I was on POP about 3 years ago (in June 2015) going to Cendrawasih Bay. I was in one of 2 top deck cabin (Trevally) so I didn’t experience with sewer backing up problem.
Ben was the Cruise Director then. Great guy. Very knowledgeable about the area & very helpful in providing any fish information & dive briefing. I enjoyed diving with him.
It’s good for a budget liveaboard. The food was great. SCUBA diving with whalesharks under the Bagan was awesome. Seeing schooling barracudas, WWII Japanese Zero & American Mustang airplane wrecks was amazing experience.
The only thing that I don’t like about the boat is the narrow step staircase to go to the upper deck & the sloping platform from dive deck to the dingy could be quite slippery. You just need to be very careful in going up or down.
On the last day I went to the top deck to hang dry my dive gears (wetsuit, reg & BCD). In late afternoon I went back to the top deck to pick up my dive gears. As I went down the stairs with my hands full of dive gears I miss one of the steps & fell to the main deck, landed on my right knee & split the knee cap into 2 pieces. The crew were very helpful to take me to the hospital in Manukwari & to the airport. I had knee surgery done in Jakarta. My business-class flight home (in order to keep my leg straight for the 24-hour flight to Houston) ~$5000, was reimbursed by DAN. Keeping the long story short, it was an experience that I’d never forget & would never want to repeat. Fortunately the accident was on the last day, so I didn’t ruin anyone else’s trip. The lesson learnt here is to be careful going up & down stairs. Watch your steps. Don’t be in a hurry. Most importantly is to always have 3 point contact at all time during walking on stairs, i.e., use hand rail!
For more recent experience with POP to South & North RA (2017),
@guppyman wrote pretty detail trip report here:
Raja Ampat-Pearl of Papua Trip Report