Emperor Elite - Good, Bad, and Ugly

[Diver-6873]

Looking into a Red Sea B2B in fall ‘23 on the Emperor Elite. It’ll be DPFLs first LAB and my second, although the first was a long LONG time ago.

Looking to hear comments from anyone who’s sailed her this year — all thoughts welcome, very interested in the Zodiac experiences. Are all dives from them or only certain sites ….
thanks.

 

[scubajasonr]

The number of dives from/to zodiacs will depend on the route. BDE will have a lot of zodiac dives, the Northern and Southern routes will have less.

I haven't been on an Emperor liveaboard before, although I am booked on Emperor Asmma next October for a trip to St Johns. I have seen the Emperor boats around a few times, and they do look a little older than some of the newer Red Sea liveaboards. However from my experiences this summer I would much prefer an older boat with good crew and food over a newer boat with poor crew and food!

 

[AJ]

My experience with them is good. The boats are a little older and not as luxurious a some newer boats, but the costs are lower too. Safety is good, food was good too when I traveled with them.

 

[Latenight]

Back in 2019. small group of Croatian divers went to St. Johns from Port Ghalib with Emperor Echo. We've been diving with Emperor few times on a day trips from Sharm El Sheikh and that was the main reason we chose them. Unfortunately, we didn't have good experience. Boat was ok, dive sites amazing, but dive guides not so much.

One of the guides was all about safety, until the moment he jumped in the sea. In Elphinstone he literally ran out of the sea from white tip shark who got little bit too curious and left whole group back in sea.

On the other occasion, we were snorkeling with dolphins and one of the zodiac guys ran over one of our guys and cut his arm with propeller. After that they were hesitant to get him to the hospital, suggesting "one more dive, then lunch and then we'll see." Finally, they took him to hospital after we insisted. Of course, they promised to equip zodiacs with propeller cages, which i'm sure didn't happen.

 

[tmassey]

I was not on the Emperor Elite. I was on the Emperor Superior in 2018. I believe it has been refurbished since then, so my information probably isn’t even relevant for the boat as it is today. So I will mainly focus on how I felt about the company and liveaboard experience in general with Emperor Divers.

In short, I was very pleased with the value and experience I received. At the time, I paid I think it was €1200 for private room on a seven day trip on the get wrecked itinerary. Nitrox was included at no charge. Because of valuable information from @Wookie , that was a requirement for me. I also rented a set of aluminum 80 doubles which I used for the entire trip.

Booking the trip was reasonably straightforward. It was a little bit of back-and-forth for me because of me wanting to rent the doubles. That wasn’t something they normally did, so it took a little bit of effort for them to find out what was available. They ended up coming back with a couple of choices for me. Because I was not familiar with European tanks, they ended up having both of them available for me at the dock so that I could choose. Which was great, because my choices basically boiled down to aluminum 80 doubles or steel 130 doubles. There was no way I was dealing with those steel monsters on the zodiac… So it was really nice that they allowed me to see the tanks and make the proper choice.

The experience was certainly adequate. I’ve only done one liveaboard, so I don’t have a lot to compare to. I knew that it would not be a fancy experience, but I was hoping that it would be better than a Blackbeard-style camping on the water situation. I was quite pleased. The boat was comfortable. There was plenty of space, both in lounging and diving areas. The food was more focused to a European palate than an American one, but I had no problem with it at all. It was plenty and a reasonable variety of choices. I’m not overly picky, but I do have likes and dislikes, and there was never a time where there weren’t things I didn’t enjoy.

The dive masters were very helpful and professional. I had limited interaction with most of the crew: I don’t believe many of them spoke English. But the handful who did that we interacted with regularly were great. They kept an eye out for each passenger and did what they could to make them happy. It was great having somebody hand you a cold drink seconds after you land back on board the boat. Except for when I did our first night dive and they handed me a cup and it turned out to be a hot drink! Fortunately, it had cooled some before it was put in my hand.

At one point some fine sand got stuck in my wing inflator creating a small leak, overinflating my (old) wing. It ended up blowing out the seam for about 2 feet along the outer edge of the shell, causing the inner liner to spill out freely. Basically, my dive trip was over because of it. The dive master suggested that I give it to the crew and let them take a hand at fixing it. He said they have repair tape they use to repair the zodiac that could hold anything together. So I did. About two hours later there was a knock on my cabin door and the crewmember handed me my wing back. It had been sewn all the way around with heavy duty thread not just where the seam had ripped but all the way around to make sure that nothing further would happen to it. He had saved my dive trip! Worked great for the rest of the trip.

I had no real complaints for the entire trip. I was comfortable, well-fed and taken to interesting dive sites every day. I was up at odd times and still saw crew about, keeping watch. The ship seemed to be in good repair. There were no mechanical issues at any time. I would go back in a heartbeat. My only complaint was the sick diver who came on the trip and got *me* sick, scrubbing my last day and a half of diving… I’d have to look, but I think I still got like 16 or so dives in? Good enough.

If you have any specific questions, I’ll do what I can to answer.

 

[also_anon_dc]

About two hours later there was a knock on my cabin door and the crewmember handed me my wing back. It had been sewn all the way around with heavy duty thread not just where the seam had ripped but all the way around to make sure that nothing further would happen to it.

Wow! Now that is good service. Out of curiosity did they charge you for the repair or did you tip the person that made the repair?

 

[tmassey]

No charge. And yes, I tipped them. Both immediately to the guy who did the repair and jointly at the end of the trip.

 

[tmassey]

Looking to hear comments from anyone who’s sailed her this year — all thoughts welcome, very interested in the Zodiac experiences. Are all dives from them or only certain sites ….
thanks.

I happened to be re-reading this and saw that no one addressed the zodiac question. So I’ll add some details as I remember them.

Not all dives started on the zodiac. If the boat could tie off near the reef or wreck, we just giant-strided off the boat, But if I remember correctly, they may have all ended on the zodiac, because it was too hard to come back onboard the big boat from the water.

The details are foggy. As I remember, the procedure was to come to the edge of the RIB, they would grab our tank, we would slip out of our gear, they would pull it onboard while we pushed it up, then we would swim up out of the water as high as we could (like a dolphin) and up the side of the RIB, grab the rope on the side, and they would grab us and finish pulling us over the side.

Even for a true-blue DIR diver (which means rigid backplate and continuous webbing with no quick-release buckles) who was diving doubles no less, it was never a problem. The hardest part was getting up out of the water enough for them to grab you. Sometimes it took two or three times, and the end result might be slightly undignified. But not really difficult (or even uncomfortable) at any point.

I’m not certain if that is exactly how it went, but that alone should tell you something: getting onto the zodiac was straightforward enough that I can’t remember exactly how we did it.

@FlaParrotHead ”fall 2023” is (sadly!) right around the corner! Please let us know how your trip went! Even if you start a new thread, please make a reply just mentioning that in this thread so the system will alert us to the update! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Oh, and one more thing: given your name, I’m assuming you’ve done some diving on Florida reefs. I’ve done a fair bit in Pompano and the Keys. I’m used to navigating the reef by shape and depth. Depth tells you how far in or out from shore you are, and coral shape tells you direction. Very often, you can go along a reef at one depth, you can turn around and come back at that same depth and find the boat: easy-peasy. Don’t make the same mistake I did and assume that Red Sea coral works the same way. It doesn’t. Unlike Florida, there isn’t a sloped bottom (you’re probably a long way from shore), and also unlike Florida there isn’t a consistent current for coral to adapt to. It makes the coral formations much more beautiful than Florida (much finer fingers and details), but it makes it useless to try to navigate by! It was a jolt when I dove in and realized I had nothing I was used to to navigate by!

 

[vjongene]

I was looking for reviews of the Emperor Elite, and found this thread on Scubaboard. I was on the ship a couple of years ago, and wrote the following to our dive travel agent:

I have been a diver for over 20 years, and I have been on more than a dozen different liveaboards. My last cruises were in November 2018 (French Polynesia Master), September 2020 (Nautile Evo), April 2021 (Galapagos Master) and July 2021 (Emperor Elite). I booked the trip on the Emperor Elite from 8 to 15 July 2021 expecting to be on a high-end boat with all the expected comforts. The reality proved to be quite different, even though the trip overall was of decent quality.

About an hour after I arrived on the boat, I was shown my cabin, number 11 on the upper deck. These are considered “premium” because of their location and the fact that they have a fridge. I was shocked: the cabin was minuscule, with two beds arranged in such a way that one had to climb over one’s cabin mate to get out. Storage was almost non-existent: one shelf in a narrow cupboard and one small drawer in a bedside table for each passenger. No hanging closet, no space under the beds. I thought that I may have the cabin to myself, given its exiguity, but no, moments later I was introduced to my cabin mate. We both agreed that we could not possibly share a space that small, and after some arguing we were given a cabin on the lower deck, which was still small by liveaboard standards but acceptable with regard to space (two shelves and one drawer each, plus open space under the beds). Only later did we realize that it stank of diesel fuel. My clothes were still smelling when I got home.

When I arrived on the boat, my bag was initially left on the quay, and I was told that it would be taken care of. A couple of hours later it was still on the quay, unguarded. I asked what was going to happen to it, and it was then brought aboard and left on the dive deck. I took out my dive gear, and brought my clothes down to the cabin. I asked if there was a place to store the bag, and no, the only place was in the cabin under the bed, where I had already put my backpack and the blankets that were crowding the little shelf space we had. The crew finally put my bag in an empty cabin.

There are a number of problems with the physical facilities on the boat. Electrical outlets in the cabins have been condemned for safety reasons, but there isn’t a proper camera and gear staging area anywhere. There are electrical outlets in the saloon, and most people used these as charging stations for lack of a better alternative. There are also some narrow shelves with electrical outlets next to the dive deck, but these are not suitable for handling camera housings and the like. They are mostly used by the crew for charging their phones. There are two toilets in the common areas, on narrow gangways accessible from the dive deck, but access is often blocked by the crew having cigarette breaks. They will let you pass when asked, but it is awkward. All of us were issued beach towels to dry off after dives, but the only place to dry them were hooks in the shade next to the dive deck, where they never really dried. Again, on most liveaboards the crew would make sure that we had dry towels after each dive.

The food was of good quality, varied, and tasty. No complaints on that subject. However, there were a few strange policies. On the first day, the crew recorded our food preferences for all three daily meals plus pre-dive snacks on a complex grid, intimating that we would be served at the table and that they wanted to know what to bring. But then, almost all meals were served buffet style, and the grid made no sense at all. For just one dinner we were asked to choose between steak and chicken. On the first day boxes with cookies and cake plus a fruit basket were brought to the cabins, with little explanation. It seems that this was a substitute for morning pre-dive snacks, as these were not available. The boxes were refilled only once. All liveaboards I have been on had cookie jars or the like in the coffee/tea area, which everyone dug into before early morning dives. On this boat, nothing.

We were told that soft drinks, beer and wine were available from two refrigerators in the dining hall and on the upper deck. There was always a reasonable stock of soft drinks, but on the first day there was no beer at all. I found some beer cans under a sink and put them into the fridge on the upper deck, and for a couple of days these were the only cold beers to be found. Later the stock was replenished by the crew.

All in all, the boat gave the impression that there was no one in charge of organizing all the required chores and making sure that they were taken care of. Things were left hanging, without clear instructions. I personally do not like to be “helped” with my dive gear, as more often than not this has ended up creating problems (for example, when a helpful crew member turned off the valve on my tank instead of opening it). I also feel that as a certified and responsible diver I should be able to take care of my gear and myself. I was pretty much unable to pass this message to the crew, who insisted on “helping” me into my gear, putting on my fins, removing my wetsuit, and so forth. I understand that they had instructions, and tips to look forward to, but it was annoying anyway.

In the end, I had a good time diving, and many of the divers were congenial and nice to interact with. Dive briefings and guides were fine. But the Emperor Elite has a ways to go before qualifying as a “luxury liveaboard” by my standards.