Learn to Scuba Dive

Next PADI Open Water Course Winter 2024

Saturdays from 10am – 8pm (2days):Jan 13/20 or Feb 10/17  or Mar 9/16 or Apr 13/20 2024

Bonus option to finish the course in Akumal, Mexico May 13-20, 2024!

Visit our Events Page for our full Training Calendar.

Learn to Scuba Dive – PADI Open Water Diver Courses and beyond with DDS

Learn to Scuba Dive with Dan’s Dive Shop. We offer the the most thorough, exciting and modern scuba diving courses in the industry.

Scuba Diving is the most unique, freeing, exciting and relaxing life experience in the world. Spend your life exploring above and below with us.

There are thousands of great dive sites locally around Niagara and all of Canada, including  thousands of exciting shipwrecks, beautiful aquatic life, awesome geological dives and more that you can discover with us through our weekly dives, charters, trips and our exotic dive travel.

Find information here about our Discover Scuba and PADI Open Water Diver Courses, as well as PADI ReActivate Scuba Refresher Courses for certified scuba divers.

Start Today with our PADI eLearning option and learn at your own pace and book your 6 additional classroom sessions with us along with your pool training as we help you start your journey into the underwater world.

At Dan’s, We offer you a more thorough, progressive and modern approach to scuba diving education.  We’ve taught divers from every province in Canada, most US States and from around the world in other countries.

Fact: Over 35% of our Students come from the GTA and Surrounding Areas.  People are willing to travel for better training or fly us out or drive us out to them.  If you’re looking for a scuba diving course nearby, we’re available anywhere we’re needed.

When you Learn to Scuba Dive at DDS, we will help to save you from making the incorrect training and gear purchases and instead, we will offer you the best skills training and equipment at the best prices possible.

Students drive or fly into visit us for the highest Quality Training and Equipment.  We have Taught Students from Every Province in Canada and MOST US States.

Our Approach Diving is a lifestyle for us. We introduce you the right foundation skills, efficiency, finesse, team diving concepts, while balancing the physical and mental aspects of diving  to build upon as you progress through the life long adventure sport of scuba diving.

There is a Difference

Our DDS Divers and Instructors are the most skilled and respected recreational and technical divers in the water.

You’ll notice our divers look different underwater in comparison to the vast majority of the dive population.

You’ll learn how the right equipment configuration and fundamentally sound skills can set the stage for better diving.

Taking a more modern, “Team” approach to your diving and developing the essential skills and maintaining them is part of the tun too.

We Spend More Time in the Classroom, Pool and Open Water Dives to make you the best Diver you can be.

Personal Attention

At DDS, Teaching Scuba Diving is about Quality not Quantity, so don’t get “sucked into” a too good to be true $99 base price scuba courses. They aren’t quality oriented and they are never the price you see first, which is deceptive. That course will cost you more like $800 and most times you don’t even have an Instructor in water with you, which is a major violation of training agency standards.

No one offers a better, more thorough, more professional, more quality oriented scuba program than we do and we prove it time and time again when you get into the water.

Don’t be Deceived by “Fly by Night” Instructors or Dive Stores.

No one offers a better, more thorough, more professional, more quality oriented scuba program than we do and we prove it time and time again when you get into the water.

DDS Divers offer superior trim, posture, buoyancy, techniques

At Dan’s,  You’re more than just a number to us, you’re going to be part of our scuba diving family as a DDS Diver, so we’d like to develop you into the diver we want to dive with, by starting you off right with the proper skills, equipment configuration and knowledge that all divers should be privy to.

Already Certified But Haven’t Been Diving?  

ReActivate to your highest level of certification with a PADI ReActivate Diving Refresher Program and dive with renewed comfort, confidence, information, renewed status and learn some new procedures and techniques while you’re at it.

We offer an additional Open Water Component to learn the new skills and techniques and bring your diving up to the modern era.

Discover Local Diving

Did you know that your certification is valid in an environment similar to that which you’ve been trained?  That means that if you’re new to local diving in Canada you likely haven’t worn a 7mm wetsuit, hood or gloves and may not be ready for the colder water, darker water and sensitive bottom.

Discover Local Diving with DDS and we’ll help you sort out your weights, introduce you to a more modern style of diving where you won’t be overexerting yourself flutter kicking, and instead you’ll learn how to do more efficient anti-silting kicks that are more efficient and will improve your gas consumption.

You’ll also lear how to dive in a backplate/wing instead of the horrible jacket bcd’s that most resorts provide, as well as getting introduced to more modern philosophies like bubble-check’s and S-Drills (Safety Drills) which you’ll perform at the start of every dive.

Diving in Canada offers some of the best shipwreck diving, geological diving, drift diving and so much more.  From East Coast to West Coast, the Great Lakes and beyond, we have a lifetime of adventure right here in our own backyard.

Padi Open Water Students with Dan's Dive Shop

DDS Open Water Students Complete Their Final Pool Session and
Are Ready For Open Water Checkout Dives

dds_diver_tobermory

DDS Divers Hover Effortlessly Through the Water
Maintaining Proper Horizontal Trim and Buoyancy

Cheap Scuba Courses Make Bad Divers

Everyone Likes to Save Money but compromising standards,
using inferior equipment, or training with sub-par divers
costs the most because you’ll have to unlearn what you should’ve
learned from Day 1.

Not a DDS Diver

This photo typifies what is lacking in traditional diver training. No buoyancy control, overweighted, silt everywhere, poor equipment configuration, no awareness.

Don’t fall victim to poor diving habits, step up your training with DDS Today.

open water students working on buoyancy and trim in the pool during a padi open water diver course
DDS NAUI Intro to Tech Divers exploring the R.H. Rae off Picton in Lake Ontario

Our Cancellation Policy: You may reschedule your class within a 2 week time period. No shows or last minute cancellations will be subject to rescheduling fee. If you can’t do the class, you may transfer your class fees to someone else who can.

Dive Course Calendar

Recurring

PADI Drysuit Course Spring 2024

Take the PADI Drysuit Course and enter a world of warm, comfortable diving. Drysuit Divers are happy divers! No more freezing on the bottom, or missing dives because you're cold. […]

PADI Open Water Diver Course Fridays May 2024

PADI Open Water Diver Course Friday Nights May 2024 Join us and Discover the underwater world with your PADI Open Water Diver Course this May. Have fun and learn to dive right with Dan's Dive Shop, Canada's Oldest, Most Respected Scuba Diving School. Learn how to Scuba Dive!  Why not make this year awesome and […]

TDI Advanced Nitrox Decompression Procedures Course

TDI Advanced Nitrox Decompression Procedures Course Join us for your TDI Advanced Nitrox Decompression Procedures Course and see how much more exciting it is when to be diving deeper, longer […]

Emergency First Response Course 2024

The Emergency First Response Course: Primary Care (CPR) and Secondary Care (First Aid) The Emergency First Response Course begins your preparedness in how to respond to medical emergencies. Statistics show […]

PADI Drysuit Course Spring 2024

Take the PADI Drysuit Course and enter a world of warm, comfortable diving. Drysuit Divers are happy divers! No more freezing on the bottom, or missing dives because you're cold. […]

PADI Instructor Development Course 2024

Become a PADI Instructor at Canada’s Oldest PADI Dive Shop This 2024, Dan’s Dive Shop is hosting a PADI IDC right here in Niagara. You don’t need to travel or […]

PADI Self Reliant Diver Course – Solo Diver

PADI Self Reliant Diver Course - Solo Diver Our PADI Self Reliant Diver Course - Solo Diver can help you from experiencing sheer terror on a dive boat. Have you […]

Recurring

PADI Rescue Diver Course

PADI Rescue Diver Course 2024 Join us for what many of our students call their most favourite PADI Scuba Course, the PADI Rescue Diver Course.  Let us take you through the […]

Recurring

PADI Advanced Open Water Course 2024

PADI Advanced Open Water Course 2024 Our PADI Advanced Open Water course is the most thorough and progressive PADI Advanced Open Water Course available in the dive industry. The PADI Advanced Open Water Course introduces divers how to be more aware and how to participate in bigger, better dives, utilize more precision techniques and expose […]

Recurring

PADI Advanced Open Water Course 2024

PADI Advanced Open Water Course 2024 Our PADI Advanced Open Water course is the most thorough and progressive PADI Advanced Open Water Course available in the dive industry. The PADI Advanced Open Water Course introduces divers how to be more aware and how to participate in bigger, better dives, utilize more precision techniques and expose […]

NAUI Trimix Course

NAUI Trimix Course Our NAUI Trimix Course builds on the foundation skills and on the dive experiences of your previous technical courses, but with the addition of learning how to dive […]

Want Some New Challenges?

transition into technical and cave diving courses
Transition into technical or cave diving courses for new and rewarding challenges in your diving

For divers wanting more of a challenge DDS specializes in Cave and Technical Diving Courses offering the most in depth technical diving programs in the country from rudimentary elements of diving courses like Intro to Tech,  Decompression Procedures, Helitrox, Trimix, Cavern and Cave Diving courses, Wreck External Survey, Wreck Penetration, Ice Diving, Technical Wreck Penetration, Rebreather Courses, Deep Diving, Technical DPV Courses, and many more, we keep the adventure of scuba diving thriving.

We also offer a full range of Recreational Diving Specialty Courses, Professional Level Leadership Courses as well as First Aid, CPR Courses and Oxygen Provider Courses.