1. First of all, when you hire a diving course, not from ACUC but from any diving organization, find out exactly what the price includes. Ask not only the approximate hours of the course, but also if the course includes other things such as: the cost of sea trials; how many sea trials are included in the price; the pedagogical material (course manual, dive log book, decompression tables, etc.) that the student receives; the mandatory diving insurance (what kind of insurance: annual, monthly, daily, only for the course, etc.); ask if it includes the rental of the diving equipment that will be used during the course; if you include the cost of the pool for the practical lessons; whether examination fees are included; if the cost of the certification is included, etc…etc. Do not be fooled by some schools or centers that, using “Americanized” sales techniques, advertise very cheap courses just to attract people, but then many of the things mentioned above are not included and therefore, at At the end of the course, the cheap ends up being much more expensive. Find out well before hiring a diving course.
2. Always make sure that the Instructor who is going to give you the course is in “Active” status with the organization, otherwise, the organization could not process your certification and you will have paid for a course that is of no use to you. In the case of ACUC, all our instructors in “Active” status must show you their Instructor certification card and on the back of said card, where the instructor’s photo and data appears, you will see that it puts a date of expiration (see sample). If the card has expired, look for a sticker in the upper right corner of the card where it says “Active Status” and the current year(see sample). If this appears, then the Instructor is “Active” and can offer you the course (see also later in the “Suspended Instructors” chapter). If the date of the card has expired and it does not have the “Active Status” sticker for the current year, before contracting the course with said person, contact ACUC, where we will inform you if the Instructor is active or not. You can also check if the Instructor is active in the “Procheck” subsection that you will find in the “Diver Services” section of this website.
3. See the standards of the course  you hire. ACUC, as far as we know, is the only diving teaching organization (or at least it was the only one at the time of writing these lines – but we were the first) to put our standards on the Web, in full view of the whole world. , so that the consumer could get an idea of ​​the course they should receive when hiring an ACUC course. In this way, we help the consumer to be better informed.
4. All ACUC instructors must renew their certification annually. In some cases, it could happen that an Instructor is suspended for various reasons in the current year, even having a valid certification card and even with the “Active Status” sticker. Since it is basically impossible to withdraw their certification card from these instructors, it is always a good idea to look at our “ Suspended Instructors” page to verify that the Instructor with whom you have contracted the course and who has possibly taught you an ACUC Instructor certification in order, has not been suspended during the current year.
5. Finally, I only recommend that if you have any questions, contact ACUC atinfo@acucinternational.com

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