrect. But isn't it advised NOT to dive within 24 hrs of flying? So San Juan checkout dives would be out of the question.....

 

Right, you can jump right off a plane and jump in the water. It's the altitude "after" diving that may increase gases so no flying 24 Hours after diving. :)

 

Randall

[scubadiver888]

Good point about listing our itinerary. We're going to St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St.Lucia, Antigua, and St.Kitts. Our departure city is San Juan, Puerto Rico. We are arriving in San Juan 2 days early. Has anyone scuba dived here? If so, is there anyone you would suggest getting the OW cert. done with in San Juan?

vicki sue,

 

Most the good diving in Puerto Rico is on the opposite side of the island. That is, they are no where near San Juan or the cruise line ports. There are one or two dive operators around the San Juan area but the diving is not very good. Dealing with bad conditions while getting certified with an unknown dive instructor is not a great idea. I'd think nothing of it if you were taking your original dive instructor with you but you are probably going to hook up with a local instructor who you have never met before.

 

If you are getting certified with PADI, unless things have changed, you will need 4 open water dives. On a cruise you might be able to get in a two tank dive twice in one day but you'd have to be careful about your bottom time (don't want to get bent; especially on a cruise ship).

 

More realistically, you will want to do two days, two dives each day. The problem becomes that you are probably not in the same port for two days. This means doing dive 1 and 2 with instructor #1 then doing dive 3 and 4 with instructor #2. I'm not sure if PADI is okay with this.

 

What is definitely okay, and why the local dive instructor recommended you contract the cruise line, is having the dive master on the cruise line (assuming he is also a dive instructor) conduct your open water dives. I see this all the time. You book four dives (two dives per day) as shore excursions through the cruise ship. The dive master onboard the ship accompanies you on the shore excursions and while the dive operator takes the certified divers out for a regular dive, the onboard dive instructor completes your open water dives. Because the onboard dive master is the same person at both ports, PADI is perfectly okay with getting certified this way.

 

This is definitely the route I would recommend. Your local dive shop gives you the referral letter, you contact the shore excursions people, they confirm the onboard dive master is also a dive instructor, for an additional fee he/she will conduct your open water dives. I've even seen people do the entire thing onboard. The diver instructor conducts the confined water dives in a pool on the ship and the open water dives with the shore excursions.

 

If you don't want to go through the cruise ship and your certifying agency is okay with two different dive instructors certifying your open water dives (check with your local dive instructor for details), I would recommend Underwater Safari in St. Thomas (http://www.diveusvi.com) and Dive Fair Helen in St. Lucia (http://www.divefairhelen.com). I have dove with the guys in St. Thomas and they are an incredible professional group of guys. I have not dove in St. Lucia before but 1) on my last cruise through St. Lucia all the guys I was diving with said it was the best dive of the itinerary and 2) many other divers have recommended Dive Fair Helen.

[Loves_Dogs]

I did my certification dives while on my Destiny cruise back in '06. I used Coki

Beach Dive Club in St Thomas and they were wonderful. Here is their link:

http://www.cokidive.com/about_us.htm

 

In Barbados, I used The Dive Shop LTD and I highly recommend them. Here is their link:

http://barbados.org/diving/diveshop/diveshop.html

 

I got a Universal Referral Form from the dive shop where I did my book/pool work to take with me. I emailed the above dive shops directly in advance to set everything up. They knew exactly what to do, I am sure they do certification dives all the time. I did 2 dives in each of the above ports to get my total of 4 needed.

[2Ports]

We did the same thing, but did our OW's in Roatan & Cozumel. No problem at all. (Just remember your referal cards and medical forms) You'll get your temp after your 2nd set of OWs.

 

Where y'all at in WI? We did classroom & pool w/ St. Croix Scuba in Hudson. Great folks.