There are hundreds of dive centres between El Gouna and Marsa Alam, and the difference between the best and the worst is not the price. Nine things you can check yourself, in ten minutes, knowing nothing about diving.
What good looks like: Diving in Egypt is regulated by the Chamber of Diving and Watersports, and a legitimate centre is licensed by them and will have the certificate displayed. It is the single most specific thing you can check here and it takes ten seconds.
What it means if you do not see it: No licence visible and a vague answer when you ask is the end of the conversation. There are hundreds of centres on this coast; you do not need this one.
What good looks like: A good centre asks to see your certification card and logbook, asks when you last dived, asks about medical conditions, and hands you a medical questionnaire before taking your money. Being asked awkward questions is the service you are buying.
What it means if you do not see it: A centre that takes a booking for a thirty-metre wreck without asking what you are certified to or when you last dived will do the same for the diver next to you, and you will be in the water with them.
What good looks like: Ask where the emergency oxygen is and watch what happens. On a well-run boat someone points at it immediately, and the cylinder is full. First aid kit, spare mask, and a working radio in the same conversation.
What it means if you do not see it: Hesitation, a search, or an oxygen cylinder nobody has checked this season. This is the equipment that matters on the worst day and it is the easiest thing in the world to verify on the best one.
What good looks like: Look at the hoses, the mouthpieces and the BCD inflators. Serviced kit looks boring: no perished rubber, no gaffer tape, working gauges, wetsuits that still have their seams. Ask when the regulators were last serviced; a good centre knows.
What it means if you do not see it: Split mouthpieces and a shrug. Rental kit is the most honest signal a centre gives, because it is the thing they cannot tidy up before you arrive.
What good looks like: Small groups, and groups assembled by experience rather than by who booked together. Four to six divers per guide is normal and fine; a course should be smaller still.
What it means if you do not see it: A guide leading a dozen divers of wildly mixed experience on a drift. Ask how many are in the group and who else is in it before you commit — it is a fair question and a good centre answers it precisely.
What good looks like: A proper briefing covers the site, the route, the depth, the expected current, the maximum time, what to do if you get separated, and the signal for surfacing. It takes several minutes and it is specific to today.
What it means if you do not see it: A thirty-second version that is the same on every site, or a briefing in a language half the boat does not speak. This is the one you can judge without knowing anything about diving.
What good looks like: A centre that says no. "You are Open Water, so we will do the shallower site and you will enjoy it more" is exactly the right answer, and the sign of somewhere that will still be operating in ten years.
What it means if you do not see it: Any version of "it is fine, just stay close to me" for a dive beyond your certification. This is the most common way a Red Sea holiday goes badly wrong, it is always framed as a favour, and it invalidates your insurance the moment you agree.
What good looks like: A centre that asks whether you have dive insurance, and can tell you what its own liability cover is. Dive-specific cover is inexpensive and chamber treatment is not.
What it means if you do not see it: Assuming your travel policy covers it. Most standard policies exclude diving outright, exclude it below a certain depth, or void it if you dive beyond your certification — which is the same trap as the point above, arriving later.
What good looks like: Marine park fees, port fees and equipment hire are real costs, and a good centre tells you about them before you book rather than at the jetty. Ask for the all-in number.
What it means if you do not see it: A headline price that grows on the day. This is not usually dishonesty so much as a habit the market has taught them — but the centres that quote honestly up front tend to be honest about the other things on this list too.
Training standards, medical requirements and marine park rules change, and every dive centre interprets them slightly differently. Treat this as what to ask about rather than as the rules themselves — your instructor and the centre’s current paperwork are the authority, and anything medical is a doctor’s call, not ours.