Looking for Juliet review

[luscioman]

I am thinking about doing a week on the Juliet and I am looking for a review. The only things are several years old. I would be doing a trip to the Bahamas.

Liveaboard Diving Vacations - Juliet Sailing and Diving

 

[HangTimeLakeCity]

There is a FB Friends of the Juliet page. I know Debi Moir who does the posting personally. I don't think she would steer you wrong. Also, lots of past customers are on there. I would link it but I don't know if that is allowed.

Have fun, I hear it's great.

 

[queennyac]

I have been on the Juliet many times........various itineraries with them....Florida Keys for wreck diving, Bahamas several times, Mona Island, P.R. trip, etc., etc.....all great trips.....go, you'll have a blast!!!! Rosemary

 

[diversteve]

Part of the reason there's not a lot of current trip reports:

Dear Friends of Juliet Sailing and Diving,

I have an announcement to make that hopefully will bring some happiness to many of you. As you all know by now, Juliet will be shutting down operations in March 2014 while my friends and family take Juliet on an extended trip around the Caribbean. Many of you have expressed in person and on your critique forms that you would like Juliet to remain in charter service. Your comments and sentiments have been very touching and have been received with much consideration. I am very pleased to say that Juliet will be back at your service starting in September 2014!

 

[Sieg@VU]

The Juliet is a great dive liveaboard experience - all inclusive, 4 dives/day, and only 12 guests in 6 cabins on a 104 ft schooner.....hard to beat! We have done several charters on the Juliet and the latest was in September just after she came back into service after a private family summer voyage. We have her chartered again for this September and still have a few spots available. PM me if you'd like to join us!

 

[ppatin]

OP,

I've done three Juliet trips. Two of them were long weekend trips to Bimini and one was a week long Keys wreck trip. If you look through my post history you'll see a fairly detailed trip report about my first trip with them to Bimini. Most of the stuff I wrote back then still held true when I did a trip with them last October. If you have any specific questions, ask away.

Here is the trip report that I wrote: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/li...t-bahamas-columbus-day-5-day-trip-report.html

Edit: So to add some more details, a great thing about the Juliet is that they're fairly libertarian in their approach to diving. You're expected to stay within deco limits and get back with 500psi in your tank but as long as you behave like a responsible adult nobody is going to be watching over your shoulder.

All three times that I've been on the Juliet we've had Chris as our captain, and the last two times Liza was the engineer. I cannot speak highly enough of either of them. Chris has his occasional salty sailor moments but I've come to realize that he's got gears in his mind that are constantly working trying to think of ways to improve people's trips. The norm is three day dives per day and a night dive, but on our last trip he figured out how to squeeze a fifth dive into the second day's schedule so we could get as much out of the trip as possible. When there was some disagreement between passengers about whether to do a port visit or an extra dive on our last day he again figured out how to squeeze both in. In my experience he'll work very hard to accommodate any reasonable request.

Liza is one of the nicest people I've met and possibly even harder working than Chris. If you need help with anything she'll always cheerfully be there. On our last trip the other three crewmembers were kind of green (I think there was quite a bit of turnover when the Juliet went out of service for half a year) but Chris and Liza just busted their asses to pick up any slack. The only real issue I had was that on the last trip I took the food was only ok. The first time we went out with them I was very impressed by most of the meals whereas the last time around the food was decent but nothing special. I believe that their cook was new and still getting the hang of things.

 

[kmurray719]

I went on a trip on the Juliet in January of this year. It was a group of divers doing technical training and diving, which the Juliet had never hosted before (a full tech trip, they'd had technical divers on board). They worked ridiculously hard to make sure everything was done in a way that worked for us, including setting up hang lines for all our tanks and hauling them on board for us so we didn't have to negotiate the ladder with three tanks. I stayed in one of the cabins with an en suite bathroom and it was great. Spacious and well set up. The food was good too. Basic, hearty meals that kept us fueled up for diving--a big spread for breakfast including eggs,meats, fruit, yogurt, etc, a hot meal for lunch (chili, bbq chicken) and protein and tons of sides for dinner. And dessert, always dessert The boat itself is really nice, with plenty of spaces to spread out it. The dive deck is well set up, with plenty of space for 12 divers. We didn't get the typical services of between dive lectures on marine life, etc since we were kept busy with our own training.

We were on a Turks and Caicos trip, so I can't comment on the Bahamas itinerary, but the Juliet is a great boat, with a great crew, and definitely worth taking a trip on.

 

[ppatin]

Out of curiosity where did they put all the tanks that you used? The Juliet's dive deck is really set up for single tank diving.

 

[kmurray719]

It was cozy for sure We each had two tanks at our station and the stage bottles were stored either in the "cubby" behind our dive station or in between the two rows of dive stations.

 

[HangTimeLakeCity]

Tech trips? Well, I just might abide.