Scuba Dive Schools- any recommendations?

[StirCrazy 0]

Im gonna be heading into pattaya late october, and am planning on doing a bit of diving. I already have a deep water license, but one of my buddies doesn't. He's gonna go for his open water.

 

Any reviews on Dive Schools in Pattaya greatly appreciated!

[StirCrazy 0]

OK, so I guess everyones too busy to get into the water!

[Dennism 3]

IMHO your doing the right thing but in the wrong place. I have been diving in Thailand for years and if you want to take advantage of both night diving (stretch your imagination) as well as day diving your best bet is Patong Beach or Koh Samui. To get any decent diving near Pattaya its a 3-4 hour boat ride to nothing special. If you headed to Patong you can take trips out to Koh Phi Phi or up to the Similans. My upcomming trip this October has me spending 5 days in Pattaya flying to Krabi then the ferry to Phi Phi for 5 days of diving then back to Pattaya.

[aj 62]

STIRCARZY.    the best things to when diving are probably where DENNISM  is saying. but you have to time your dive there for  certian times of the year also it is quite a bit more exspensive than pattaya for hotels and r&r. pattaya is not the best for vis some time but you can dive it year round. also if your friend is going to take his advanced course then you will not get the best site in  samui do to training that is need for cert. if you decide to do it in pattaya i would recomend  DAVE CHANNDLER   (  www.divingthailand.com)  if he is not available i would recomend  STEVE BLETHUML   ( sorry steve if you see this forgot spelling of last name)  MERMAIDS. ( www.mermaiddive.com ).  both have excellent staff  personal. these 2 shop seem to have the better boats and equipment if you have to rent. both are PADI centers.  if you chose one of many shops there make sure they are still PADI certified  some that display 5 star padi only have the sticker not the cert. TAT does not check these, so they are self police so to speak.. 37 day until los for me [smiley=tits.gif] [smiley=cheers.gif]

[veill 195]

Hallo Stircrazy,

I was in Pattaya last year and have done my open water training with aquanauts diving centre. It was a great experiance and to be honest the fist dives i was to busy to look around very much so  as to scenery i dont think he will see much.

I can realy recommend them . Biggest advantige to learning to dive in Pattaya is that there are not to many students so always a divemaster to max 2 students.

Ive seen the same thing with the other diving-schools. For a trip in the weekend there were 3 divingschools on one small boot.

Havent dived much lately but i wil be back in Januari and will take it up again .

Have fun

[Dennism 3]

Stir Crazy, I fully agree with aj he makes some very important points that I left out.

Again IMHO if your not going to be able to get to LOS to dive yearly then you will never get a taste of what this area really has to offer if you dive offshore near Pattaya.

[StirCrazy 0]

Thanks everyone, the info you all supplied is exactly what I needed.

 

I'll let you all know how the dives/course go.