I completed the PADI Open Water Diver Course with Royal Caribbean on board the Harmony of the Seas. It was not exactly what I expected, so let's break it down.
The course is the same as you would do at any dive shop, but a little more expensive and on the move. The course only affected activities we wanted to do on the day we got on board, the rest of the planned course material was either in the morning or at the ports which worked out well.
After you sign up there is only one document you are waiting to complete before you can start your course. For us getting the medical form and receiving the code for the course turned out to be emailing from every other day and CCing as many people as possible to get any communication back.
We had about 6 days to complete the online course which was possible, we simply didn't have a life after work :) We spent about 4 hours a night for 6 days straight to complete the materials, take the quizzes, and the final exam. They do have a few extra sections we did complete as well.
Once we got on board we were told to visit the PADI center between 1-4pm; we did but also had to come back at 4pm to complete the first gear training -- right during sail-away which led us to be late for dinner. Just plan to not have a 5pm dinner reservation :)
Even tho your cruise planner will say 7am, confined dives will start at 6am. We completed our confined dives in the Sports Pool. The pool is about four and a half feet deep, much shallower than the pools that most dive shops use.
With the pools being shallow you don't get the chance to try and equalize your ears, practice descending and it makes turning with fins harder among other items you need to practice like water entrances that you will do for the first time in the open water dives.
Our confined dive was about 6:30am to 9am with prep time before and communication after. We only had access to the pool till 9am which was enough time to go through everything. This two-and-a-half-hour period in the water was combining our confined dives 1, 2, 3, and 4 together.
All your gear is provided but can be in rough shape and falling apart. We only had 3 people in our group but it was still challenging to find gear that fit everyone. Most of the wetsuits were falling apart and the Velcro on the BCDs was either missing or not sticking leading them to move around the the water. If you are smaller it might be hard to find fins and a wetsuit that fits you as it should.
You will have to collect all your gear the day before your first open-water dive and bring it down to your stateroom, it will stay with you until after your last open-water dive.
Our first and second open-water dives happened in Roatán, Honduras. We joined a group that was doing the World Class Certified Dive With Anthony's Key - $139, while we didn't go with the group on the dive we went on the boat with them. The entrance was a giant step and anchored to a mooring line so we descended and moved over to the line for our descent. We dove at two locations and changed tanks between them. We were down for about 30 mins each time about 10 mins less than the group we were with.
Our third and fourth open-water dives happened in Cozumel, Mexico. We took a dive boat over to Sand Dollar Sports with basically the same group as the previous dive. While we all got off and got our weights we stayed there while everyone else got back on the boat for a drift dive.
For dives three and four we used only one tank and never got out between the dives. This was a shore dive and shallower than in Roatán. We completed the rest of the test and then did basically a free dive as we would from now on.
After we completed this we had to do our 200 meter swim to complete the testing.
While this course did cost more than at a dive shop we were able to dive at two completely different locations and the time commitment was minimal on the cruise. We spent a maximum 5 hours onboard with the majority of the time before others woke up. While it was a pain to get the code and crammed to understand the information I was able to pass all the exams with 100% and apply it to the dives.
00:00 Intro to Open Water Dive Certification
00:29 Booking Through Royal Caribbean
01:06 Communication with the Royal Diver and Instructor
01:51 The Online Course Through PADI
02:03 First Equipment Session
03:13 Confined Water Dives
03:44 Open Water Dives
05:00 Question - The Pool on the ship is shallow
05:32 Question - What do you have to bring
06:09 Question - Did you use a dive computer
07:10 Question - How do actors breathe under was during the Royal Caribbean Aqua show
#scubadiving #royalcaribbean #padicourses
