Suggestion Bad Behavior By Liveaboards

[Living4Experiences]

There are a lot of negative experiences in our community with the liveaboard companies, and it seems to be worse since 2020. How about a separate forum that gathers information in one place here from divers' bad experiences with liveaboard companies and high-volume online brokers like liveaboard.com? This would be a way for us to learn about the companies based on real-life incidents and bad behavior before making a booking. This would be separate from a trip report, which encompasses the whole dive trip experience.

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[Howard Baker]

I have done 1 Aggressor live aboard in Galapagos in 2018 and 3 post covid with Master Liveaboards. All have been great with generally very good safety aspects.
One important thing to ascertain is whether the boats in a "fleet" are owned and run by the company or are independents just using the name. I was surprised when I heard negative reviews about Aggressor but on digging clarified that they are effectively franchisees, so standards very much depend on the individual boat. My last trip was on the Phinisi in Thailand which is not owned/run by ML - interestingly the safety aspects were more lax, which was a bit surprising given the loss of Indo Siren (who were great on safety).
Next report will be on Infiniti in Tubbataha - can't wait!

 

[gmerick]

Just post the trip reports. No need to have a flame board. I've done AquaCat, Juliet, and several trips on Lake Superior I enjoyed all of them. My biggest expectation is adaptability. "No plan survives contact with the enemy", especially when battling Mother Nature.