Well, that was an experience...
My wife and I recently completed a week long trip on the Danubio Azul. The short review is that we had some amazing experiences and absolutely love the Galapagos,
But... if I had to do it over again I would book a different boat, even though it would have cost quite a bit more.
Before I get into the details I will also mention my dissatisfaction with liveaboard.com as a booking agent, primarily because the one review they had for this boat pretty much had to be fiction and because one month later they refuse to add my review to their website, despite the fact that I tried to be balanced in my comments... Anyway, onward to the trip
The good stuff.
Our flight to Baltra was 3 hours late and it was no problem. One of the guides met us at the airport and got us to the boat quickly, and in time for a late but successful check out dive
We did get to dive all the sites advertised Darwin, Wolf, etc.. (although, not as many times as we expected)
We did see everything we hoped for, huge schools of hammerheads, sea lions, massive whale sharks, giant mantas, turtles, schools of fish so thick they blocked out the sun. it was truly amazing.
They made a bunch of us a "100 dives" cake and it was a nice gesture, and a pretty good cake considering the kitchen they had to work with
The second in command dive guide was a nice guy and tried his best to make people happy, he also took some nice pictures which he shared with everyone
There were some really good divers on the boat and we learned so much from them about diving with extreme currents, and they were all excellent and fun people who we would dive with again in a heartbeat.
The other stuff
The first, and most telling indication of what our trip would be like was when we discovered that it was a whole new crew. That just seemed odd.
The boat barely looks like the pictures on the website. considering it was refurbished in 2016, it is quite run down. And unfortunately it wasn't just appearances that were suspect. The boat broke down.. a lot... The anchor mechanism was failing, and making us regularly late. The generator failed one day and they could not run the air compressor. (they had to take tanks to another dive boat to fill them), The heating was bizarre; our room was so stuffy and hot that we woke up to condensation dripping off the ceiling, and our clothes/towels were never dry. However, another couple had to continually ask for more heat as they were freezing. There seemed to be intermittent problems with the outboard motor on the inflatable (you know, the one that makes sure you don't get lost at sea..).
The dive equipment was a problem for some of the guests. In particular one person missed dives because they did not have any rental gear that would fit her, despite her having filled in the gear forms well in advance. She ended up with a sketchy old wetsuit that didn't really fit, and fins that had to be tied on with string (I am not making this up). They did not have enough tanks for everyone to have two, and it did not occur to them until the second or third day that someone should fill the few extra tanks while we were diving so we did not always have to sit around and wait for the tanks to be filled. Many folks on the boat had pre-paid for nitrox, but did not actually get it until they pushed for it. And finding an analyzer was a daily chore for them. (we just used air). All in all I would say that the majority of people who rented were quite disappointed with some element of the gear they rented, bcd's that did not fit, gloves with holes in them, 5mm wetsuits instead of the advertised 7mm, etc. We fortunately brought all our gear so did not experience any of those challenges.
The lead dive guide could have been much better. Very poor organization and communication skills. Often he would rush us to get ready, only to then sit and wait for an hour or more in your wetsuit while air tanks were still being filled, or the anchor was attempting to be released, or some other problem. He kept telling us that we needed to be faster or we would miss dives. However, everyone was sitting around and waiting every time for him, or gear, or air, or the proper location, etc... He made every single one of the women on the boat cry (or almost cry). not to belabor it, but when you have no rental equipment ready for someone and then you get mad at them for not being ready in time, it is not a good situation. Or if someone else is struggling a little with buoyancy perhaps some advice, like flushing your 7mm suit before you descend, or pressing all the air our of your bcd before you attempt a negative entry (instead of just telling them that they need to get better at diving... not helpful)
The food was mostly mediocre. The cake was nice, but too many jellos with fruit in them and various proteins covered in mushroom soup. Although, there was one nice fresh fish meal that they acquired from a nearby fishing boat that was really good. We will not miss the food.
They had beer on the boat for $4 a bottle . and it wasn't very cold. Not a big deal, but I like cold beer... and when you are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a trip, it just seems petty to have to pay a trivial amount at the end for beer too.
So, in the end we missed out on 2 or 3 of the dives we expected to do, and both the land excursions were very rushed. We did have fun when we were under water, we got home safely, and we saw some amazing things. Our only other liveaboard trip was the Cayman Aggressor and that set the bar very high for us I guess.
There is so much more I could share, but that is probably enough spelling mistakes for now.
Thanks.
Love to hear more.
