Become a scuba diver! Visit PADI.com to find a dive shop or dive resort and learn to scuba dive with PADI scuba diving experts who will guide you through scuba lessons anywhere in the world.
PADI (padi.com) has 347 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 2.5 out of 5.
Also known as
padi.com
Website
padi.com
Category
Extreme Sports
Location
Rancho Santa Margarita, California
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
About these reviews
Replies
The company replied to 80% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: October 2026.
Edits
Reviews are shown as their authors wrote them. The company can reply, but cannot edit them.
Score
This company cannot pay to remove reviews or change its score.
PADI has great customer service. I was struggling trying to find my online records regarding my open water diver certification. They had constant communication with me and helped me eventually find what I was looking for.
AN
Anthony
Very Poor Design, Functionality, and Question Wording
I am working my way through the PADI e-learning program. I just finished Section 2. I have two major criticisms of the website.
1) Layout and Design
2) Question Phrasing
Regarding the Layout and Design:
The e-learning website is very poorly designed and laid out. The multiple scrolling sections are confusing. The content of each section is split, seemingly at random, into areas where you either scroll within the column or scroll the webpage. Further, there are no lines or other indicators showing where each scrolling section starts or stops.
It took me most of section 1 to realize that the outline was accessed by mousing over the downward arrows and scrolling down. (I was trying to click on it.)
I am completely unable to make the slideshow sections work, which was very detrimental during the hand signals section.
Why can't it just be one webpage? There is no need to make it so convoluted and labyrinthine. And why do the videos have to pop out at random, with no way to rewind? Just embed them in the flow of the page like any other sane website. This thing is timecube-levels of layout weirdness.
Regarding the Quiz Questions:
First, at the very least, there should be an indication whether one should be selecting a single or multiple answers. There currently is not.
Second, some questions are very confusingly worded. For example, in Quiz 1 there is a question relating to air density. The questions asks what would happen to the air in an upside-down cup as you descent. Specifically, the question asks whether "the air density (thickness) would ... increase/decrease/remain the same". This is extremely poorly worded. The density would increase, but the "thickness" would decrease. Please try to avoid using words that have opposite answers. This is the one question I got wrong, entirely because of the wording.
I have managed to catch the other bad questions in Quizzes, but the Knowledge Reviews have caught me off guard a few times.
Please consult with someone who has some education in test-writing. Several basic rules are being ignored or broken in the quizzes (not least of which is that multiple-choice is one of the worst ways to test knowledge). With all the divers out there, there must be many teachers or educators with such training and experience.
All in all, I am extremely disappointed in a website I paid a fair bit of money to access and learn from.
In summary:
Simplifying the website, making it work (which goes hand-in-hand with simplifying the website, as many of the features that don't work are completely unnecessary complications), and reviewing the questions would go a long way to improving the experience, and aid learning.
Response from PADIJul 29, 2019
Hello Anthony,
Thank you for providing us with your feedback regarding the PADI e-Learning programme. We appreciate that you have taken the time to write down your experience with this programme and shared it with us.
I will pass the feedback on to our IT department for further development. If you are interested in providing any further feedback, please feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected]
Thank you so much in advance for the opportunity to assist. Looking forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Marjolein Turnbull
PADI Customer Relations Support Team
EW
Ed_W
A terrible e-learning experience
A terrible e-learning experience
The e-learning software (apparently newly updated with 'touch') is terrible; constantly crashing, failing to download, failing to register the exams I have taken etc.
I would avoid the e-learning totally until PADI set up a decent system with a company competent in delivering proper capabilities. The e-learning is verbose, a total turn off, impossible with any bandwidth constraints and quite depressing as a result.
Response from PADIJul 29, 2019
Hello Ed.
I am very sorry to hear that you are experiencing an issue with your eLearning product. I would like to take this opportunity and assist you with the issues you are having with the product. If you are interested, would you mind contacting me directly at [email protected] and providing your direct contact information so I may reach out to assist?
Thank you so much in advance for the opportunity to assist. Looking forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Marjolein Turnbull
PADI Customer Relations Support Team
JM
Jesse M.
An Honest review from a Divemaster…
An Honest review from a Divemaster doing elearning IDC... the elearning is an absolute joke. The platform looks like it was built on MS-DOS, 1990s era garbage. Some of the quiz questions are completely wrong.... 2 questions to be exact.
It provides literally ZERO insightful information. I feel like I was ripped off. Your “marketing diving” teaches NOTHING about current day marketing strategies. The only part of the entire course that was halfway worthwhile was “teaching RDP” and even then it teaches nothing you don’t already know as a divemaster or diver of any “rating” for that matter.
I’m absolutely ashamed of your elearning platform and at a cost of $390 or whatever it is you’d expect more information or actual instruction and learning. Just re-read your divemaster handbook... you’ll refresh with more information.
Seriously PADI, get it together! I would be embarrassed to offer this garbage platform to any customer.
Edit: I noticed your response to my review PADI, the issue is you have a trend here on all fronts of your elearning and you are doing nothing about it. You do not take it seriously and it shows.... you post a reply here to save face but you haven’t fixed anything for anyone
Response from PADIJul 30, 2019
Dear Jesse (18080W9986)
We thank you for your feedback regarding the course IDC. We appreciate the feedback you are sharing regarding the experience you have had with the course and the content. We will provide the feedback to the IT department to hopefully provide resolution. If you are interested in providing further feedback, would you mind contacting me directly at rosalinda,[email protected].
Thank you so much in advance for the opportunity to assist. Looking forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Rosalinda Higuera
PADI Customer Relations Support Team
Edit: Hello Jesse,
I am reaching out to respond to your recent edit. We are working on some updates for this program. I will be reaching out to your directly via email with more information on this.
HD
Helena Don O.
This website is a joke
This website is a joke! I have tried using multiple channels (e.g. website, app) and its all impressively horrible! You guys need to fix your digital CX, what the hell is this?!
BP
Brenda P.
If I could give them zero stars I…
If I could give them zero stars I would. After days of trying to navigate their terrible website and customer service I finally figured out how to get my ecard for a course I already over-paid for. Then they wanted $46 to download the ecard. What a scam. Also, check out how all the responses to poor reviews on this page are automated and exactly same. This is how much PADI cares about you and your customer experience. Exactly zero. POS!
DO
Dorian
WORST WEBSITE EVER!
Like every other review on here, my experience with trying to purchase an e-learning course was TERRIBLE. And the "customer service" agents are pathetic! One of them even asked for my password so she could log into my account! Unbelievable! I have been trying to for two weeks to BUY something from them and I have now officially given up. Unbelievable!
AK
Angela Keeling C.
Worst website/app in existence
Worst website/app in existence. Imported duplicates from my ScubaEarth account as well as 'forgot' some. Also shows duplicate certifications. Ended up having to delete everything then re-log all my dives (over 40+ dives) and even know the website shows the correct # of dives - the hours logged is wrong and it is missing all my dives from 2017 (although the # of dives shown is correct). The PADI app on Android seems okay. The slider bars, forcing you to select a site PLUS asking you to rate a dive site is inefficient and wastes time. No way to 'save' your dive buddy and no way to export dive logs (see Diviac for ideas)
Response from PADIJul 17, 2019
Dear Angela,
I am very sorry to hear that you are experiencing an issue with the PADI app. I would love the opportunity to help address your concerns and hopefully provide resolution. If you are interested, would you mind contacting me directly at [email protected] regarding the problems you are experiencing?
Thank you so much in advance for the opportunity to assist. Looking forward to working with you.