Sandals in Ocho Rios week of Jan 15,2005

Hi!
I got PADi certified a few years and can't find my license. My wife
wants to get certified during our week stay.
Any ideas on whether they can verify my license...
Comments on Sandals diving excursions in general?
How about snorkeling?
Any must do excersions (we've already been there done that with Dunns
River fall)
Thanks in advance!

In article <1105129131.612479.16910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups. com>,
"Meatball" <chris122@comcast.net> writes:

>Hi!
>I got PADi certified a few years and can't find my license. ...

PADI doesn't issue a "license" -- nor do other certifying agencies.

There is an important, legal difference -- it happens to be one
of my "hot buttons".

If you lost your certification card (which is *NOT* a "license"!)
contact the dive shop or or instructor who issued it.

If they cannot help, goto

http://www.padi.com/english/webservices/officecontact/

and click on

Click here for misplaced or stolen PADI certification cards.

Good luck and happy diving.


Charlie Hammond -- OpenVMS Engineering
Hewlett-Packard Company -- 954-535-1478
Ft Lauderdale, Florida
Exchange mailto:Charles.Hammond@HP.com --=20
OpenVMS mailto:Hammond@peek.ssr.hp.com (Plain Text only to this address)


--
Charlie Hammond -- Hewlett-Packard Company -- Ft Lauderdale FL USA
(hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com -- remove "@not" when replying)
All opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily my employer's.

"Meatball" <chris122@comcast.net> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:

:Hi!
:I got PADi certified a few years and can't find my license. My wife
:wants to get certified during our week stay.
:Any ideas on whether they can verify my license...

If they are a PADI shop, and can log onto the internet, yes.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.


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Thankyou Gentlemen!
Did not mean to hit hot button regarding cert card..forgot the lingo!
I will call Sandals to see if they are PADI...not enough time to get
directly from PADI.

Meatball wrote:

> Comments on Sandals diving excursions in general?

Don't confuse them with a real dive op. Their forte is supplying the masses with a
relaxing vacation only occasionally interrupted by brief periods of indulging in the
"free" activities. Based on my experience with them (my experience is almost ancient,
but I don't expect their basic format has changed much), as a certified diver expect
a chance to do a deep dive in the morning and a shallow dive in the afternoon. Note
that "a chance" is also what you have when you buy a lottery ticket. The afternoon
dive will also be open to people who have taken the resort course. The catch is that
they'll only be taking about a dozen people on each dive, and that's not much for a
resort than may have several hundred guests. If there are only two dozen certified
divers in the entire resort you could expect to get a single dive each day, unless
they let some of the resort course divers go on the afternoon dive. If there are 50
people who want one of 36 daily spots you can expect a dive about every day and half.
On the upside for their guests who are certified, there aren't as many people doing
the resort course dive as want them since the swim test was designed to weed people
out, rather than see if they can swim well enough to dive. Women got 6 pounds of lead
and men got 9, regardless of their inherent bouyancy. The 300 pound fat guy bobbed
like a cork in the fresh water pool, while the people who sink when they exhale
devoted 95% of their energy to staying afloat instead of completing the 3 laps around
the pool.

Depending on how you value your vacation time, your wife might do better to try the
resort course and settle for the limited diving opportunities she's likely to get,
and use the time she'd have devoted to a course (which costs extra, right?) to
indulge in some of the other activities you've already paid for. Sandals (and
presumably other all-inclusives) make their money on the people who sit around and
drink all day, since it's a rare tourist who can actually use more than $50 worth of
alcohol, mixer, and bar tender labor in a week. Supplying guests with equipment and
instructors is more expensive, and as far as I could tell they devoted some effort to
avoiding that. If you want to sail a sunfish, you might consider bringing your own
jam cleat, for instance. The boats they provided require you to actually hold the
sheet the entire time you're sailing. That means that nobody uses a boat for an
entire afternoon, so a dozen boats is enough for 300 guests. If you get your wife
certified at home, you can plan your next vacation to include real diving with an
outfit that specializes in it.


--
Steve

The above can be construed as personal opinion in the absence of a reasonable
belief that it was intended as a statement of fact.

If you want a reply to reach me, remove the SPAMTRAP from the address.

Meatball wrote:

> Thankyou Gentlemen!
> Did not mean to hit hot button regarding cert card..forgot the lingo!
> I will call Sandals to see if they are PADI...not enough time to get
> directly from PADI.
>

You can get the info in a a matter of seconds, or the dive shop you are
at can.