Baani Explorer - Maldives

[fundive]

Hi Brian,

just at this moment, your reply is "life" on Gundi's Homepage. And Michelle was with our tour and of course it is his opinion about our trip.
I had cabin No.1 (downstairs, first on left side), and we had no trouble with bad air in the cabin. We hab only some noise because the kitchen is on top of cabin No.1.

The most disappointing for me is the very bad customer relationship about our complaints. If they took care about this much more. I'm sure I would never mention anything bad about Baani. I'm not sure about Brian V. but if Hussen would not had such a bad reaction on last day and if they accepted that 5 dives were missed and gave us some compensation for that, I'm in doubt that Brian V. would have written such an article here.

I felt like a friend to our 2 dive guides Musa (or Moosa?) and Maliq. And of course good service from Guyan. But Hussen? He even did not accept me as a client.


Brian M. You made me curios for going to Palau! Thanks for this comparison.


(Sorry, but my english is too badd for writing in past, I hope its OK to understand)

 

[BrianMered]

Thanks Fundive,

I agree with your comments and I think that most people past and present would have accepted the situation had a reasonable response been received from those concerned. The fact that Hussein visited our group just one week later and acted as if these were the first complaints he had received is really difficult to accept. He promised to relocate one couple to an island resort after admitting that their room had a problem but it was total BS.

We never saw him again.

regards...Brian

ps your English gets a 9/10 from me

 

[Travelnsj]

Travelnsj,

Just checked your personal data: Just an "Average" diver, ...! Yeah right.

Palau (8), Red sea, Christmas Island, Sipidan, East Timor, Hawaii, Australia (3), Truk, Cozumel (3), Holbox, Costa Rica, Catalina, Bali, Galapagos, Rangiroa, Fakarava, North Carolina, Lembeh Straits, Papua, South FL, Wakatobi and a few others!

You've already been to most of the places I was going to suggest, and then some....let us know if and when you find that special place.

Brian

LOL...Brian I think I found that special place(s)... Lembeh and Raja/Papua...a pain to get too....but the best diving so far.

Scott

 

[shelski]

Well, after starting the thread on the Baani Explorer due to our impending trip, it’s only right that following our trip I post my comments on here. I’ve posted my report both on the original thread and have created a new thread with a copy of my report – purely because there have been to date over 84 postings on the original thread.

So, we spent a week on the Baani Explorer 2nd-9th March 2008. Extremely apprehensive due not only to the negative reports on Scubaboard, but also the fact that this was our first liveaboard experience (although I’ve now clocked up over 200 dives so not an inexperienced diver as such).Greeted at Male by Charlie – a very pleasant smiley guy who was great throughout the trip. We were allocated Cabin No.3 – clean and no worse or better than I expected. 3 dive guides in total – Charlie, Musa and Marios – all 3 very pleasant, (never met Hussein who was mentioned in reports). One dive that day – a check dive on a house reef. Every day after that went pretty much like clockwork, early wake up call, cuppa, biscuit, briefing, dive. Breakfast, chill, briefing, dive. Lunch, chill, briefing, dive. Dinner, beer, chat, bed…. Repeat as above.

We found the food to be fantastic! Honestly! Couldn’t fault it! It was varied, tasty, and second helpings always available. Definitely no upset stomachs! The cabins were cleaned/tidied twice daily. Bathroom was spacious but I suppose could do with a bit of an upgrade and the cabins could be brighter due to the dark wooden walls. Incidentals I know. Never had a problem with availability of hot water in the cabin – now and again it went cool momentarily but I get that in my flat when someone runs the hot water in the kitchen! We didn’t experience any problem with fumes except for a short while when the boat started up it’s engines or the when dhoni was “parking” in alongside. We certainly didn’t have fumes at the back when we were eating. We spent a lot of time with another couple from the UK who were allocated Cabin No.1 who said they didn’t have a fume problem. As far as I’m aware, the generators are towards the back of the boat, where Cabin 1 is and again they didn’t have a problem with excessive noise. I’m a very light sleeper so the hum of the generator even at the opposite end of the boat may have been a problem for me but it wasn’t. Anyhow, I never leave home without a supply of earplugs with me and I slept like a baby every night.

The dive sites were great – lots of fish. Sadly we didn’t get mantas or whalesharks but it wasn’t for the want of trying. The crew/guides did their best to take us to the sites with the best chance of seeing them but as we were there during the change of the season, it was tricky. The highlight was the nightdive at Maaya Thila – truly awesome!

DHONI: Nitrox was always available (though we didn’t use it). The problem is that if quite a few people wanted it, the fills take a lot longer and this did result in us doing a dive later than anticipated one day so the light was very poor. We never had a problem with bad air fills. All the dive gear remains on the dhoni (the same as when you book consecutive boat diving in the red sea) so yes the gear goes unrinsed for the duration – unless like some you took your BC onto the Baani now and again for a rinse. I thought this was the norm anyway so didn’t have a problem with it. 45 minutes was the longest journey to any site we did on the dhoni so cameras, computers etc were always rinsed within the hour on the back of the dhoni where there was a fresh and a salt water tap.
There was a rather “needy” solo traveller on the boat who took up a lot of the guide’s attention on dives which resulted in a misunderstanding on one particular and a few of us being dropped too far from the reef and resulted in us “getting lost”. I was under the impression that a diver had to have logged a minimum of 50 dives before booking a liveaboard? I don’t think this was the case the week we were there and I’m sure someone was doing an AOW course, possibly even OW!

My main and only real gripe was the Jacuzzi – or lack of it! It’s advertised as quite a selling point for the boat on the website – virtually every advertisement for the Explorer has the obligatory Jacuzzi picture. As far as I’m aware, this has been out of action for some considerable time now – the reason given is that they have to get an engineer over from Sri Lanka to fix it …. SO DO IT! It’s not good enough to just leave something unavailable because it may costly to have it repaired. It’s being advertised as an additional feature to the boat so provide it! Some people may actually book this boat over another because of this one feature.

So, that was our week on the Baani Explorer – very enjoyable, great diving. I wouldn’t hesitate to book it again and would certainly recommend it. I appreciate that a few have had less favourable weeks. Maybe they have been unlucky, maybe we have been lucky. However, if the negative reports have resulted in improvements then surely that’s a good thing isn’t it? Regards, Shelly

 

[leeaf]

Thanks for the report Shelly and hopefully you are right and they have actually taken the criticism on board and addressed some of the issues. Unexpected things like the sinking of the dhoni are one offs, but it is how the problems are handled when they do occur that separates the good operators from the bad.

I am on the Adventurer May 18-25 so will report back on how that goes as well. Having read your report I'm feeling a lot more positive than I was.

Lee

 

[fundive]

Thanks Shelly for your report. It sounds like a good trip and this should be normal situation. Maybe they have learned from mistakes?

I'm a bit surprised, that on every trip there are new dive guides on board. Never heard the name of the third guy you mentioned. Sharly and Muusa are really nice persons.

 

[BrianMered]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us Shelly,

I would like to think that comments posted on this forum had a lot to do with the improvements you have mentioned, and if we have achieved a better experience for future divers we can ask no more.

I am surprised that they undertake diver certifications while on 'safari', perhaps that is why a third DM was on board.

Food has improved (no upset stomachs), hot water availability, no fumes in the rooms, nitrox available, extra dive master, rinse water on the back of the Dhoni ..................condition normal...way to go..!:luxhello:

Agree with the comments on Charlie and Moosa, very personable guides with a good sense of humour, having read all of the posts on this thread it's little wonder they were stressed and frayed at the edges during our week onboard.

best regards and take care in the future.....Brian (Dubai)

 

[shelski]

Sorry, my mistake. The taps were at the back of the Baani, not the dhoni. (I corrected it on the new thread but forgot this one, Doh!) Apologies! Regards, Shelly

 

[kismet]

yes its terrible, all this reports are not really objektiv, you are on the wrong time on the wrong place, or its kismet, if you think about that in 52 weeks there are 936 divers and 2 % of them have a sunken dhoni or ohter problems, i am sorry i stayed 3 weeks on one of these ships and there lucky trips , so try it again or weep for the next time of your live sorry but thats live

 

[smokey braden]

kismet,
welcome to this board.
please send us trip reports as you travel and dive.