Learning to Dive on Phu Quoc: Not Every Dive Listing Takes Beginners

The reefs off the An Thoi archipelago at the southern end of Phu Quoc are the reason there is a dive industry here at all. They are shallow, warm and close to shore, which makes them close to ideal for a first breath underwater.

What is not ideal is the way the trips are sold. The two dive days with enough reviews to judge sit side by side on the booking pages, and one of the two will not take you if you have never dived. Nothing in either title says so.

The two listings, and the difference that matters

Scuba Diving Experience for All Levels is €126.30, 4.8 stars from 55 reviews, seven hours. Its own description opens with “whether you’re a certified diver or a beginner with limited swimming and diving experience” – this is the one built to take people who have never worn a tank.

Exciting Fun Diving Adventures in Phu Quoc is €115.82, 4.8 stars from 19 reviews, six hours, and lists “divers without certification” among the people it cannot accept. It is the fuller dive day, and it is not available to beginners, although its highlights speak of dives ‘for beginners and experienced divers alike’ – its title and its exclusions say certified divers only, so ask if in doubt. It names its sites – Kim Quy, Gam Ghi, Dam Ngang and Pineapple – and puts most divers on reefs around 18 metres, with 30 metres for the experienced.

So the listing at €115.82 is the one for people who already dive. If you are booking your first ever dive from the snorkelling and diving category, read the title and the exclusions before the price, or you will be turned away.

What a try dive on Phu Quoc actually contains

This is the part worth reading before you spend €126.30, because the listing states it plainly and almost nobody clicks through to find it:

2 dives/person, 20 minutes/dive (non-certified diver); 40-60 minutes/dive (certified diver)

And: “Maximum depth allowed: 6 meters (try diving), 10 - 17 meters (fun diving).”

Forty minutes in the water, six metres down, for €126.30. The price also carries a professional instructor, all the kit, lunch and hotel transfers both ways from the centre and some areas (further out a surcharge may apply), and on a first dive the instructor’s full attention is most of what you are paying for. On national public holidays, Christmas, New Year and Lunar New Year a surcharge of 150,000 VND per person is payable on site. But it is forty minutes, and six metres is snorkelling depth with a tank on.

Set that against the small-group snorkelling boats: the Pro Snorkeling Tour by speedboat is €56.65, 4.9 stars from 726 reviews, and takes you by boat to two reef sites in the south over about six hours – while the try dive goes to its diving area by car, not by boat. The snorkelling category as a whole holds 94 offers from €12.07.

None of which means don’t dive. It means: dive because breathing underwater is worth doing once, not because you expect to see more than the snorkellers on the next boat. At six metres you will see slightly less of the reef and considerably more of your own instructor.

Who the operators will not take

The listing for the beginner trip names its exclusions, and the list is long: children under 10, pregnant women, and people with back, heart or respiratory problems, high blood pressure, epilepsy, vertigo or mobility impairments. It also gives an upper age of 60 and a weight limit of 150 kg.

Read that as the operator’s own policy rather than as medical guidance, and confirm your own case with them before booking rather than at the pier. If any of it touches you, the question belongs with a doctor before the trip, not with a divemaster on the morning.

One more restriction from the same page, and the one most likely to spoil a plan:

For flight or any hiking activity after diving, you need to rest for 16 hours minimum after dive.

Sixteen hours can rule out a dive on the day before a flight home, depending on the flight time – the operator asks for your flight time before booking. It also rules out stacking a dive and a walk back to back – if the national park and jungle trekking day is on your list too, the two need a night between them.

If you would rather not dive at all

There is a middle option that gets people underwater without a regulator or any swimming ability. Sea walking is €70.08, 4.7 stars from 14 reviews: you wear a weighted helmet fed with air from the surface and walk on the bottom, and the listing says plainly that you do not need swimming skills.

Three hours in total, of which the walk itself is 15 to 20 minutes. It runs at the Coral Park of the Ocean World centre on Coconut islet, with the return to Vinh Dam port, and its booking page lists it as not suitable for children under 12, pregnant women, people over 70, people prone to seasickness and people with high blood pressure. Two numbers from the fine print are worth having: the included insurance is capped at 30,000,000 VND per case, and pickup from outside Duong Dong costs 100,000 to 400,000 VND per person extra; on the Tet and public holidays the page lists, a 20% surcharge is payable on site.

Fifteen minutes is short. For someone who will not put their face in the water, it is also the one option here that asks no swimming of you at all.

If you want the certificate rather than the experience

The island runs full courses. A PADI Open Water Diver course is €534.56 and ends with a qualification that works anywhere in the world. It runs over three days with four open water dives, and the booking page lists boat trips, dive and marine park fees, hotel pick-up and food on board as included; it is not suitable for non-swimmers or children under 10. Check the current schedule on the booking page before you build a week around it. Against €126.30 for forty minutes underwater, the course is the better buy for anyone who suspects they will do this again.

When to book it

Sea state decides this, not temperature. The water sits between roughly 26 and 30 °C all year, so the wetsuit is never the issue; visibility is. Visibility is generally best in the dry season, roughly November to April, and drops in the wet months, when rough days can lead to cancelled trips.

The southern reefs are also the sheltered side for most of the dry season, which is why nearly everything – diving, island hopping, the cable car day – leaves from the bottom of the island rather than the top.

Book the dive early in your stay, not late. That way a cancelled day has somewhere to move to, and the 16-hour rule never collides with your flight.