Frequently Asked Questions

‘Cause we’re awesome! Every staff member of CUES is a dedicated and passionate scuba educator with years of diving experience under their belt. Our staff are all dedicated divers who, in addition to teaching, are always actively expanding their own diving skills - and we love to share that passion with our students! Because we are constantly improving our own diving abilities, you can rest assured that you, as our student, are going to get the best possible instruction from the best instructors possible.

CUES requires that all of our students have their own Personal Equipment, which includes a scuba-quality mask, fins, snorkel, boots, log book, and surface marker buoy (SMB), in order to participate in any CUES Certification Course. Note that Discover Dive students are not required to own any of their own equipment.

During your Open Water Scuba Diver course, CUES will provide the use of BCs, regulators, weights, open water wetsuits, and tanks. We offer wetsuit rentals at our pool sessions for $5 per suit per day, or for a donation of 2 non-perishable food items (to be given to a local charity) per suit per day. For Continuing Education courses (anything beyond Open Water Scuba Diver), there is a $100 fee for scuba gear rental with delivery. Please note that your course fee does not cover any additional admission fees that may be charged by confined or open water locations.

CUES’ Professional Staff hold a wide variety of certifications through a wide variety of agencies. However, we primarily teach through the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI). NAUI is the world’s first and oldest independent certification agency and, like CUES, is a non-profit. NAUI shares many of CUES’ core values when it comes to training divers and we think that you will love what they have to offer as a certifying agency! Our professional staff also includes PADI-, SSI-, and SDI-certified diving instructors.

You bet! All CUES Professional Staff are certified to teach through the World Recreational Scuba Council (WRSTC) and International Standards Organization (ISO) recognized organizations, including NAUI. This means that you can have a PADI Open Water Scuba Diver Certification, SDI Advanced Scuba Diver Certification, and take a NAUI Rescue Diver course with CUES - and all of your certifying agencies will recognize the other’s certifications! We strongly believe that the most important relationship in diver training is between the instructor and the student. Here at CUES, we know that we have the most dedicated, patient and hardest working instructors around.

We offer discounts, scholarships, and free courses to organizations and individuals that meet the scope of our mission; this is the reason why we founded CUES!

Please visit our Scholarships page for more information on these opportunities, as well as application forms for both individual and group scholarships. You can also reach out to mission@divecues.org with any additional questions about our mission programming.

Since we are an educational organization and not a dive shop, CUES does not sell any equipment ourselves. However, we are more than happy to offer guidance on what gear to purchase for your course! We are big believers in supporting local businesses, and there are some great dive shops in the Chicagoland area. Some of these shops include: Dive Right In Scuba, DJ’s Scuba Locker, Underwater Safaris, Learn Scuba Chicago, and Scuba Sensations. Make sure to let them know that CUES sent you!