Queenesia II, Indonesia

Great Raja Ampat Liveaboard!

This was my first trip to Indonesia and my first liveaboard and it did not disappoint at all! From day one, the crew was fantastic - friendly and constantly going out of their way to ensure the passengers were satisfied. The food quality (and quantity) was consistenly great even on the 11-day trip. Even the variety of food exceeded my expectations. Regarding diving, the sites were great - mantas, pygmy sea horses, rays and a whole variety of creatures throughout the dives that our guides were happy to help us find. The guides continually went out of their way to help - both underwater and above water. We had one dive guide for a group of 3 divers, so never felt like we weren't getting enough support at all. Even when some of the passengers wanted to adjust the itinerary to get more dives in, the cruise director talked with each of the passengers and crew and were able to adjust to suit everyone's needs. Very professional and managed well.

Recommended for

Fantastic crew, food quality and variety, friendly dive guides

Amazing liveaboard

Seeing mantas up close was definitely the major highlight of the trip. We saw mantas at 4 divesites around Misool (south Raja Ampat). Surprisingly there were none at Manta Sandy though when we were diving there. The crew was extremely helpful. We never had to carry any tanks or set up our dive gear. All of that was handled by them, while we could fully relax between dives. The sunbeds on the deck were a great way to do such relaxing. During the dives the dive guides would spot many small animals that were expertly hidden such as pygmy seahorses. They were also great at slightly changing the route under water to avoid any strong currents. The food was also great. Lot's of amazingly prepared local quisine, such as fried rice, noodles, chicken, fish and various different soups. And nothing was spicy by default, but they always had spicy sauce ready for the people that wanted that. So it was great for everyone (those who love spicy food and those who don't).

Recommended for

The food, the divesites and the crew

Awesome first trip to Raja Ampat

Having dived in various area around south east Asia, I will say Banda sea was one of the best I've been to. The hammerheads migration was one of the stunning experience I've had. A pity that the whale sighting was when we were on the boat instead of during a dive. The dive guide is very experience and answered all my questions and even gave me advice on how to improve on my buoyancy control. Quite flexible with the site as long as all of us agreed to the change. The room are quite spacious and clean, plenty of areas to relax on the deck drinking beer while enjoying the scenery in the day and the starry sky at night. Downside is similar to many wooden liveaboard out there, there are some engine noise, but I will say this is one of the better ones in term of condition and comfort. Overall great experience.

Recommended for

Dive Site, Crew Friendliness, Dive Guide

Great Diving & boat management needs to improve

Central dive sites, Komodo hike and beach dinner. Crew was very eager to manage the trip, but were left alone by the management.

Recommended for

Master Cabin, boat and central dive sites

Worst liveaboard experience ever!

To make it clear we are experienced divers and travellers with hundreds of dives and open minds to different places, cultures, people, cuisine (been to Africa, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Egypt and so on)... But this trip was unexpectadly bad. If the diving were as it should have been (as we heard and knew what we could expect from a world class diving area of Komodo), we could easily forget about the issues of the liveaboard: being too small, too loud, too crowded (though there were only 13 divers instead the possible 16). The food was barely eatable, extremely repetitive, very poor in quality and quantity also. And believe me we were not expecting fine dining. On the third day we were told to drink less water as there is not enough drinking water onboard - telling this to divers diving up to 4 dives per day on normal air (nitrox was not available)! Just to mention a few issues: - getting to the divesites always happened with a small speedboat made for 10 pax but they used that to carry all the 13 divers and the 3 guides - in their advertising they mention a one guide 4 divers ratio, of course it was not true, most of the time only two guides shared the 13 divers - it happened multiple times that they hardly found or didn't even find the divesites, it seemed they had not enough knowledge of the area - once during briefing we were told that the water temperature is 17 celsius, so we tried to get some extra wet suits which they only could provide for my son. As more divers decided to wear extra suits they of course needed extra weight to be able to drown. But the boat didn't have any more, so I skipped the dive and gave my weight to my son. I just wonder if the liveaboard was full, could they provide enough weight for all the 16 divers?! On top of it all, the water temperature was actually 25 celsius, so the information was incorrect... - communication was very poor, many times we had no idea when the next dive or meal will be, but we stopped asking as the answers were not clear nor appropriate - communication between the boat manager and the crew seemed problematic as they didn't use the same language. Actually we believe this was the biggest problem: the boat manager's goal was to get the liveaboard to Raja Ampat, so this trip was just a must for her, so she didn't really care nor take the advice of the possibly more experienced crew/guides. Never in my life I ever gave a negative review anywhere. I always find the good in everything and even when it's hard to find, I feel sorry for the people working there that they may get punished or even worse loose their job because of my review. But this time I rather feel sorry for the divers spending their hard earned money for this liveaboard and don't get what they paid for...

Recommended for

1. When following a horrible dive me and my family decided to skip a dive and asked the crew to take us to the local village close by and we spent 2-3 hours just wondering around with the nice locals. 2. When we saw a huge group of dolphins 3. None

Amazing

the team is very experienced, they are knowledgeable about the dive sites, it was very nice to dive with them,I liked it a lot, I was happy, they are good, spectacular dives

Recommended for

Dive