Liveaboard Dive Boat in Belize

[Danigirl]

We just got back from the best vacation ever!! We stayed aboard the Sundancer II a Peter Hughes Liveaboard boat in Belize. The service, food, diving.... everything was top notch!!!! When we started comparing cost of staying on the main land and going diving 3 or 4 times, plus meals etc... the cost of the Sundancer wasn't so outrageous. If it is a little more expensive, it is soooo worth it!!! At the end of our trip we spent 2 days at Jaguar Paw and went cave tubing and zip lining. What a trip!!!

 

[DeputyDan]

Glad to hear a glowing report - taking my two daughters on this trip in July with 5 days in the jungle going to mayan sites afterwards!

 

[peterbj7]

..... although quite a few people (myself included) won't go on a Peter Hughes boat after the company's behaviour following the Placencia hurricane. They wriggled and wriggled and wriggled to try to escape their obvious culpability.

 

[Gaz]

..... although quite a few people (myself included) won't go on a Peter Hughes boat after the company's behaviour following the Placencia hurricane. They wriggled and wriggled and wriggled to try to escape their obvious culpability.

I understand that Peter however to take what is a positive thread and try to turn it into a negative one is well negative.

What happened was tragic but that does not mean Peter Hughs does not run a top knotch operation on all of his boats which is confirmed time and time again by diver on message boards all over the internet.

Dive Safe

Gaz

 

[peterbj7]

Gaz - my problem is with the company ethos, and that hasn't changed.

"Top knotch" indeed, until something goes wrong.

 

[DeputyDan]

It's my understanding that a third different Company has acquired both the PH line and the Aggressor line of liveaboards!

I do not know the specifics of the transaction - but have read about it on several different sites.

 

[robint]

I agree with Peterbj7, I'd have a hard time booking with PH after reading "No Safe Harbor" and also all the reports that followed the accident. Just my feelings about the company.

It's my understanding that a third different Company has acquired both the PH line and the Aggressor line of liveaboards!

I do not know the specifics of the transaction - but have read about it on several different sites.

last year the Aggressor company bought out PeterHughes boats and kept them under that name. PH himself is working for them now, in charge of the Caribbean side. The two Wayne's (owner's of Aggressor fleet) are splitting duties in charge of the the Aggressor boats and the Pacific PH boats. That is what I was told by an insider.
If this has changed......???
From trip reports I have been reading about the Aggressor boats this past year, they are not up to their previous standards. Lots and lots of problems and customer dissatisfaction. I wouldn't be surprised if the economy isn't hitting them along with all of this.

Back to the OP........ sounds like it was a great trip. How about a full trip report??? Day by day, where did you dive, what did you eat? Pictures?

robin

 

[Gaz]

The majority of the Aggressor boats are owned by private owners and not the Wayne duo they take the boats under there Aggressor fleet brand name and market them they are more a booking agency franchise thing than actual boat owners operators.

Also if as you say Peter was bought out by the Aggressor why still punish a new operator for something that had nothing to do with them.

I completely understand why they would keep peters name as he has been around for many many years prior to the Belize incident and he had built up a very good reputation over years and years of providing good service to divers.

The branding he has built is not something you just throw away and thats what he sold now there is a new operator is it not time to give them a chance to turn it around or at least when posting negative comments about Peter you also add Peter Hughs Diving is now UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP

That would be a lot fairer to the new owners.

Dive Safe
Gaz Cooper

 

[galindenba]

I been on a lot of liv-a-boards over the past 20 years and quite a few Hughes boats. Most good to great, some not so much. It is true that the Hughes fleet and the Aggressor fleet are now owned by one person. Hughes and Hasson have been retained in managerial positions. The Mitch tragedy was a terrible thing and I don't know enough about hurricanes and seamanship to say whether Hughes was at fault or not. I suspect few posting on this forum do either. The reaction was our typical American reaction to something like this when things go wrong....we sued somebody.

What has dismayed me is the industry reaction to these lawsuits which had nothing to do with diving at all, but has resulted in divers on liv-a-boards being treated like children. I long for the old days when guests took responsibility for their own diving and if they wanted to do 6 or 7 dives a day and the computers allowed it then they took the responsibility and did it. Nobody ever got bent.
However, having said all the foregoing, this is a story that just happened to us last week on a Hughes boat that I think is worth telling. A response if you will to the statement: " "Top knotch" indeed, until something goes wrong."
Six days into the trip on Star Dancer/PNG we received news of a death of my wife's father. The boat crew acted with the highest level of compassion and professionalism. They got us back to Walindi in the shortest possible time with minimal disruption to the other guests dive schedule and with the help of the Walindi staff rearranged all of our return flights to get us back ASAP to our family in the states. That's no mean feat in PNG!!
We've been going to PNG since '93 and have done a ton of dive cruises all over the world, but we will never forget what these people did for us last week.

 

[peterbj7]

"galindenba" - how much do you know about the actual incident? I live in Belize and was there (albeit in the north) when that tragedy took place and I've met several people who were directly involved. The company as a corporate entity was directly implicated and no-one involved was in any doubt that the captain was acting under direct orders. Wrongly and improperly in my view, though that's easy for an outsider to say after the event.

This was a boating incident, not a diving one, so why would you expect "diving" to feature in the law suits? And I don't know the nationalities of the people on board and their relatives, but I'm sure there are quite a few non-Americans amongst them.

The dive staff at the time were mostly inexperienced (as they usually are) and had certainly not been in close proximity to a hurricane. They were just doing what they were told to do. I've known several dive staff on that boat in subsequent years and would have no problem diving with any of them. But that's not why I won't use the company. I remain to be convinced that the corporate shuffling has actually changed anything.