Diving Certification

Hello folks!

I'm planning to get PADI-certified in Belize in September. Any places you'd recommend? What sort of budget should I be looking into?

Thank you so much!

Try Thatch Caye. Their rates are on www.thatchcayebelize.com and they offer summer discounts. My wife and I stayed there recently and did some Discover Dives with them and their instructors and dive masters were very patient and professional. My wife was a little bit worried about going under for her first time, but they calmly led her through all of the exercises and did a fabulous job getting us down and comfortable. The place is also very beautiful and centrally located.

I can not recommend any places but I thought you should know that you are not required to have a certificate to scuba dive in most places. I recently got certified in the united states but besides the training the only difference is being able to rent tanks without any help. I do not want to discorageyou from getting certified I love knowing what to do and all I just figured I would throw my two cents in there.

Don't dive anywhere that will let you dive without certification except for a Discover Scuba course. I did a 2 tank dive with Frenchies on Caulker last week and was impressed by them - nice boat, good dive intros, great snacks, good equipment. Some relatives did a Discover Scuba thing the same day and had a blast.

I did my OW certification at Glover's Atoll Resort 6 years ago and it was wonderful. I spent a week diving there the 2nd week in August and had a wonderful time - beautiful new gear and the diving is really amazing. It's really roughing it so not for everyone (and their have been mixed reviews) but we'll be heading back for sure.

I disagree with qwovadis that UDC is the way to go in Honduras. I had a really negative experience there and prefer Alton's on Utila.

I have been diving with belize dive services in Caye caulker. They are really professional, have brand new kit and hire out dive computers included in the package. I would learn with them. We used Frenchies for the blue hole dive. It was well run, although slightly too many people I felt, and kit not a good as BDS.