The course
2 days · 5 Adventure Dives · no exam
PADI Advanced Open Water in Hurghada · Two days, five dives · Certified to 30 m
The PADI Advanced Open Water course in Hurghada is five guided Adventure Dives across two days, and afterwards you dive to thirty meters instead of eighteen. Because there is no written exam and no pool work, the whole course happens in the water.
2 days · 5 Adventure Dives · no exam
€290 per person · certification and equipment included
Open Water Divers · ages 15 and up · junior from 12
The PADI Advanced Open Water course in Hurghada costs €290 per person and takes two days. You make five Adventure Dives on Red Sea reefs: a Deep dive, an Underwater Navigation dive and three electives you choose yourself. Afterwards you dive to a maximum of thirty meters as an adult. You need a PADI Open Water Diver certification first, and the minimum age is fifteen, or twelve for Junior Advanced. The certification fee, equipment, boat trips, lunch, marine park fees and hotel transfer within Hurghada all sit inside the price, while the PADI digital materials cost extra.
This is a full continuing-education certification rather than a specialty. In other words, it builds experience under supervision instead of adding fresh theory. Furthermore, full course standards come from PADI. Red Sea Diving is a PADI dive operator based in Hurghada, Egypt, and has run diving and liveaboard trips on the Red Sea since 2000.
| Course | PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, a continuing-education certification |
|---|---|
| Price | €290 per person. The PADI digital materials are charged separately |
| Duration | 2 days |
| Dives | 5 Adventure Dives: Deep and Underwater Navigation required, plus 3 electives you choose |
| Certified depth | 30 meters as an adult with a certified buddy. Junior Advanced divers stay shallower until 15 |
| Minimum age | 15 years for the adult certification. Ages 12 to 14 earn Junior Advanced Open Water |
| Prerequisite | PADI Open Water Diver, or a qualifying entry-level certification from another recognized agency. Signed PADI medical form. No flying within 18 hours after diving |
| Exam | None. Each Adventure Dive carries a short knowledge section instead |
| Location | Red Sea reefs and walls reached by day boat from the Hurghada marina, Egypt. No pool sessions |
| Availability | Year-round, on request, subject to boat and instructor availability |
| Included | Certification fee, five Adventure Dives with a PADI Instructor, complete equipment with tanks and weights, dive computer and compass, boat trips on both days, lunch and drinks, marine park fees, hotel transfer within Hurghada |
| Not included | PADI digital materials. Underwater photos and video. Transfer surcharge from El Gouna, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay or Safaga |
| Operator | Red Sea Diving, a PADI dive operator based in Hurghada, Egypt, since 2000 |
PADI Advanced Open Water Diver is a continuing-education certification made of five guided Adventure Dives, and it raises an adult diver’s depth limit from eighteen to thirty meters. Above all, that changes where you can go: the deeper walls, the northern wrecks and most of the sites a liveaboard week is built around.
It also changes how you dive. Five supervised dives with an instructor watching your trim, your air and your navigation fix more habits than twenty holiday dives on your own ever would.
Finally, it opens the specialty ladder properly, since each Adventure Dive can credit toward the matching PADI Specialty course when the requirements line up.
The PADI Advanced Open Water course in Hurghada is built from five Adventure Dives, of which two are fixed and three are yours to choose. Importantly, there is no written exam anywhere in the course.
Your instructor takes you to between eighteen and thirty meters and shows you what depth actually does: colors flatten, air disappears faster, and simple tasks take longer. Junior divers stay shallower.
Compass work, natural navigation and distance estimation. Consequently you stop relying on the guide and start knowing where the boat is.
Peak Performance Buoyancy, Wreck, Night, Enriched Air Nitrox, Drift, Search and Recovery, Underwater Naturalist, Fish Identification or Digital Underwater Photography.
Most guests pick Peak Performance Buoyancy plus two that match the sites we are running that week. However, tell your instructor what you want and we build the pair around it.
Each Adventure Dive comes with a short knowledge section you finish before getting in. Nevertheless, there is no final exam anywhere in this course.
The two days of the PADI Advanced Open Water course cover five dives, split roughly three on the first day and two on the second. Meanwhile the knowledge sections are finished before you arrive.
PADI sells the digital materials separately, and we send you the link as soon as you book. Consequently you finish the knowledge sections at home and both days in Egypt stay in the water.
First your instructor briefs the plan, the gas and the turn pressure. Then you descend along a wall and complete the depth exercises together.
Next come two of your three electives, usually on the same boat day. Meanwhile the surface intervals cover the briefing for whatever follows.
Compass and natural navigation on a site with clear features. You run the patterns yourself while the instructor stays beside you.
The last dive is noticeably easier, since your buoyancy and air consumption have already settled over the previous four.
Finally we process your certification, which usually appears in the PADI app within a day or two. The physical card follows by post if you want one.
Both days include the boat trip, lunch and drinks. However, the exact site order shifts with the weather and the sea state.
The PADI Advanced Open Water course asks for an Open Water certification, a minimum age of fifteen and a signed medical form. Naturally, no extra logged dives are required beyond your entry-level training.
You need a PADI Open Water Diver certification, or a qualifying entry-level certification from another recognized agency. Bring the card or the digital version.
Divers of twelve to fourteen earn Junior Advanced Open Water instead, with shallower depth limits that lift at fifteen. Younger children start with PADI Seal Team.
Everyone completes the standard PADI medical form before training starts. Nevertheless, if any answer flags asthma, heart or circulation problems, epilepsy, ear or sinus trouble, recent surgery or pregnancy, a doctor’s written approval comes first.
Plan the second day at least eighteen hours before your flight home. Otherwise you risk decompression problems, so we refuse bookings that break this rule.
You earn the certification rather than buy it. Therefore the card follows once you complete all five Adventure Dives and their knowledge sections to standard, and your instructor can postpone or change any dive when conditions call for it.
The €290 price of the PADI Advanced Open Water course in Hurghada covers one person for all five Adventure Dives across both days.
The PADI digital materials sit outside this price, so we quote you the current PADI figure when you book. Underwater photos and video cost extra as well, and transfers from El Gouna, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay or Safaga may carry a small surcharge.
Open Water at €360 certifies you to eighteen meters, while Advanced Open Water at €290 takes that to thirty. By contrast with Open Water, the Advanced course has no pool work and no exam.
The entry-level certification: five pool sessions, four training dives, maximum adult depth eighteen meters, three to four days. €360 per person. Start here if you hold no certification yet.
Requires Open Water first: five Adventure Dives, maximum adult depth thirty meters, two days, no exam. €290 per person. Experience and skills rather than fresh theory.
Plenty of guests do both back to back in a single week. Alternatively, log a season of holiday dives first and come back for the Advanced later, since neither certification expires.
Water temperature in Hurghada runs between twenty-two and thirty degrees across the year, so a thin wetsuit is enough. Visibility frequently passes twenty meters, which matters more on a deep dive than on any other.
The variety helps too. Walls, wrecks, shallow gardens and drift sites all sit within a day boat’s range, so your three electives fit real sites rather than a compromise. Our Hurghada dive sites page shows the reefs we normally use, while the diving safety page sets out our equipment, ratios and emergency procedures.
For independent medical guidance before a deeper course, Divers Alert Network publishes clear advice worth reading.
All five dives of the PADI Advanced Open Water course are made from a day boat leaving the Hurghada marina, on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, since this course has no pool sessions at all.
The deep dive normally runs on a wall site, while the navigation dive suits a sheltered bay with clear features on the bottom. Consequently the boat often visits two different areas in the same day.
The €290 covers hotel transfer inside Hurghada. Moreover, we collect students from El Gouna, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay and Safaga for a small surcharge, which we confirm in writing before you book.
Non-diving family can join the Giftun island and snorkeling trip on a similar route that day. Further practical answers sit on our diving FAQ, while the full ladder appears on the PADI courses page.
From PADI Advanced Open Water the specialties open up properly. Enriched Air Nitrox earns its keep on any week with repetitive diving, Wreck Diver suits the northern wrecks, and Rescue Diver is the course almost every diver later calls the most valuable one they did.
Experience still counts for more than cards, though. Log dives on different reefs through our daily diving in Hurghada, or take a liveaboard week where thirty meters and real current become routine. If technical diving interests you, Tec training starts from here as well.
Gallery
Why us
Above all, oxygen and full emergency equipment on board, plus a documented action plan and a proper briefing before every dive.
Indeed, more than two decades of diving and liveaboard operations out of Hurghada, on every Egyptian route.
Furthermore, we keep students in small groups, so the deep dive never turns into a queue on the line.
Regulators and buoyancy devices go through regular servicing, and every student gets a computer and a compass.
Moreover, €290 covers the certification, equipment, both boat days, lunch and marine park fees. The PADI materials are the one extra, and we quote them upfront.
In addition, we treat buoyancy as the point of the course, because a diver who hovers never damages anything.
Questions
The PADI Advanced Open Water course in Hurghada costs €290 per person. In other words, that covers the certification fee, equipment, five Adventure Dives, both boat days with lunch, marine park fees and hotel transfer within Hurghada. Meanwhile the PADI digital materials cost extra.
No. PADI sells the digital learning materials separately, so we quote you the current figure when you book and send the link straight away.
Yes. Complete standard equipment, tanks and weights come with the course, and every student gets a dive computer and a compass during training.
Lunch, drinks on board and transfers from hotels inside Hurghada all sit in the price. However, pickups from further afield may carry a small surcharge.
All five Adventure Dives take place on Red Sea reefs and walls reached by day boat from the Hurghada marina. In other words, this course has no pool sessions at all.
Two days and five dives. Therefore it fits a short holiday easily, especially when you finish the knowledge sections before arriving.
The Deep dive and the Underwater Navigation dive. Meanwhile you choose the other three from the electives we run in Hurghada.
No. Each Adventure Dive has a short knowledge section, but the course carries no final exam at all.
Yes, and many guests do. Consequently you leave with both certifications after roughly five or six days.
A PADI Open Water Diver certification, or a qualifying entry-level certification from another recognized agency. Bring the card or the digital version with you.
None beyond your entry-level training. Even so, a refresher first helps a great deal if you have been away from diving for a year or more.
Fifteen for the adult certification. Divers of twelve to fourteen earn Junior Advanced Open Water instead, with shallower depth limits.
Sometimes, but only with written approval from a doctor. Complete the PADI medical form first and send it to us before traveling.
PADI Advanced Open Water certifies you to thirty meters as an adult, with a certified buddy. Junior Advanced divers stay shallower until they turn fifteen.
Often yes. Each Adventure Dive may count as the first dive of the matching PADI Specialty course when the requirements line up, so ask your instructor before you choose.
Not within eighteen hours of your flight. Therefore we schedule the second day well before your departure.
No, the card is for life. Nevertheless, after a long break away from diving a short refresher is strongly recommended.
Send us your dates, your hotel, your certification level, the electives you fancy and anything medical we should know. Subsequently, we reply within twenty-four hours with availability, the materials price and the pickup time.
Prefer to talk? Message us on WhatsApp or write to info@redsea-diving.com.
This page was last reviewed by the Red Sea Diving instructor team in September 2026.
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