TomAndRebecca Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Hi folks, I signed up 2 weeks ago for the open water diver course on our April 6 Symphony sailing. If I understand it correctly, the course description in the cruise planner says it includes the pre-cruise online training on the PADI website, the in-pool training, and the open water dives. The PADI website wants additional payment or an access code. I thought that I had read here that Royal supplied another diver with a link (or access code) to the online part of the course. I have not received any info to access the online training, and 2 emails to royaldiver@rccl.com and one online contact request at royalcaribbean.com have gone unanswered. I just sent a request for help to my travel agent, but thought I'd ask here for advice also. Thanks in advance for your time and help! Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobroo Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 I am surprised to hear this, I've received nothing but prompt responses from royaldiver. While I can think of a bunch of plausible reasons for the delay, some sort of answer is deserved. Even if that answer is "we hand out the access codes to new students about a month ahead of time because we prefer their learning to be recent and fresh". A phone call to Royal won't give you the immediate reaction you want but might help to press the buttons to get the response you are looking for. I would caution against going to the PADI site and paying their fee for an access code unless you are told to do so by royaldiver or receive an email from your future instructor. If you were to be impatient and do so on your own, the $230 you pay will not be very likely to be untangled and refunded to you. I also understand being eager to get in the water so I if I were in your fins there are a couple things I'd be doing presently. One, go watch YouTube videos by searching Open Water Skills. I don't know if any one of them is any better than any of the others but I would watch them all. Get familiar with what the skills are, how they are preformed, what the expectations are, and the circumstances they are preformed under. I hope you'll stumble across a couple videos of real OW students in a class. Another step there would be no harm in doing would be going to your local dive shop and buying a mask. Your local dive shops will have a large selection of masks to chose from and give the expertise of whether they fit and how to get them prepared for diving. No need to go crazy buying expected gear. Just a properly fit mask that's low volume, brand new squishy silicone, and had the steps taken to take the film off of it. You might accessorize it with a snorkel and some defog but again; no need to go crazy. michaelp1446 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 If you want to send me a DM with your ship, I will share with you the email address that will likely work for that ship. I did this same offering 2 years ago and have worked with instructors on multiple ships, and find contacting them directly works much better than Royal Diver. bobroo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomAndRebecca Posted February 6 Author Report Share Posted February 6 Thanks for the responses. I thought the slow communication from Royal Diver was unusual. I first contacted them (long before buying the class) on May 6 of last year and they replied on June 7! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheeler825 Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 On 2/5/2024 at 5:52 PM, Brendon said: If you want to send me a DM with your ship, I will share with you the email address that will likely work for that ship. I did this same offering 2 years ago and have worked with instructors on multiple ships, and find contacting them directly works much better than Royal Diver. I'm going on Symphony myself and would love to get into a 'sold out' PADI Open water course. Thoughts? Any idea if that would ever be possible? It was listed as sold out even on the day we booked about 2 months before cruising Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted February 16 Report Share Posted February 16 On 2/14/2024 at 2:48 PM, Wheeler825 said: I'm going on Symphony myself and would love to get into a 'sold out' PADI Open water course. Thoughts? Any idea if that would ever be possible? It was listed as sold out even on the day we booked about 2 months before cruising Keep an eye on it, sometimes it opens up. Worst case is go straight to the Dive Shop when you get on board (Pool Deck near the sports pool) and inquire. They will often let people join in on board. You will have to find time to do the e-learning (so you will need internet), but if you get on board early and start quickly, you can finish it in time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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