Northwest Dive Club

This has morphed into an interesting thread. This topic came up at a PADI standards seminar I attended at DEMA a few years ago.

A husband/wife may share 1 book. KR must be written in the book by one, and written on a separate paper (not photocopied from the book) The book may not be shared with everyone in the house; only husband/wife. The PADI CD Rom version of the OW course may be shared with up to 5 people in a single household. However, the instructor has the discretion of requiring everyone to have their own manual. From what we were told, this is only possible with non-professional materials, and in the US and Canada. The instructor must verify that the book was written in by the student. The student then may tear out the KR and give them to the instructor or make a photocopy of the KR after they have been completed and signed by the student for the student's file. It isn't required the instructor keep the KR, only to verify that they were completed. However, many instructors do so. (me included)

If you take courses outside the US and Canada, each set of materials comes with a hologram that is attached to your PIC when your instructor sends it in. It is already a requirement for PRO materials in the US, and I foresee it becoming required with all materials in the next few years. The Hologram is proof that each student has purchased his/her own materials.

However, all RDP tables (including EAN) may not be shared. This is so everyone is planning their own dives, and for liability reasons. All students must have a log book.

If you have questions about book sharing, you can contact PADI directly 1-800-727-7234, or chat with your instructor.

When I took OW 10 years ago, my ex-husband and I shared the CD Rom. I did have my own AOW book which I still have. I ended up purchasing a new OW book when I went through my IDC because he kept the OW CD after I moved out. It is nice to have the book as a reference.

Hope this info helps...

Amy,

Yes, this was very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to explain this without being judgemental.

So, if I understand you correctly, The OW and AOW classes PADI allows the shared book, but not for Nitrox?

Brendan

See this is why love this club, argue, smack each other around and then at the end of the day we are all right and have learned something new.

Ssi includes book dvd and all that with each course bundled like comcast. Simple and not stupidly obsessing over this and that.

I was wondering why there was so many posts from such a simple post.......

Amy -- Thanks for your input -- but do you know if what you were told at DEMA was ever made "official" or was that just someone discussing reality?

OP -- for the record, this is the current (2010) language from the PADI Instructor Manual, page 17:

Materials Dive

Ensure that student divers have a personal set of current PADI materials for study and use during the course and for reference afterward, to include, at a minimum, the course manual (book, multimedia or online version) unless unavailable in a language understood by the student diver. Ensure that student divers have a log book.
Exceptions: Enriched Air Diver, Digital Underwater Photographer and Emergency Oxygen Provider course materials are required; all other PADI Specialty course student materials are highly recommended.

What you do with the information is something else. Again, please understand, I personally think it is silly to have the "personal set" requirement -- but that does appear to be the "black letter" rule.

Peter Guy wrote:Amy -- Thanks for your input -- but do you know if what you were told at DEMA was ever made "official" or was that just someone discussing reality?

I have never seen this spelled out in an instructor manual, and I have been getting updates for 8 years. This is what James Morgan shared with the group at DEMA 3 years ago. My theory is that because this was only an option in the US/Canada, that it would not be spelled out in an instructor manual. I have no idea what the rules are outside of PADI Americas/Canada.

In case you were wondering, many resorts throughout the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America were "Librarying" manuals. The stores down there didn't want to pay to have the materials shipped in and customers didn't want to buy them. I don't know if there was a lawsuit, an audit or what, but PADI Americas halted the practice about 6-7 years ago. All materials shipped to those areas have a hologram sticker, which is put on the PIC that was sent in, to ensure that they had purchased materials. If materials were purchased in the US, the student could include a copy of the receipt. If I have a student completing a course somewhere else, I make sure that the student knows this and saves the receipt of purchase. I am surprised that the holograms haven't shown up yet on our materials. They are on all DM and IDC crew packs.

Again, if you are an instructor, I would get clarification from the PADI training office before allowing this. It also may be the dive store policy that all students have materials as well. The one thing that was stated at this training I went to is that the instructor and LDS had the option of requiring everyone having their own books. From a liability standpoint, and to be fair to everyone, it makes sense. If your instructor is requiring you to have new materials, please, don't get upset and quote me. I would talk to him/her and find out if there are options. However, if he/she doesn't allow it, consider it part of your tuition, and know you have a good reference manual if you need it.

It seems that not requiring a students to purchase the packs separately would be one way to very simply avoid all of this.

Make the books part of the class costs and be done with it. Having 2 separate charges is just a way to irritate people. I understand it from a marketing perspective, $99 OW class (with fine print, Materials extra) but if you are REQUIRED to purchase the book, wouldn't it make sense to just not have to argue about it and make the materials "free" with the purchase of the class at the inflated price?

Nwbrewer wrote:It seems that not requiring a students to purchase the packs separately would be one way to very simply avoid all of this.

Make the books part of the class costs and be done with it. Having 2 separate charges is just a way to irritate people. I understand it from a marketing perspective, $99 OW class (with fine print, Materials extra) but if you are REQUIRED to purchase the book, wouldn't it make sense to just not have to argue about it and make the materials "free" with the purchase of the class at the inflated price?

Nwbrewer wrote:It seems that not requiring a students to purchase the packs separately would be one way to very simply avoid all of this.

Make the books part of the class costs and be done with it. Having 2 separate charges is just a way to irritate people. I understand it from a marketing perspective, $99 OW class (with fine print, Materials extra) but if you are REQUIRED to purchase the book, wouldn't it make sense to just not have to argue about it and make the materials "free" with the purchase of the class at the inflated price?

I second this!!

Brendan

Clearly, the "$99 course+materials" approach works for PADI as a business model, however, or they would have changed this practice years ago. They also chose to crack down on the behavior in the Caribbean/Mexico rather than to change their policies, which speaks loudly as to how amenable they are to changing this business model.

I know they will never change it... I remember when I first walked into dive shop because I saw cost of getting certified... next thing I know I had another 50.00-75.00 or something for books... I thought the same then, "so its really not $$$.00 its more because of materials... then came mr shop owner telling me about all the gear I would need :biggrin: ...but thats another story, and I knew the class would not include all the gear that I ended up replacing all of.

Its just like saying something costs $99.95 instead of $100.00. But, if it gets people in the door, like PADIs method does, why change it? But it would make for a refreshing change... but I wont hold my breath.

Brendan

2loud4u wrote:... but I wont hold my breath.

Brendan

Good, because you're not supposed to hold your breath....

I, too, wandered into a dive shop looking for that sweet "99$ OW cert" for me and my wife. An hour, and 600$ later, we walked out of there with armloads of fins, snorkels, masks, and books. To this day, I'm still really glad I finally did it.

Ironically, many certifications, and a small fortune worth of gear later, I see what a bargain it was. And if I were to do it all over again, I would probably seek out more expensive training.

2loud4u wrote:I know they will never change it... I remember when I first walked into dive shop because I saw cost of getting certified... next thing I know I had another 50.00-75.00 or something for books... I thought the same then, "so its really not $$$.00 its more because of materials... then came mr shop owner telling me about all the gear I would need :biggrin: ...but thats another story, and I knew the class would not include all the gear that I ended up replacing all of.

Its just like saying something costs $99.95 instead of $100.00. But, if it gets people in the door, like PADIs method does, why change it? But it would make for a refreshing change... but I wont hold my breath.

Brendan

It's not all on PADI to change this, the shops could simply advertise an "all inclusive" package price for the class. I know of at least one shop locally that does this. (Granted, it's a NAUI shop, but it's the same business model.)

Nwbrewer wrote:It's not all on PADI to change this, the shops could simply advertise an "all inclusive" package price for the class. I know of at least one shop locally that does this. (Granted, it's a NAUI shop, but it's the same business model.)

I agree, the shops could advertise one all-inclusive price, but they want the low up-front sticker price to attach potential customers. The only way the course + book fees is likely to change is if padi requires it, which isn't likely to happen. That said, I've seen these sorts of shenanigans enough that whenever I see an advertised price I also ask "what else".

Padi would actual be better of in some ways if they were to change over to online materials, they would have more control over access to the materials. Sharing to be allowed/disallowed by limiting the number of tests that can be turned in with the same id. All that said, I don't see things changing anytime soon.

trevorrowe wrote:Padi would actual be better of in some ways if they were to change over to online materials, they would have more control over access to the materials. Sharing to be allowed/disallowed by limiting the number of tests that can be turned in with the same id. All that said, I don't see things changing anytime soon.

https://www.padi.com/scuba/padi-courses ... fault.aspx

https://www.padi.com/elearning-scuba-re ... fault.aspx

Joshua Smith wrote:

2loud4u wrote:... but I wont hold my breath.

Brendan

Good, because you're not supposed to hold your breath....

I, too, wandered into a dive shop looking for that sweet "99$ OW cert" for me and my wife. An hour, and 600$ later, we walked out of there with armloads of fins, snorkels, masks, and books. To this day, I'm still really glad I finally did it.

Ironically, many certifications, and a small fortune worth of gear later, I see what a bargain it was. And if I were to do it all over again, I would probably seek out more expensive training.

I would still do it all over again as well, and I am glad I did walk in because of the cheap price advertised. It sucked walking out with all the gear I would later replace and that stuff would collect dust, but on the flip side... if the shop owner/salesman would have tried selling me the good stuff like I have now, I would have thought "this guy thinks I am a sucker" and would have shot down anything he tried to upsell me anyways... and I still would have bought the cheap stuff to later decorate the garage with.

Brendan

2loud4u wrote:

Joshua Smith wrote:

2loud4u wrote:... but I wont hold my breath.

Brendan

Good, because you're not supposed to hold your breath....

I, too, wandered into a dive shop looking for that sweet "99$ OW cert" for me and my wife. An hour, and 600$ later, we walked out of there with armloads of fins, snorkels, masks, and books. To this day, I'm still really glad I finally did it.

Ironically, many certifications, and a small fortune worth of gear later, I see what a bargain it was. And if I were to do it all over again, I would probably seek out more expensive training.

I would still do it all over again as well, and I am glad I did walk in because of the cheap price advertised. It sucked walking out with all the gear I would later replace and that stuff would collect dust, but on the flip side... if the shop owner/salesman would have tried selling me the good stuff like I have now, I would have thought "this guy thinks I am a sucker" and would have shot down anything he tried to upsell me anyways... and I still would have bought the cheap stuff to later decorate the garage with.

Brendan

An excellent point. The adage of "you don't know what you don't know" was so true for me. It wasn't until I found this board and was able to borrow gear to try out that I got a sense of what sort of gear I actually needed for the diving I wanted to do.

Joshua Smith wrote: And if I were to do it all over again, I would probably seek out more expensive training.

Kind of the "you get what you pay for" approach. It is pretty interesting to see what the price of OW training is in other parts of the country. Even in Washington state for that matter. It appears that the $99 model is more a local phenomenon. Sadly, it always seems to go hand-in-hand with large classes, and likely not a very high retention rate. But it does get them in the door to buy their educational materials and basic equipment package.

Depending on how many people, $99 for a non-diving class (and I do believe that Nitrox can be safely, and reasonably, taught as a non-diving class) isn't too bad. If it is done correctly, and that isn't very hard to do, the students can learn a lot about why Nitrox is the right gas for diving, how to safely dive it AND learn some more about dive planning in just a few hours. At least I think my students have done so.