Bilikiki or Solomon's Master?

[flybigjet]

Hi guys--

My wife and our dive partners (another couple) are starting to gear up for planning/booking the next big dive trip. (We did Maldives in 2022, Chuuk (again) in 2023, Tahiti this year, and are booked for the Red Sea in 2025.)

We're looking at the Solomons in 2026. For work reasons, we can't go until on/after May 1, 2026. This trip is my "carrot" for caving to peer pressure and going to down to Antarctica in a couple of months (I was the holdout and the Solomon's was my price).

Two questions:

1. Between the Bilikiki and the Solomon Master-- which would be preferred and why?

2. Best time to go after May 1? Maybe September?

We're all fairly advanced divers (PADI Master, a minimum of several hundred dives each, Nitrox, yada yada). Fishballs/schools, pelagics, and nudi's (the girls are nutty for them) are going to be the priority on this trip. UW photography's a thing as well, not that it matters much. (Personally? I prefer wrecks and UW photography, but I always get outvoted on going to the more challenging/cool stuff-- and most of the wrecks in the Solomons are maybe.... a tiny bit deep for recreational diving).

TIA--

R.

 

[chaad]

Undercurrent did a feature length review of a trip aboard the Bilikiki last year, but this month has a short blurb about the Solomon Master:

In this month’s travel story on the Solomons, our undercover writer noted that the Bilikiki is an aging raft without many of the comforts found in other liveaboards. An alternative is the Solomon Master.Jeffery Lynn Reeb (La Canada, CA) was aboard in September and reports. “I’m well aware that the vessel’s reputation in the past has been less than stellar, but it has changed hands recently and undergone a retrofit. The new owner (Mark Shandur of Master Liveaboards) greeted us during the boarding process and explained that the vessel is back under their management/ownership and they are focused on turning the operation around. I found the vessel clean, everything worked, the food was excellent (the Chef worked previously on the Bilikiki), and the dive operations were a 10. There were 14 crew for 14 divers. I couldn’t lift a finger.” You can find his full report on our website and his video and photos at Solomon Islands 9-2024

 

[Rat Diver]

Contact Dom or Marcel at Dive Advice Travel | Liveaboard Specialist | Scuba Diving Travel Agent. They have good feedback for both ships which offer slightly different itineraries. I elected to go with Solomons Master in late May of 2025. As Chaad pointed out, an experienced captain from CA posted a positive trip report about the Solomons Master in the reader’s trip report section of Undercurrent. He did not compare the two ships, plenty of good articles have been written about Bilikiki, after some changes in management, Solomons Master is also getting good feedback. Undercurrent also had a story on a land option at Uepi that is worth a look.

 

[flybigjet]

After talking amongst the four of us (which is logistically fun-- two airline pilots on two different airplanes in two different domiciles, a computer systems engineer and a healthcare exec who's out of town for business), it's starting to look like we're going to kick the Solomons to 2027. There's a well-regarded dive travel company in Sacramento that our friends use frequently and really like (we went with them on one of their trips to Tubi and they did a nice job-- although our telling the owner "We don't have any idea how or when we're getting to the Philippines, but we'll be there on time" sort of weirded them out as they didn't understand how interline/pass travel worked). They're booked full for 2025 and do the Solomon's on odd years-- so 2027 is the next available evolution with them.

I suggested Truk (again- you see a trend here) for 2026, but was immediately shot down by the girls-- it looks like we'll be doing a small dive trip and a big trip to Africa that year now instead. The girls have had Antarctica and Africa on their "bucket list" together for at least ten years-- that's a big rock I'm just not going to be able to move out of my way.

Hrmph.

Thanks for the responses!

R.