which scuba excursion to take w/o cert?

Going on the Liberty of the seas next month and would really like to try scuba. There is a scuba certification class on board, but also a discover scuba excursion. Or should I get open water qualified before I go and do a 2 tank scuba excursion. My wife isn't interested in scuba whatsoever, so it would be time apart.

If you do the onboard certification class for an Open Water Diver and it follows the standard form you will need 2 days for the class room and the confined water dives and 2 days, 4 or 5 dives, open water dives. It is a lot of time for a cruise. If you want to enjoy scuba get certified before you go if you can. You will have more time on the cruise and you will enjoy diving more because you will not be spending most of you dives going through training. Another option to get certified is to do the Open Water I, class room and confined water, portion of the certification and do the Open Water portion of the certification thru a Universal Referrals on the cruise.

As you mentioned a Discover Scuba dive is reasonable a alternative to find out if you really like scuba without spending a lot of time away from the wife and doing others things in the ports.

I did the Universal Referral on a cruise and my wife wasn't happy about me being gone on two mornings in port on the cruise. I still try to get 2 or 4 dives in on each cruise.[emoji3]

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If I were you, I would do the Discover Scuba excursion. If you like it, then do the full cert course when you get home. FYI - we have been diving for 16+ years and love it.

The on board course is the scuba diver cert., NOT the open water course. If you can't get certified at home in advance of your cruise, you should just do the discover scuba dives. The scuba diver cert. Does not allow you to dive autonomously, and it's depth limited to 40 feet. Last I knew knew, they were getting $300 for it on Royal Caribbean. You'd be money and time ahead to do your open water class pre-cruise.

Harris

Denver, CO

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I'm checking with a scuba school locally to see about getting certified. It's about $650 and you get some basic equipment with it (boots, mask, snorkel, fins etc). It looks like I might have to get a medical check over an issue too, so that's up first. Thanks again for all the great info!

Your local dive shops may do a discover scuba course as well. Always great to try it to see if you like it.

To elaborate on my earlier answer (now that i have my computer, not just my phone), let me tell you the story of a guy who was on the Navigator of the seas last year, when it was sailing out of Galveston.

He had a burning desire to learn to scuba dive, and - like anyone would when new to the sport - failed to recognize the difference between the on board Scuba Diver Certification that is offered by Royal Caribbean, and the actual Open Water Diver certification which is what you really want.

The Open Water course is about twice as long as the Scuba Diver course, and requires 4 Open Water dives to become certified. No more than 3 of those training dives can be completed in one day, so it's quite difficult to do this on a cruise. Successfully completing the Open Water course certifies you as an "autonomous" diver. You can get air fills, and dive without a dive professional. Also your only depth limitation is the no-decompression limit (130 feet), although additional training is strongly suggested for dives deeper than 60 feet.

The Scuba Diver course is three classroom sessions and three pool sessions, followed by only two open water dives. Theoretically you can go to a dive shop with the Scuba Diver Certification and then only do the remaining portions of the class for your Open Water certification. In reality, you would definitely want to check with the instructor you plan on doing that with. If I hadn't taught the first portion, I'd insist on a session to evaluate the student's proficiency.

The Scuba Diver course certifies you to diver no deeper than 40 feet, and only with a dive professional. In short, you can do Discover Scuba courses (resort dives) without the classroom portion.

Any how, the guy had signed up for the Scuba Diver course on Royal Caribbean. The course is set up so you do your classroom and pool on board, then they schedule your 2 dives for the last port, in Cozumel. The day we were in Cozumel it was fairly windy, and they decided they couldn't do the beach dives for the course. He was quite disappointed, but they said he'd get a refund. Well, it turned out the refund was only for the two certification dives, at the cruise line's cost. So out of the $300.00 he'd paid, he got a refund of $50.00, and no certification whatsoever.

His case worked out well for both of us, since he decided to come last summer to Colorado, and did his Open Water course with me. In the end, he's happy, since I'm writing this from the Adventure of the Seas, and He's with us, and dove in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Grenada. However, that experience on the Navigator could have soured him on diving altogether.

So that's why I really don't recommend the cruise line's Scuba Diver Course in particular, and the Scuba Diver course in general. Paradoxically if you want to be a scuba diver, you don't want the Scuba Diver course, you want the Open Water Diver course. :)

Harris

Denver, CO

Very good advice from omeinv on diving. my wife does not dive but I do so we make plans for doing things together that we both want to do, and the days that I dive she does adventures and then we share. I would love to dive more but I have learned to balance what we do while on vacation.

She does enjoy snorkeling so we do that together and I am able to point out the different animal life to her from what I see while diving and knowing different underwater animal behaviors.

I would just add do your pre-dive classes first so you can enjoy the cruise whether it is a discover scuba or your open water cert so you can be comfortable with the gear and not worry about how everything works and just enjoy the dive.

Fair warning though scuba diving is addictive

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I'm checking with a scuba school locally to see about getting certified. It's about $650 and you get some basic equipment with it (boots, mask, snorkel, fins etc). It looks like I might have to get a medical check over an issue too, so that's up first. Thanks again for all the great info!

$650.00 (+/-) is a quite reasonable price for your Open Water Course with that equipment. Any decent brand of those pieces of equipment will run you about $250.00 alone

The medical issue is this: you'll be given a form with a number of questions, each to be answered Yes or No. A large percentage of people have all "No"s. They need do nothing further. Should you have a "Yes", you will be asked to obtain clearance from a doctor.

The exact form will vary among agencies, but the questions will be the same. You can review the form here:

http://wrstc.com/downloads/10%20-%20Medical%20Guidelines.pdf

So you'll know if you will have any "yes" answers right now.

Very few medical conditions actually preclude diving.

Harris

Denver, CO

To elaborate on my earlier answer (now that i have my computer, not just my phone), let me tell you the story of a guy who was on the Navigator of the seas last year, when it was sailing out of Galveston.

 

He had a burning desire to learn to scuba dive, and - like anyone would when new to the sport - failed to recognize the difference between the on board Scuba Diver Certification that is offered by Royal Caribbean, and the actual Open Water Diver certification which is what you really want.

 

The Open Water course is about twice as long as the Scuba Diver course, and requires 4 Open Water dives to become certified. No more than 3 of those training dives can be completed in one day, so it's quite difficult to do this on a cruise. Successfully completing the Open Water course certifies you as an "autonomous" diver. You can get air fills, and dive without a dive professional. Also your only depth limitation is the no-decompression limit (130 feet), although additional training is strongly suggested for dives deeper than 60 feet.

 

The Scuba Diver course is three classroom sessions and three pool sessions, followed by only two open water dives. Theoretically you can go to a dive shop with the Scuba Diver Certification and then only do the remaining portions of the class for your Open Water certification. In reality, you would definitely want to check with the instructor you plan on doing that with. If I hadn't taught the first portion, I'd insist on a session to evaluate the student's proficiency.

 

The Scuba Diver course certifies you to diver no deeper than 40 feet, and only with a dive professional. In short, you can do Discover Scuba courses (resort dives) without the classroom portion.

 

Any how, the guy had signed up for the Scuba Diver course on Royal Caribbean. The course is set up so you do your classroom and pool on board, then they schedule your 2 dives for the last port, in Cozumel. The day we were in Cozumel it was fairly windy, and they decided they couldn't do the beach dives for the course. He was quite disappointed, but they said he'd get a refund. Well, it turned out the refund was only for the two certification dives, at the cruise line's cost. So out of the $300.00 he'd paid, he got a refund of $50.00, and no certification whatsoever.

 

His case worked out well for both of us, since he decided to come last summer to Colorado, and did his Open Water course with me. In the end, he's happy, since I'm writing this from the Adventure of the Seas, and He's with us, and dove in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Grenada. However, that experience on the Navigator could have soured him on diving altogether.

 

So that's why I really don't recommend the cruise line's Scuba Diver Course in particular, and the Scuba Diver course in general. Paradoxically if you want to be a scuba diver, you don't want the Scuba Diver course, you want the Open Water Diver course. :)

 

Harris

Denver, CO[/quote

 

I'm checking with my doc to sign off on the Medical as I had a couple items on the form that require a MD sign off. If she's good with it I'll probably get my open water cert here at home before we go on the cruise. Otherwise I'll do the discover diving just to check it out.

$650.00 (+/-) is a quite reasonable price for your Open Water Course with that equipment. Any decent brand of those pieces of equipment will run you about $250.00 alone

 

The medical issue is this: you'll be given a form with a number of questions, each to be answered Yes or No. A large percentage of people have all "No"s. They need do nothing further. Should you have a "Yes", you will be asked to obtain clearance from a doctor.

 

The exact form will vary among agencies, but the questions will be the same. You can review the form here:

 

http://wrstc.com/downloads/10%20-%20Medical%20Guidelines.pdf

 

So you'll know if you will have any "yes" answers right now.

 

Very few medical conditions actually preclude diving.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

I was surprised to see migraines on the exam form. I get a few a week, even before I fractured my skull in Nov 2014.

Ugh, a couple a week sounds awful.

I suspect migraines are included as a percentage of them could be attributable to a condition that would not be consistent with diving. My understanding is most migraines are idiopathic, and not this not tied to a specific underlying disease. However, I imagine they want those folks who suffer from them to have their doctor consider if they're indicative of an underlying issue.

Another thing, if you have "Yes" answers on your form, and thus a medical sign-off, keep some copies of your form with you when you go on trips. Shops will generally have you complete a medical before diving, and so you can just provide them with your medical all signed off.

Harris

Denver, CO

If you are experiencing migraine headaches one of the best sources of information on dive related medicine is to call Divers Alert Network at 1-800-446-2671 M-F 8:30am - 5:00pm ET. They have a better understanding of the physiology of diving on the body than most MDs. They can also recommend an MD in your area is familiar with dive medicine.

I'd recommend just doing the Discover scuba. Getting certified first is a pretty expensive way to find out you don't actually want to be a diver. My wife and I did a couple DSDs on vacation and we knew getting certified was our next step (which we did 7 years ago).

Only suggestion I'd make is if you are not very comfortable in the water, see if you can do a discover scuba at a local shop first where it will likely be done in a pool. I've seen people get quite spooked on discover scuba dives when confronted with stepping off the back of a boat wearing 50 lbs of gear - can't imagine why ;)

Just thought I'd post an update. I did end up getting certified and I am really glad I did. I met some great folks on the ship who ended up diving both places that I did (Belize and Cozumel) and it was a blast.

After I got certified I bought my own gear so I wouldn't have to deal with bad gear. While I liked having my own gear, it was a huge pain in the butt to drag along. Most of the other folks just did the excursion that included dive gear and said that they have been doing it for years with no problems.

That's great!

Schlepping your gear is a hassle, but always worth it to me. Rental gear is can be such a hit or miss thing, and no matter what it's never completely comfortable like your own will be.

As cruises go by, you'll develop ways to limit the nuisance. I recently got a mesh gear bag that Scubapro sells that has wheels (like luggage, but more rugged for rough surfaces. It made a HUGE difference at ports like Cozumel and Costa Maya with the real long piers.

Feel free to email me by clicking the link below.

Harris

Denver, CO