I was wondering if anyone had any bad experiences (i.e shoddy operators,
poor customer service, poor quality equipment, poor training facilities etc)
with the PADI Open Water Diver Course.

Why do I ask?  Good question.  My wife and I are finding it hard to complete
our open water training dives.  For some reason or another, either the boat
isn't available (ie booked by paying customers - you know "Put Another
Dollar In" PADI) or the instructor isn't available.

Admittedly its only been 4 weeks since we began our course, and up until now
we have been occupied by the company with something or other to do with
training, but with a couple of weeks of bad weather now behind them and the
opportunity to get their charter boat chartered - my fear is that we will be
their lowest priority - and still be waiting to complete our 4 open water
training dives in another 4 weeks.

Until we complete our training, the $10k worth of dive gear we've invested
in isn't exactly going to wear out in our lounge room, and I was wondering
if anybody else had similar experiences.

It's too early to for us to go running off to consumer affairs or anything,
but we sure would like to complete our training so we can actually start
diving together.