Liveaboard reviews?

[Pillpusher]

Is there a website where people write reviews of liveaboard boats? It cracks me up how a resort that accomodates 20 people or so with have hundreds of reviews, but I feel lucky if I manage to find even one review of a liveaboard that I'm looking at (Raja Ampat). I haven't been able to find anything through google. Any suggestions? Why is there not a Tripadvisor for boats?...lol.

 

[Moray]

Is there a website where people write reviews of liveaboard boats? It cracks me up how a resort that accomodates 20 people or so with have hundreds of reviews, but I feel lucky if I manage to find even one review of a liveaboard that I'm looking at (Raja Ampat). I haven't been able to find anything through google. Any suggestions? Why is there not a Tripadvisor for boats?...lol.

Undercurrent

 

[Pillpusher]

Undercurrent

Unfortunately, out of the five liveaboards I'm looking at, Undercurrent has only one recent (2016 or later) review on them COMBINED... And they wan't me to pay $19 to read it...lol. Thanks, though. Maybe if they didn't charge people to use the website, more people would leave reviews.

 

[drrich2]

Does Liveaboard.com's Indonesia page listings offer anything useful to you? Some of the boats have star ratings on the site.

Richard.

 

[Pillpusher]

Does Liveaboard.com's Indonesia page listings offer anything useful to you? Some of the boats have star ratings on the site.

Richard.

That's about all I've been able to find. Most of the "reviews" are single sentences such as "Great diving!" and don't really offer much info.

 

[JulieM]

Undercurrent charges to view their website because they do not allow any advertising. The reviews are unbiased and the $19 has saved us thousands of dollars in making a poor choice when it comes to choosing a resort, dive op, or liveaboard. Money well spent in my opinion.

 

[Pillpusher]

Undercurrent charges to view their website because they do not allow any advertising. The reviews are unbiased and the $19 has saved us thousands of dollars in making a poor choice when it comes to choosing a resort, dive op, or liveaboard. Money well spent in my opinion.

If there were more than one review since 2015 combined of the five boats I'm currently looking at, perhaps I would agree. Unfortunately, it just doesn't have much info on what I'm looking for. TripAdvisor reviews are also unbiased, but are free. As far charging customers "because we don't allow ads", that always cracks me up. As if paying $19 is worth not having an ad or two along the side of the page...lol. They should just say "we charge our customers so we don't have to convince companies to advertise on our page".

 

[drrich2]

I think it's not so much the issue of cost-shifting from an ad-based revenue stream to a subscriber-based stream to pay for an ad-free experience that's the underlying theory.

I think it's that when a magazine, online or off, gets a substantial portion of its operating budget from another business entity (for sake of argument, let's say PADI, Aggressor Fleet, AquaLung, etc...), there's a conflict of interest in that it can become beholden to stay in that entity's good graces. While subscribers can post what reviews they wish, staff reports (which are apt to get more attention) of a product might then be influenced by that relationship.

So if a live-aboard company's helping pay the bills, and your staff guy is writing a review of one of their boats, does he want to mention the dive guide seemed snippy, the reefs weren't all that and a sewage smell rose out of the shower drain?

I've heard this criticism of at least one print magazine before, that it was basically an 'Attaboy!' cheerleader for its advertisers.

Richard.

 

[Pillpusher]

I think it's not so much the issue of cost-shifting from an ad-based revenue stream to a subscriber-based stream to pay for an ad-free experience that's the underlying theory.

I think it's that when a magazine, online or off, gets a substantial portion of its operating budget from another business entity (for sake of argument, let's say PADI, Aggressor Fleet, AquaLung, etc...), there's a conflict of interest in that it can become beholden to stay in that entity's good graces. While subscribers can post what reviews they wish, staff reports (which are apt to get more attention) of a product might then be influenced by that relationship.

So if a live-aboard company's helping pay the bills, and your staff guy is writing a review of one of their boats, does he want to mention the dive guide seemed snippy, the reefs weren't all that and a sewage smell rose out of the shower drain?

I've heard this criticism of at least one print magazine before, that it was basically an 'Attaboy!' cheerleader for its advertisers.

Richard.

Yeah, I definitely agree reviews like that are going to be biased. Hell, most of those trips are even comped. I was more referring to your average Jill and Joe writing reviews (like TripAdvisor, as I mentioned), as there is no conflict of interest there, with or without ads.

 

[Damselfish]

Unfortunately, out of the five liveaboards I'm looking at, Undercurrent has only one recent (2016 or later) review on them COMBINED... And they wan't me to pay $19 to read it...lol. Thanks, though. Maybe if they didn't charge people to use the website, more people would leave reviews.

Their model is subscription/no advertising. (And of course the $19 is for a subscription, not to read one review...)

Not being advertising based has it's advantages, but also limits the number of people contributing. The liveaboards have a relatively small number of customers, and for some much fewer that are coming from the US and contributing to US oriented publications or sites. And only a small percentage of people ever leave reviews on anything. So yeah, statistically it's tough and it's hard to find useful reviews on a lot of stuff. (For my part, I prefer to post reviews anonymously. And unless something has changed, Undercurrent won't let you do that, even as a subscriber. So I choose not to leave reviews there.)

TripAdvisor is tricky. There is volume sure, but an awful lot of the reviews seem to come from more casual or cruise ship divers that don't have the same criteria I do. And while perhaps not biased by advertising, there is plenty of shilling and junk in the reviews so anything you read there you have to figure out what is real and how it applies to you. Obviously you have to read anything with a critical eye, but even more on the big general travel sites..