Should I get a hotel in Monterey for this course?
It depends on the course you are taking. Monterey is a two hour drive from San Mateo. For the beginner open water dives We recommend staying in a hotel at least Saturday night and also Friday night if you have the means. Monterey is a good 2 hour drive from San Mateo and the class meeting time is usually 7am. It can be hard to wake up and make the drive down and back and down and back again.
You will really want to get a hotel for the Advanced course. This is because the course usually has a night dive that ends late Saturday night. The boat leaves harbor usually very early the next morning for the boat dives.
Single day tours and other courses will depend on the schedule.
Be aware Monterey is an event town and hotel prices tend to be very high during certain times of the year. Monterey is host to auto shows, motorcycle races and air shows. Book your hotel early and coordinate your class dates appropriately. Our class programming schedules are setup months in advance.
We unfortunately cannot reschedule our class dates around events that are happening in Monterey – but you can always choose a different weekend.
Understand the hotel’s cancellation policy. Courses are sometimes canceled due to weather.
Can’t find a hotel in Monterey: Try outlying towns such as Salinas, or Santa Cruz. Or you can always drive back after the classes but we don’t recommend it.
There are a lot of great tools out there today to help you find a place to stay such as www.expedia.com, www.priceline.com, www.Google.com and tripadvisor.
The address of the Breakwater dive site is 32 Cannery Row 93940.