PADI or NAUI?

[christinaliu]

So which certification agency did you use when you certified?  Did you have a choice or preference?

--Christina

[Darvydia]

I'm PADI certified. I don't think I was given a choice.


-Darvydia

[kristeyk]

I'm PADI. There aren't many places at ALL in Phoenix that are NAUI. PADI or SSI is about all you can get. Not sure about Tucson yet...lol. Although shockingly dive shops are more readily found here. YAY!!!

[christinaliu]

I was certified by a friend who is now a Master Dive Instructor.  Or maybe now he's to the point of being a Course Coordinator.  Anyhow, he's PADI and we were the first class he trained and certified.  So I've been doing PADI certifications (Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Nitrox, UW Naturalist, Equipment Specialist).  I was basically on track to go the "Master SCUBA Diver" route, except that I'd have to do the UW Rescue course, and to do that, I'd have to actually learn to navigate properly.  I will be the first to admit that navigation is my "Achilles Heel."  And since I haven't dived in so long, I will probaby have to almost start from square one again.  I'd probaby need to take a refresher course at the very least before I'd feel comfortable diving again!

However, the dive shop that we've gone to (they have a dive club) is a NAUI outfit.  They were trying to encourage me to go the NAUI route so I could become a NAUI Divemaster and lead trips.  Yeah, would be nice, in my <cough> <cough> *copious* free time!  LOL

So anyhow, my awful photo on my C-card is through PADI.  My driver's license photo looks better than the one on my C-card!  LOL

--Christina

[ModelMom55]

PADI

[atreyusmommy]

The information you learn in all of the scuba schools that are universialy accepted by dive shops (PADI, SSI, NAUI) is the same-they are different ways of teaching, atlest thru the advanced course-the differences are that PADI will only allow you to tranfer PADI DiveMaster into PADI Instructor and no other company's equivalent (so you have to do dive master over compleltely in PADI for them to recognize your certification-however most other companys will accept PADI divemaster as equal or have you take a small written test/water skills)-the dive shop I worked at was an SSI supported company so they push SSI to their students (but also offer PADI) because they got lots of money for doing so not because they were better or worse then any other company-I have had my open water in PADI, stress & recue and advanced in SSI-I think that they both were ok, but PADI had better videos-SSI does allow you to complete skills in differnt orders so if you need to you can go back and test out of that skill later in the class, but PADI will make you do that skill then the next, next....and if you are having problems they have to wait until you can do it-the up side of that is there is a method to the order so you don't do something you are not ready for yet, but sometimes you need to try again later when not so frustrated about having hard time doing the skill- It all comes down to how you learn, what level you are going for, price & most importantly Instructor-if you have one you don't like you will learn less-try to change yours if you don't click very well-you will both be much happier

[JeninJax]

PADI certified me too.

[londonbaby82]

Im padi certified that is all that was offered

[Somalita]

PADI

[KGILBERT1990]

SSI

[MsChief]

PADI Open Water and SSI Nitrox