A Tale of Two Atolls: a Trip Report on the Belize Aggressor III, 18-25 November 2017

[Damselfish]

I've been on the BA4 3 times, all when it was still the Sun Dancer. Not one of those times did it dive Turneffe. Reasons given were that the diving was better on Lighthouse, so it made sense to just stay there. Also that they weren't set up for drift diving so couldn't do the sites they'd want to around Turneffe. Maybe the moorings they could use there were limited too?

Tripadvisor is an interesting place to read between the lines when it comes to diving. The trick is many of the people reviewing diving ops on there seem to be less frequent divers, or ones with very different priorities and expectations than I have. So they might be quite honest reviews from their point of view, but they may have much different ideas than I do on what makes an op or location good or bad.

 

[traveljunkie]

Tripadvisor is an interesting place to read between the lines when it comes to diving. The trick is many of the people reviewing diving ops on there seem to be less frequent divers, or ones with very different priorities and expectations than I have. So they might be quite honest reviews from their point of view, but they may have much different ideas than I do on what makes an op or location good or bad.

Agree 100% on that. I find the negative reviews a lot of the time are from people who want to be babysat and have their hand held throughout the whole dive process whereas most experienced divers want the opposite. lol

 

[Ironborn]

Agree 100% on that. I find the negative reviews a lot of the time are from people who want to be babysat and have their hand held throughout the whole dive process whereas most experienced divers want the opposite. lol

@traveljunkie @Damselfish The differing perspectives, tastes, and expectations of Trip Advisor reviewers do not necessarily detract from its utility as a source of information on dive ops, as long as the reviewers explain the reasons for why they liked or disliked them and provide supporting details. Detail is key, which is why I found the reviews on diviac.com and liveaboard.com to be of so little use - some of them were just star ratings with no text, or text with hardly any detail, e.g. "it was great," with no explanation of why they thought it was great. In that regard, I have found Trip Advisor reviewers to be just as useful and thorough as those on Scubaboard and Undercurrent, despite their different perspectives.

For example, if a Trip Advisor reviewer says that he liked a dive op because the divemaster let him pet nurse sharks and demonstrated how a pufferfish responds to stress by scaring it into inflating itself - well, perhaps the rest of us would look for a different dive op in light of that detail.

Conversely, for example, there is a dive resort in the Philippines that is near a neighborhood with a lot of prostitution. Many of the female reviewers complained about that, but some male readers might not mind that or might even view it as a selling point.

 

[Denver Diver]

Thank you for the detailed report. I have been reading (and reading and reading) trying to decide between the land options between these two atolls for a February trip. I think we will go to Lighthouse. Although I have recently been tempted by Glover's. One place there specifically gets very consistent and high reviews...