People searching for an "instructor course in Hurghada" are usually looking for one of two different things: the step after Divemaster, or a shorter course that does not exist under that name. Here is the honest map.
Divemaster first — always
Divemaster is PADI's first professional rating and the prerequisite for everything above it: guiding certified divers, mapping sites, assisting on courses, running the day-to-day of the water side of a dive centre. We run it in Hurghada, about a month in the water, from EUR 972. We wrote the full account of what the days involve in what the Divemaster course actually involves.
What comes after Divemaster
The next rating up is Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI) — the card that lets you actually teach and certify other divers. Getting there has two parts:
- IDC (Instructor Development Course): the training itself — teaching theory, standards, practical presentations, run over roughly one to two weeks.
- IE (Instructor Examination): an external PADI exam, separate from the IDC, that you sit afterwards to actually qualify.
Why we do not sell an IDC directly
An IDC is run by a PADI Course Director — a further, separate qualification above Instructor — not by an ordinary dive centre, and Course Directors run scheduled courses seasonally rather than on demand. That is different from every other course on this site, where a partner centre runs it whenever you book. We would rather tell you this plainly than list an IDC we cannot actually deliver.
What we can do
Send us your target dates through the trip request form and we will point you toward a Course Director running an IDC on the Red Sea in that window — ours or a partner's, and we will say clearly which. If a Divemaster internship is the piece you are missing first, that part we do run directly.
What it actually takes
- Divemaster certification, held for at least 6 months (varies by pathway) before the IE.
- Emergency First Response Instructor training, usually bundled into the IDC.
- A genuinely demanding fitness and dive-theory standard — the IDC is widely regarded as the hardest fortnight in recreational diving.
- A real appetite for teaching, not just diving. The two are related but not the same skill.
Start where the ladder actually starts
If you are not yet a Divemaster, that is the honest next step regardless of the instructor timeline — book it in Hurghada and treat the IDC as the conversation to have once you are close to finishing it.
Do I need to already be a Divemaster to start?
Yes — Divemaster is a hard prerequisite for the IDC, not something you can skip or combine with it. Most candidates work as a Divemaster for a season or more before starting instructor training, which also happens to be the best way to find out whether teaching is what you actually want.
How long does the whole path take, start to finish?
Realistically six months to a year from beginning Divemaster to holding an Instructor card, depending on how much time you can put in the water. Rushing it tends to produce a weaker instructor, not a faster one.
