Trip Report Avoid Blue Horizon in Maldives

[BlueTrin]

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.

I think Egypt tourism rates are lower than the Maldives though.

 

[Centrals]

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.

We are talking Maldives.
I might be even able to do it cheaper in Thailand but absolutely irrelevant here.
You are comparing apple and orange.

 

[nippurmagnum]

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.

$700 nonstop Washington DC to Cairo on EgyptAir, and $25 for land transfer Cairo to Hurghada.

I’ve never been tempted to do a Caribbean liveaboard, it’s about three times the cost.

 

[Ameer Abbas]

The other recent reviewers on Trip Advisor accurately detail some of the issues with the operation and the facilities. None of them capture just how horrific it was. Keep in mind, the is not an isolated event. The boat has a string of similar weeks. In just a few hours of wandering the internet, we found other weeks in the recent past that matched our experience. The management offered a minor compensation provided we remove any negative review. This week’s guests have agreed to update our reviews when we receive compensation. Until then, read on.

This is not true. We didn't offer a "minor compensation" but a handsome amount 4 FULL DAYS of refund which was agreed and accepted by you and everyone happily while everyone stayed on board, ate the food, used the service, and on top of that we waived off all the extra charges payable on board. so this is not a "minor compensation"

I checked the PADI pro-chek for the dive masters on the boat. All of them have not maintained their pro status with PADI. The one instructor was up to date. Since my only need for a dive guide is to point out hard-to-find creatures, maintaining PADI pro status means less to me than less experienced divers.

PRO: There we’re no cockroaches in my bed. Thankfully, the twice daily insect spraying helped.

PRO: One of the 8 dives we did actually had us drop in up current of the site. That was the only drift dive where we drifted with the current.

PRO: There is plenty of places to plug in chargers and electronics. A few of them are adequately grounded to not spark or shock you.

PRO: There is plenty of food to eat if you love plain white rice, pasta, bread, and random fish caught and gutted on the side of the main boat. I’m grateful I was not asked to pay extra for the items they offered . . . Let me rephrase… We didn’t have the island bbq that did require extra cost (as did all drinks beyond coffee, tea, bottled water…one per person per day… and milk.)

Please know that roaches are quite common in Tropical areas and this is something many establishments suffer from but good spray, PEST treament can get rid of bugs/roaches. Which we are doing on monthly basis.

BBQ was not done due to weather being severe. There's not many islands near Male that can do the BBQ. and the extra charges is $5 per person which is the Island Fees set by the Local Government Authority. This is not something we charge but setforth by the regulatory bodies.

Not everything about this trip was so pleasant. There were several CONS to deal with. I am lead to believe the boat is under new ownership for the last year or so. The nice reviews from years ago refer to a different owner.

With all Due respect, this is Wrong! The boat has always been operated, managed, owned under the SAME management. We’ve been operating in the dive business for around 25 Years and have always maintained the excellent customer service and thousands of satisfied customers. Upon knowing this, you yourself confirmed in the email that you’d correct this but it’s still not done!

CON: There was no check-out dive to check weighting or to let the dive operation organize the divers by skills. As a result, two Master Scuba Diver Trainers ended up in a group with fairly new divers. If you are an experienced diver, your dive time will be limited by the more novice divers. If you are fairly inexperienced, read the next CON.

Checkout dive. The norm in the Maldives is that its not a SET rule that it will always 100% be done. If we put an itinerary we always put a disclaimer that its tentative and subject to change. This occurs often as some times, some people arrive late and Dhoni has to go to the airport and pick them up and instructor/guides shift the check-dive to Monday morning. Etc. Some boats even give 3PM check and they don’t do a check-dive as Sunday is mostly spent in check-in, guest arriving etc. that’s why we put a disclaimer. When time permits, we do the check-dive but when it doesn’t its not done thus tentative.

CON: The dive guides are inexperienced in leading dives. For example, one novice diver was very low on air when they were just above 30m. By “low” I mean only the volume of air divers should have as a reserve when back on the boat. They told the DM they were at half. The DM signaled back OK. When the diver then signaled low-on-air (50bar or 500psi) the DM signaled OK again. The DM then proceeded to continue with the dive.

CONS: The dive guides could not find the dive sites. We overshot one of the 8 dives and spent it entirely in open water. On another dive, the guide lost the group.

CONS: We did a hook-in dive where we learned it was a hook-in during the dive. Several divers did not have a hook. A couple of them did not know what a hook is or how to use it. As a result, the group spent the rest of the dive regrouping. Yes, this was the one “drift dive” the guides dropped us in up stream.

We have since fired those people as this is not something we do or preach. We follow PADI Standards and if someone who doesn’t follow the PADI standards shouldn’t be in the team. We’ve replaced the guides with more experience team.

Hook in dive: We clearly explicitly mention on our website/booking details that if someone needs to rent anything any dive equipment etc. they need to inform us. Its also mentioned in FAQ. That reef hooks are required. We do provide hooks on board and if the guides didn't show/tell, it was bad of them and we have already replaced our dive staff.

CONS: While the engine hatch was open, I had an opportunity to look at the engine and area. For those of you who have worked with marine engines, I will spare you the frightening description that makes it in the bottom one of my list. For those of you who haven’t such experience, rest assured, there is a real reason the dive platform boat (dhoni) breaks down. They own three dhoni… They are all broken.

It has been quite an experience. I could go on for pages. Instead, I will go back to commiserating with the other 19 divers in the main boat’s salon that seats 17 uncomfortably.

I'm sorry but that's not true. The Dive Dhoni (With Electrical Generator and Compressors) had a break down on the diesel propulsion motor. It was purely a technical issue which after assessing by the team they concluded that it couldn't be fixed and boat had to come to Male. I don't know who gave you the wrong information but I even told you on the boat that the other Dhonis which you mentioned, we don't even use it.

We operate liveaboards and sailing catamarans and understand the importance of having a Service center. Because each time things break, one has to import it from abroad and that can take days/weeks sometimes months to arrive.

That's why we have a service center and in house team where we keep the stock inventory of our spares, items in case something breaks so we can fix it. Also you came and visited the Maldives, you know there's no Marinas in the Maldives and no structure like you guys have in the US and Europe.

The trip ran smoothly from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… (Four Days) We did not hear any complaint from your side. It only started when the Dive dhoni broke and we couldn’t find a replacement. But we duly compensated everyone.

Right after the trip You met Marco, the very next trip customer and below is his feedback. You can clearly see that the trip was great and no issues incurred. This further proves that our operation is running very smoothly.

Bottom line is that this could have happened anywhere, any boat, in any place. Important is that if there's issues, the clients should be compensated and which we have done it. Also we took strict measures to ensure the dive opreation runs smoothly as you can read below that one of our guest wrote feedback right after your trip and we did make things right and as I'm writing

Once again, Apologies.

Best Regards

 

[Tippytoes12]

Mmm cockroaches in the bed, no demo on how to use a reef hook and guides so terrible that they got fired at the end of the week. Would this be OK Ameer if it was you ?

What people in the industry sometimes fail to grasp is how important sanity breaks away from the daily grind are to your passengers. And how much we missed these breaks during the last few years. And how disappointing this sort of situation is during a very expensive trip. And, the elephant in the room, many of us are nearer our expiry dates as divers that you are. You get, or got to dive most weeks, and live in the tropics, we only get to dive a few weeks of the year and live in very cold countries.

 

[runsongas]

i did two weeks back to back on the horizon iii in may this year and it went ok. yes, the menu could have been a bit more varied but it wasn't the worst i have encountered on a liveaboard (worst overall still goes to the bahamas master and worst breakfasts to emperor fleet egypt). some of the repeat guests, especially the large group of koreans, were better prepared as they brought dry goods to mix in with the menu. everything was fairly clean although they could do with some new linens. no outright misses on the drops although one was off to the side and got cut short swimming to the thila. briefings were fairly detailed and you could dive independently with your buddy if you were up for it. they split the groups fairly well based on air consumption and experience level even if they did try and stick to the maldives limits for dives fairly strictly. they provided reef hooks to those that did not have them and a brief tutorial on how to use them.

if anything, it sounds like they have staff consistency issues. but the boat is on the lower end of cost which may be prohibitive to fix things unfortunately.