How long does it take to get a scuba diving certificate?

Question

How long does it take to get a scuba diving certificate?

Answer 1

At my local dive shop for PADI Open Water: two weekends plus an hour of class time to watch instruction videos, and a couple hours of study time.

I liked that approach better than the resort crash-course method - better knowledge retention.

Answer 2

My responses are based on PADI.

The absolute fastest that PADI allows is two days.  You would do the pool and classroom for half of the class in the morning of the first day, and then you would do a couple of the open water dives in the afternoon.  The next day you would finish the pool and classroom the next morning, and then you'd finish the open water dives that afternoon.  I don't know anyone that teaches this way, but obviously you'd need to have the pool (or pool like conditions), classroom, and open water locations close to one another.  You as a student would need to be extremely good as this pace doesn't not allow for additional work or attention.

The shop I work for has two very popular and successful schedules:

Weekend:  You spend all day Saturday and Sunday doing the pool and classroom work.  Then on a later weekend, you'd complete the open water dives over Saturday and Sunday.

Weeknight:  Over the course of five weeknights, you complete the pool and classroom.  Then on a later weekend, you'd complete the open water dives over Saturday and Sunday.

Another popular situation is to complete the pool and classroom locally, and then go somewhere warm to complete the open water dives.  This is the referral system.

Answer 3

If you do a course at a dive cente on holiday it will usually take 5 days (it can be done in 3 with a referal) to get PADI Open Water Diver.

You can also do this course in spread out blocks over a few weeks, depending where you learn

(If you are in the UK - Bristol City being a give away - you can learn with a BSAC club over a period of time, too)