Celebes Explorer, Malaysia
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7.2 Good
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- Nitrox available
- Book Now
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“The food was plentiful and delicious with lots of seafood. The guide was good at spotting critters in the ocean and was a good ph…”
The 29m liveaboard, M/V Celebes Explorer, is the only vessel who schedules year round diving cruises to the best sites in Sipadan, Malaysia. Sipadan is home to thousands of species of flora and fauna, many of which are found exclusively here. Celebes Explorer offers 8 basic cabins equipped with private bathroom and spacious wardrobe. Guests may relax in the lounge with mini bar and the spacious, partially covered sun deck with wooden chairs, tables and a beach mattress.
The food served onboard is a mix of Malay and Chinese influences, served buffet style. The MV Celebes Explorer offers guests up to 4 dives per day. Dives are typically relaxing drift dives and remarkable wall dives. A Celebes Explorer sea safari in Malaysia’s Sipadan takes you to places that are best visited via liveaboard. Regarded as one of the world's best dive areas with hundreds of coral gardens, sloping reefs, and unforgettable underwater landscapes, divers are guaranteed to see thousands of vibrant fish and corals.
A Celebes Explorer Malaysia liveaboard diving holiday is a fantastic adventure. Reserve yours today.
Choose your departure date
Included: VAT
Excluded: Dive and snorkel equiptment rental (full set approx RM 200 per day), Nitrox (USD 17 per fill), Semporna jetty fee (MYR 10.60 per person), Sipadan permit fee - MYR 42.40 per dive day (from August 2018 this will increase to RM 148.40 per dive day), International and Domestic Air tickets, Alcoholic and canned beverages Transfer outside recommended flights (approx USD 150 - car for 5 guests)
Book now, pay later: You can easily place your booking online. We will then hold the spaces for you and you can confirm with a payment later.
* Extra fees are shown per person.
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Drawings & Vessel Layouts
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Cabin Types
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Celebes Explorer Reviews
- 7.2 Good
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Vessel
5.0
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Crew
7.0
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Food
8.1
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Diving
8.9
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Value
7.1
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- 9.6 Exceptional
- carolyn P
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United States
Wonderful diving and superb crew with friendly, uplifting attitude
The food was plentiful and delicious with lots of seafood. The guide was good at spotting critters in the ocean and was a good photographer when he took pictures of me while diving. All the staff were very friendly and most learned your name. The head person, Tom, was a delight with a funny personality and wonderful attitude. He made everything such fun! Cabin 3 still has some funny smells however. Grab one of the others instead!
- Recommended for
- Diving, food and crew members
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- 7.6 Good
- Kenneth M
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United States
Celebes Live Aboard
Trip was a good value, you get to dive Sipadan four times most every day. Resorts in the area will likely let you go every third day or so. The boat needed some maintenance work, though, the generator cut out several times during the week I was on board. Boat crew and divemasters did a good job. One thing to note, though, is that night diving is not permitted at present due to curfew. (The itinerary I received said night dives at Mabul would be included, but this is not the case at the moment...)
- Recommended for
- Daily Sipadan Diving
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- 8.0 Very good
- Robert S
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United States
AWESOME dive guide but the livaboard boat the celebes was falling apart!
we were SO dissappointed to find out that there was to be NO NIGHT DIVES allowed AT ALL in the last two years, you would think that they would say something about this on ANY website, but i guess because of the kidnappings, then it would just scare tourists off. but if you are into ANY night diving, we wish we could get a comp trip because of THAT idssappointtment. alone as the site still promises night dives. even though the boat was belching rust chunks out of the smokestack, and it was puking gobs of oil which caused oil slicks larger than the exxon valdez spill which we had to keep outrunning, we were told that there was a new one being built. ready in two years! the generators were turned off about 3 times a day and you had to re start the air con every time. the dive runabout boat was in the same condition of being ready to take a dive. or a dump....but the guides were awesome and the boatman was great and professional. the condition and maintenance was deplorable. we had to walk in a pool of piss water everytime we went to the bathroom because the ship was overweighted on one side where it did not drain. but if you want to dive dive dive the sipadan sites, you are in for a treat we went every morning to pick up the flag that announces we HAVE A PERMIT TO DIVE 3-4 DIVES PER DAY!!! the food!!! it always smelled really great, but then they added too much sauce to drown out the garlic flavor that you could smell in the beginning stages... the cleavered chicken left a lot to be desired. the chicken ALWAYS almost was cleavered and then battered or put in the soup and if the back ribs excite you then you got no bones to pick! they end up in your mouth and throat. if they coul dONLY stop cooking the food until it is burned to non recognition we would have been happier. but we love to dive so all the rest is piddly. this is NOT a comfort boat! but the staff is very freindly and obliging! and raf , the dive guide was super at finding all sorts of
- Recommended for
- RAF the dive guide was great, the boatman was super and the food was the same but cooked different and disguised with lots of sauce.
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- 5.6 Review score
- Brian N
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United States
You get to dive Sipadan everyday, everything else is the cost for doing that
The reason you chose this boat is you want to dive Sipadan everyday. If you stay other places you only get to dive there occasionally, but you would also be staying in a much nicer place. The boat is ok, but needs maintenance in some places. The crew generally acts like there is no competition, which there is not. The military on board watch movies and fish all day and the food, while good, is pretty much the same everyday. The boat also never left Mabul island, so you are taking the same small boats to Sipadan and eating on the island the same as every other resort. Basically any advantage of a livaboard has been negated by either the limitations or policies of the boat. If you are looking to dive Sipadan everyday chose this boat, just know the price is a substandard boat with crew that occasionally appears to care about you as a customer.
- Recommended for
- The diving, the fish while diving, and the dive guides
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- 8.8 Fabulous
- Angela W
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China
A great week of Sipadan daily
The boat is currently under maintenance, so we've been arranged into hotel accommodation with daily dive trip to Sipadan. Overall it's still convenient and comfort. A week of 3 dives daily in Sipadan has been gorgeous.
- Recommended for
- big school of Bumphead parrotfishes, barracuda shoal, nudibranchs
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- 6.4 Review score
- Siu Cong M
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Hong Kong
celebes explorer under repair
1) the experience in south point is magnificent where v see a school of giant humphead fish passed by, high visibiliy, no other divers 2) in my 4 days daily trip to sipadan, 3 days are grouped with other day trip divers which limits our dives to 3 only. in view of the charge, we are expecting 4 dives each on the 2nd and 3rd day
- Recommended for
- because celebes explorer under repair, therefore accepted the alternate arrangement of daily trip to sipadan and stay in hotel in semporna
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- 7.6 Good
- Vincent C
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France
Unique façon de découvrir réellement Sipadan
Barracuda point
- Recommended for
- Faune sous marine, guide expérimenté et flexible, convivialite du groupe
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- 7.2 Good
- adria G
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Spain
Amazing Sipadan!
One of the best ways to dive in Sipadan!
- Recommended for
- Divemaster guide - Area - value for money
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- 6.4 Review score
- Don C
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Australia
Celebes headed for Hades
The happy helpful and plentiful crew helped with this trip. The Celebes Explorer is a tired and sad boat. Cabins are in poor condition but clean enough... if one ignores the mould and water soaked woodwork. Warm water in shower adequate. Power failure in cabins a daily reality.. A new boat is currently being built with an expected delivery date of late this year. Good home style cooking for meals but this is not your soup, selection of mains and dessert liveaboard. Three mains a greens and fruit (melon or watermelon) dishes on offer each meal. Plenty of it and toast and jam on permanent offer. I drink my tea and coffee black which was just as well. Dive guide knew the sites well and good weather and mild currents made for easy diving. No real need to dive deep as most of the interesting stuff is 15m up.
- Recommended for
- Loads of turtles, reasonable viz, nice schools of Barra and bumpheads
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- 6.0 Review score
- Lee K
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Canada
Do your research, Know what you are getting into, be very cautious and speak up if you feel unsafe.
I would add one more highlight: and that, is of course the people you meet on board, we had a nice time. I chose to take a main deck room, with single occupancy and paid the 50% surcharge. At 63 I prefer not to share. Now, I had read all of the reviews and they are quite correct; I was in room 1, top deck with a 2 ft by 3 ft window not quite a double bed. The house keeping staff did a great job on getting the room ready for me. Absolutely no complaints or concerns with the staff. (actually, not at any time during the trip). My toilet did not work without filling a bucket of water and using this as your flush. My shower did not work when others were using the showers below. But none of this mattered, I knew what I was buying and chose to do it and a happy that I did. Others, below my deck, experienced similar issues that you have already read in past reviews. Now: here are my real concerns. 1) This is one of the very worst places in the world to dive! The coral is mostly dead; Which means that the fish and aquatic animals are disappearing. This, very large reef is dying and someone is selling it as if it was pristine. The waters are so polluted that you can see debris, over every surface, all of the time. There are so many other majestic places in the world to dive, I suggest you look else where. 2) Should you choose to book with the Celebes Explorer, and you are given Raf as your dive master, my advise to you is to immediately ask for a replacement. I have been diving since 2009 and have logged over 100 dives and his behavior is unsafe. He does not look to ensure you are all accounted for at all times. In fact he, in a 45 minute dive will look to see who is there 2 to, maybe, 3 times. He does not ask what your O2 level is. He dives erratically both vertically and horizontally, meaning, if you do not have a dive computer you can not dive with any level of comfort. He constantly plays with shells, small fish and then moves off. There was one time when the three of us, divers, had to work our tails off, against the current to try to get to him as he was oblivious to us and how the current was pulling us away as he had his silver rod in the ground and was not "currenting" along with us. He said to stay together and he was useless. I chose not to dive 2 dives as I felt he was unsafe. We spoke of this to each other and agreed that we would look out for each other as he was not. Ok, Ok, Ok! Some of you are saying, "then why did you not say something to someone?" and rightly so. I guess we felt we could cope. I do regret not getting two of my dives in, but this was a risk I could not take. Lee Koran
- Recommended for
- 1) Swimming with the schools of fish off of Barracuda reef and with the schools of Barracuda at the end of this dive. The number of sharks and green turtles.2) The, on-board, staff were amazing.
