Trip Report Avoid Blue Horizon in Maldives

[Sunn]

"you get what you pay for" is true for the luxury of the boat, the food, I agree.

Not necessarily for the dives... I think you just had bad or inexperienced guides (ok, if the boss doesn't want to pay, he can't contract the good ones, that's true...).

 

[theduckguru]

Nobody died, that’s a positive.

 

[Ameer Abbas]

Hello everyone,

I'm from Blue Horizon and writing the other side of the story!

Unfortunaltely, the review and report is NOT based on factual and true facts. A lot of wrong infomration is being spread and portrayed!

We would like to take a moment that this review is taken out of context and also a lot of things mentioned are simply NOT correct.

First and foremost we sincerely apologize to our guests who have had the inconvenience.

We have had 24 PAX booked on the Liveaboard Horizon III with 2 Dive Masters and 2 Instructors. The trip dates were Sunday to Sunday 25 September – 2nd October 2022. 24 guests boarded the boat. Last guests were picked and given checked-in around 3PM and the trip was started.

The trip ran smoothly from Sunday until Wednesday (4 days) until dhoni broke down on Thursday. On Wednesday night none of the boats in Ari Atoll found the Whale Sharks. People should bear in mind that it was the New Moon period and currents were shifting. In addition, there was a White Weather Alert which was escalated to Yellow Alert.

On Thursday morning the Dive Dhoni (with electrical generator and compressors), had a break down on the diesel propulsion motor. We assessed the situation and tried, but upon checking it was not possible to repair in Ari Atoll.

Meanwhile, from morning we looked to arrange the dives with another arrangement and also contacted a 3rd party such as a Guesthouse/hotels in the area. But they already had their in house/island guests so they couldn’t provide us the option.

We did find one Dhoni but later he couldn’t do the trip because they didn’t have a captain. So, we decided to bring the Boat to Male and arranged a Dive Dhoni but due to ongoing weather conditions the dhoni could not be ready for morning. Please kindly note that Friday is a public holiday in Maldives. During the cruise there was a White and Yellow Weather Alerts were issued by Maldives Met Service and this hindered the diving and also in arranging 3rd party alternative dive solution.

The technical issue on Dhoni led to no diving from Thursday until Saturday. Making total 3 days of no diving. To be fair, we gave a refund to the customers.

Blue Horizon team met the guests on 30th September as agreed and we came to an agreement and offered a fair compensation (FOUR FULL DAYS which equals to 57%) and all the guests on board which was accepted by everyone.. You promised to edit out the review and remove things that aren't facts and it's still not done.

While it is unfortunate, the technical issues could have happened anywhere on any boat.

Blue Horizon has been in the travel/dive industry for 25 Years and we are one of the most professional, experienced and well reputed dive agents in the Maldives. All the boats we own and operate are operated by us… and we have been the SOLE owner of the company/boats since 90s.

We do take pride in our service and served thousands of customers.

That’s’ why Horizon-3 is one of the very FEW FRP liveaboard in the Maldives and also with TWO Engines and THREE Generators… Everything has a BACKUP and now we’re looking at how best to have a contingency on Dive Dhoni as well for future.

 

[Sunn]

Good to have the other party opinion on what happened.

 

[Centrals]

None the wiser.

 

[tridacna]

@Ameer Abbas That was a lame attempt at a sorry excuse. Offering compensation for changing a review of a miserable trip? Strike this one off my list.

 

[drrich2]

Blue Horizon team met the guests on 30th September as agreed and we came to an agreement and offered a fair compensation (FOUR FULL DAYS which equals to 57%) and all the guests on board which was accepted by everyone.. You promised to edit out the review and remove things that aren't facts and it's still not done.

Thank you for coming to the forum to tell your side of this. It's understandable you would want negative claims you believe aren't true taken down by the reviewer (I don't know where all this would be...ScubaBoard or a number of other online review hosts), as it's understandable the reviewer may want to 'get the word out.'

But as @tridacna pointed out, regardless of your intent, to 3rd parties like the rest of us who weren't there and have to rely on reports by each side to understand what happened, it can look suspiciously like paying somebody to shut up a bad review, to keep it quiet.

It looks bad.

So my suggestion is to list the claims, item-by-item (the forum post Quote feature will let you copy and quote pieces from the original report, and you can insert answers after each), and state your response to each.

There is nothing either side can do to prove you are right and the other wrong. All you can do is state your case and hope in the wisdom and judgment of those who read these threads to decide what is valid.

 

[theduckguru]

I am sure the perception would have had a positive spin if the story was 1/2 our trip went to crap due to mechanical malfunctions, but the charter said this was not acceptable and refunded part of our money.

 

[nippurmagnum]

Too good to be true.
What you paid is what you got.
There is no free lunch in life.

I've done two liveaboards in Egypt, each for under $1,000 for the week. The diving was great, the food was good (not spectacular), the divemaster ranged from OK to excellent, the boats were somewhat tired/dated but quite decent for the price. So on its face, it's not impossible to have a good liveaboard experience for $1,000.

 

[drrich2]

I've done two liveaboards in Egypt, each for under $1,000 for the week. The diving was great, the food was good (not spectacular), the divemaster ranged from OK to excellent, the boats were somewhat tired/dated but quite decent for the price. So on its face, it's not impossible to have a good liveaboard experience for $1,000.

Roughly how much in round trip airfare was involved? Curious as to what Red Sea liveaboard trips tend to run compared to Caribbean trips.

Richard.