My wife and I and another couple are going to Tahiti for a 7 day cruise on 3/11/06. My friend and I are considering signing up for the open water dive certification class. We will do all of the bookwork before we go. It still will involve instruction on the cruise, and includes 4 dives.

Has anyonedone this on the PG?

Will it take too much of our time on a 7 day cruise?

Dove with Dominque and the dive team on the PG for two weeks, last march...did not do my cert or OW dives with them but recommend you do all book work and exams, just do the four OW dives with the PG and it won't take any more time, than doing one of their normal dives..except you will be in paradise....maybe you can even sign up for your first post OW dive (e.g., ledges or sharks gallery) ..good luck..r/wes

Hi,

My wife and I did the full OW certification last August.

Unlike you, we didn't have time to do the classroom and confined water dives (pool work) before our cruise. So, most of our first week (did a B2B) was dominated by SCUBA.

Here's the bottom line as we see it, we are totaly impressed with the service and instruction that we got from the PG dive team. As Wes indicated, Dominic is outstanding. Our instructor was Frederic who was phenomenal.

If our experience is any guide at all, your certification will NOT be what many other resort/cruise certification mills are criticized of being. Both Dominic and Fred are thorough instructors who want you to become, as Fred often phrased it, "best diver".

Unless they've changed the dives, your open water dives will be two dives at "Table Top" in Bora Bora and then "Ledges" and "Shark Gallery" in Moorea. "Ledges" and "Shark Gallery" are fantastic dives and "Table Top" is no slouch dive site.

If the term "Shark Gallery" catches your attention, it should...both our dives there and at "Ledges" had 8-14 black tip reef sharks swimming as closs as 6-10 feet of us. Don't worry, totaly benign creatures. Makes for fantastic pictures and stories topside.

At "Table Top", Fred had to routinely shoo away the fish while we were doing our skills because the sheer number made seeing his hand signals too difficult.

Did I mention the three whales we saw on the boat ride out to "Ledges" our second week?? Get ready for an amazing experience.

There is a horrible downside of doing your OW certification in Tahiti...nearly anyother diving you do afterward is going to be second rate.

My wife and I just did our AOW in Hawaii and were the only ones on the dive boat disappointed with the conditions. Tahiti and the PG are going to spoil you more than you'll ever know, and not just the diving.

If there are any additional specific questions, ask away and we'll all be willing to fill you in with what we know.

v/r

Jan

My wife and I are on the 4/29/06 PG cruise, and are going to be doing the open water dives that week. In terms of scheduling other excursions, were the dives in the mornings, evenings? Was there time / energy to do an excursion in the afternoon if the dive was in the morning or vice versa?

Thanks!
-Kevin

Also, I don't notice a way to sign up for the certification dives in the shore excursion request form... The 2 Table Top dives and Shark Gallery have "beginner divers" listed, but Ledges does not. Is any other pre-notification necessary?

Thanks!

-Kevin