I am posting mainly in an effort to warn other divers about the Maldives Aggressor live aboard trip. I just returned from a scheduled trip on the Maldives Aggressor (start date Oct 12th 2014) that was so bad we left the boat after only 2 days.
If you have a scheduled trip it is very important that you contact Aggressor today. The Maldives Aggressor boat that is featured on their website is currently in dry dock and unavailable for charters. They won't tell you this when you book your trip (one couple on our boat booked 10days prior to the trip and were not even informed). The replacement boats are horrendously bad and despite what Aggressor will tell you they have made no attempt to keep up the standards of the Aggressor fleet on the replacement boats. If you have a scheduled trip and they can not guarantee that the Maldives Aggressor boat will be out of dry dock prior to your trip I suggest that you cancel your trip and demand a full refund or a trip to another destination.
Now that I have gotten that warning off my chest, I will recount for you exactly how bad our experience was on our failed trip to the Malidives with the Aggressor fleet.
We booked our trip on the Maldives Aggressor back in May of 2014. We were a group of three experienced divers from the East Coast of the US. Myself, my husband and my father. We looked at a lot of different live aboard operators in the Maldives but decided that we felt safer going with an American company that we had heard of before. In addition my father had done a trip to Belize with the Dancer fleet about 10 years ago and had an excellent experience.
Fast forward to Oct 7th 2014. We are informed by email that the Maldives Aggressor will not be available for our scheduled trip (set to sail in 6days!). The email assures us that the new boat will be just as good and that members of the Aggressor crew will be along to ensure that we are taken care of in "Aggressor Style." We are a little annoyed at the switch but we figure it will be fine.
On the 8th of October, once we are already in route to the Maldives, we receive a second email. This informs us they they have secured a different boat than the first email indicated but that it is an upgrade. We think to ourselves that this email is a little suspicious, why switch replacement boats, but we again think it will be fine, we are even a little excited about the idea of an upgraded boat.
The day of pick up we arrive at the meeting spot in the airport in Male, which is the capital of the Maldives. We wait for Aggressor crew to pick us up to transport us to the boat. They are 15-20min late for pick up but we let it go because we are excited to start our live aboard trip. The transport at the airport in Male is directly by boat. The airport has a dock were we get onto a small boat for transfer to the live aboard. The boat that they pick us up in is old, has tires for fenders, and is dirty and cramped, in short it doesn't set a good impression. We look around and realize it has tank rests and bands. We realize this isn't just a small dirty transport boat it is our diving dhoni for the week.
The transfer to the main boat takes approx 15min. As we arrive at the main boat we realize that although it looks good from a distance, up close you can see that the paint on the hull is chipped and there are large cracks in the hull along with a large amount of sludge and dirt at the water line. it looks like the boat has never been serviced or cleaned. We are asked to remove our shoes as we exit the dhoni onto the back deck of the main boat. As we step onto the main boat we step onto an incredibly dirty frayed towel. There are bags of trash on the back deck and the engine compartment is propped up with a 2x4. We are asked to meet in the lounge area of the boat. As we walk from the deck of the boat into the interior space of the boat we are hit with an overwhelmingly sweet smell of apple air-freshner. We look around and realize that all of the air conditioners in the main interior space have multiple air-fresheners hanging from them which strikes us a odd. They are also held together with duct tape. We have our intro briefing. As the crew is introduced we realize that only two of the crew on the boat have any affiliation with the Aggressor boat, the rest belong to the replacement boat and are all wearing dirty clothing and don't look like they have showered anytime recently, suspiciously the captain of the boat is not available to introduce himself. We are also informed that we should feel lucky that we have such a nice boat this week. Shumi the Aggressor cruise leader for the week informs us that Aggressor knew the boat wouldn't be available for our cruise since at least late summer and they have done several cruises on replacement boats prior to our charter and those boats were not in good condition. He is happy with the quality of the boat this week and hopes we don't have any problems. Next we are assigned rooms. The rooms are large but filthy. Our bathroom shower was covered in mildew and the tiles were falling off the walls. The mirror and the shower door were covered in soap scum and filth. The pillows on the bed were stained. The air conditioner had the same apple air freshener attached but unfortunately it could not cover up the stench of mold and diesel fumes. We do a quick walk around the boat and notice that other rooms actually smell worse than ours. The deck is cracking in multiple locations and their are mattresses and dirty laundry covering the floor of the captains bridge.
We head down to give Shumi our dive certification cards and consider asking him about the problems in the rooms. Before we are able to he has already launched into a conversation on how we should feel lucky because this boat is much better than the other replacement boats. We are told that they next step is to sort out our dive gear. We do that and get our gear set up. It goes ok for us but they run out of weights for other divers and divers that are renting equipment are having quite a problem finding any suitable equipment.
We settle in and have dinner (which isn't great). At dinner we sit at the same table as Shumi. He recounts for us exactly how bad the previous weeks trip was with overflowing toilets and people unable to sleep in their rooms. He again says he hopes we don't have any problems this week. We ask when we are going to set sail and he informs us that we are not going to move that night because we are going to be doing some local diving around the area tomorrow morning.
We are starting to feel very uneasy about the whole trip but we unpack and go to sleep hoping that the diving and seeing the maldives will make up for the conditions on the boat.
We wake up the next morning to do a first dive which goes ok and we eat breakfast. Over breakfast there are murmurs around the boat that there is a problem with the boats engine. We do our second dive of the day which is also good and return to the boat. We ask Shumi what is going on with the boat's engine and when we might move and he says that there is a "little" problem with the engine, they are going to get a part for the engine from Male and they hope to have it fixed soon. On further questioning we ask what is wrong with the engine and are told that one of the pistons is cracked and needs to be replaced. That doesn't seem like a little problem to us.
Tensions rise on the boat because it seems that information is being withheld about the problems. We have a meeting in the early afternoon prior to the third dive were Shumi tells everybody about the problems with the boat. He also informs us that the boat will not be fixed until the very earliest tomorrow evening but their is not guarantee. It also becomes clear that they knew the boat was having problems with the engine when we boarded the boat but we were just not told. In fact the boat was anchored where is was because thats were it came to a grinding halt at the end of the last charter and didn't make it fully into the harbor. Passengers on the boat are starting to get frustrated and ask if there are any other boats available to use instead. Shumi informs us that he has investigated the other boats but they are all in worse condition than this boat (I am not really sure how that is possible), he actually used the phrase "they are not a place to put people." He does mention a smaller boat that is available but it is not big enough for everyone on board and it has a charter starting on the 19th so it would mean cutting our charter short.
At this point we are feeling really frustrated. We had planned this dive vacation back in May. It was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime. We had traveled half way around the world, used all our vacation days for the year and spent a lot of money in airfare, new gear, kennels for our dogs etc just to sit in the middle of the passage off the end of the runway in Male on a disgusting boat that couldn't move and we were being told they had no solutions to fix the problem. Infact, they didn't even so much as offer an apology.
We try and deal with our frustration and take off for our third dive. We get on the boat to find one of the dive dhoni crew analyzing our tanks. It's luck that we caught him analyzing the tanks because the tanks had no markings what so even to indicate they were Nitrox. Neither of us dive nitrox so we asked him to replace them with air. As we near the dive site we gear up and get ready to enter the water. One of the dive masters shouts out this side of the boat with me the other side follow Risey (one of the other dive masters). This is not what we had discussed in the dive briefing where we were separated into 3 groups, so things got a little chaotic. Everyone gets into the water ok and we start to descend. I started to have a little bit of problems equalizing so I descend a little slower than normal. The dive master from my side of the boat signals to me asking if things are ok and I signal back saying that my ears aren't good. That's the last I see of him. I continue a slow descent with my dive buddy. We get down to 60 feet and realize that there is no one else to be seen. We look around a little bit but realize that we are not sure of the direction to go (the dive site consists of a pinnacle that we were told to follow the guides to and then we would all follow them back to a wall to continue the dive). We don't see the pinnacle or the wall or any other divers so we decide to go up, do a safety stop and go back to the boat. We deploy our safety sausage at beginning of our safety stop. We get to the surface and look around and identify our boat. Not only are they not on their way over we can see all the crew sleeping on the top of the dhoni. It takes another dive operator to get their attention so we can be picked up. We get back on the boat just fine. While we are waiting for the rest of the divers one of the divemasters surfaces alone. He gets back on the boat and comments to us "No one wanted to follow me so I came back up" (what?). Anyway, we wait for the remainder of the divers. The remainder of the divers finish their divers and get back on the boat. Our dive master gets back on board and we question why he didn't wait for us when I was having trouble equalizing. He simply replied "we don't do guided dives" in a very snarky tone. In talking with the other divers is evident that multiple other dive groups got lost on the dive as well and never saw the pinnacle or the reef because their dive masters just kept swimming full speed and never looked back to see if anyone was with them.
At this point, we are getting really angry. The boat is in horrible condition and the engine is broken. We have no real acceptable solution being offered and the diving is a little scary because safe dive standards are really not being followed.
We get back to the boat and several other passengers ask to use the Shumi's phone to contact Aggressor in the US. Aggressor's response is, It's monday morning and we are just getting into the office and reading the emails from Shumi from over the weekend. We need to assess the situation and we will get back to you. What! You have a charter of paying customers stranded on a disabled boat on the other side of the world and this is the first time you are learning of it!
At this point we are appalled. There is no sign that any progress has been made with the engine and there is no other boat available to accommodate all the passengers. We decide that we didn't come all this way to sit on a dilapidated boat off the end of the runway in the Maldives and we ask Shumi to find us a travel agent to talk to so we can make alternate arrangements. We ended up leaving the boat the following morning and staying at a resort with a dive operator for the remainder of the week.
I know this is long winded but I don't even think it covers all the atrocious things that happen on our short 48hrs ordeal. Let it be known we are seeking a full refund from Aggressor and will never go on another trip with them and I would never recommend them to any other diver.
I hope my post will help prevent other divers from ending up in the same "boat."
If you have a scheduled trip it is very important that you contact Aggressor today. The Maldives Aggressor boat that is featured on their website is currently in dry dock and unavailable for charters. They won't tell you this when you book your trip (one couple on our boat booked 10days prior to the trip and were not even informed). The replacement boats are horrendously bad and despite what Aggressor will tell you they have made no attempt to keep up the standards of the Aggressor fleet on the replacement boats. If you have a scheduled trip and they can not guarantee that the Maldives Aggressor boat will be out of dry dock prior to your trip I suggest that you cancel your trip and demand a full refund or a trip to another destination.
Now that I have gotten that warning off my chest, I will recount for you exactly how bad our experience was on our failed trip to the Malidives with the Aggressor fleet.
We booked our trip on the Maldives Aggressor back in May of 2014. We were a group of three experienced divers from the East Coast of the US. Myself, my husband and my father. We looked at a lot of different live aboard operators in the Maldives but decided that we felt safer going with an American company that we had heard of before. In addition my father had done a trip to Belize with the Dancer fleet about 10 years ago and had an excellent experience.
Fast forward to Oct 7th 2014. We are informed by email that the Maldives Aggressor will not be available for our scheduled trip (set to sail in 6days!). The email assures us that the new boat will be just as good and that members of the Aggressor crew will be along to ensure that we are taken care of in "Aggressor Style." We are a little annoyed at the switch but we figure it will be fine.
On the 8th of October, once we are already in route to the Maldives, we receive a second email. This informs us they they have secured a different boat than the first email indicated but that it is an upgrade. We think to ourselves that this email is a little suspicious, why switch replacement boats, but we again think it will be fine, we are even a little excited about the idea of an upgraded boat.
The day of pick up we arrive at the meeting spot in the airport in Male, which is the capital of the Maldives. We wait for Aggressor crew to pick us up to transport us to the boat. They are 15-20min late for pick up but we let it go because we are excited to start our live aboard trip. The transport at the airport in Male is directly by boat. The airport has a dock were we get onto a small boat for transfer to the live aboard. The boat that they pick us up in is old, has tires for fenders, and is dirty and cramped, in short it doesn't set a good impression. We look around and realize it has tank rests and bands. We realize this isn't just a small dirty transport boat it is our diving dhoni for the week.
The transfer to the main boat takes approx 15min. As we arrive at the main boat we realize that although it looks good from a distance, up close you can see that the paint on the hull is chipped and there are large cracks in the hull along with a large amount of sludge and dirt at the water line. it looks like the boat has never been serviced or cleaned. We are asked to remove our shoes as we exit the dhoni onto the back deck of the main boat. As we step onto the main boat we step onto an incredibly dirty frayed towel. There are bags of trash on the back deck and the engine compartment is propped up with a 2x4. We are asked to meet in the lounge area of the boat. As we walk from the deck of the boat into the interior space of the boat we are hit with an overwhelmingly sweet smell of apple air-freshner. We look around and realize that all of the air conditioners in the main interior space have multiple air-fresheners hanging from them which strikes us a odd. They are also held together with duct tape. We have our intro briefing. As the crew is introduced we realize that only two of the crew on the boat have any affiliation with the Aggressor boat, the rest belong to the replacement boat and are all wearing dirty clothing and don't look like they have showered anytime recently, suspiciously the captain of the boat is not available to introduce himself. We are also informed that we should feel lucky that we have such a nice boat this week. Shumi the Aggressor cruise leader for the week informs us that Aggressor knew the boat wouldn't be available for our cruise since at least late summer and they have done several cruises on replacement boats prior to our charter and those boats were not in good condition. He is happy with the quality of the boat this week and hopes we don't have any problems. Next we are assigned rooms. The rooms are large but filthy. Our bathroom shower was covered in mildew and the tiles were falling off the walls. The mirror and the shower door were covered in soap scum and filth. The pillows on the bed were stained. The air conditioner had the same apple air freshener attached but unfortunately it could not cover up the stench of mold and diesel fumes. We do a quick walk around the boat and notice that other rooms actually smell worse than ours. The deck is cracking in multiple locations and their are mattresses and dirty laundry covering the floor of the captains bridge.
We head down to give Shumi our dive certification cards and consider asking him about the problems in the rooms. Before we are able to he has already launched into a conversation on how we should feel lucky because this boat is much better than the other replacement boats. We are told that they next step is to sort out our dive gear. We do that and get our gear set up. It goes ok for us but they run out of weights for other divers and divers that are renting equipment are having quite a problem finding any suitable equipment.
We settle in and have dinner (which isn't great). At dinner we sit at the same table as Shumi. He recounts for us exactly how bad the previous weeks trip was with overflowing toilets and people unable to sleep in their rooms. He again says he hopes we don't have any problems this week. We ask when we are going to set sail and he informs us that we are not going to move that night because we are going to be doing some local diving around the area tomorrow morning.
We are starting to feel very uneasy about the whole trip but we unpack and go to sleep hoping that the diving and seeing the maldives will make up for the conditions on the boat.
We wake up the next morning to do a first dive which goes ok and we eat breakfast. Over breakfast there are murmurs around the boat that there is a problem with the boats engine. We do our second dive of the day which is also good and return to the boat. We ask Shumi what is going on with the boat's engine and when we might move and he says that there is a "little" problem with the engine, they are going to get a part for the engine from Male and they hope to have it fixed soon. On further questioning we ask what is wrong with the engine and are told that one of the pistons is cracked and needs to be replaced. That doesn't seem like a little problem to us.
Tensions rise on the boat because it seems that information is being withheld about the problems. We have a meeting in the early afternoon prior to the third dive were Shumi tells everybody about the problems with the boat. He also informs us that the boat will not be fixed until the very earliest tomorrow evening but their is not guarantee. It also becomes clear that they knew the boat was having problems with the engine when we boarded the boat but we were just not told. In fact the boat was anchored where is was because thats were it came to a grinding halt at the end of the last charter and didn't make it fully into the harbor. Passengers on the boat are starting to get frustrated and ask if there are any other boats available to use instead. Shumi informs us that he has investigated the other boats but they are all in worse condition than this boat (I am not really sure how that is possible), he actually used the phrase "they are not a place to put people." He does mention a smaller boat that is available but it is not big enough for everyone on board and it has a charter starting on the 19th so it would mean cutting our charter short.
At this point we are feeling really frustrated. We had planned this dive vacation back in May. It was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime. We had traveled half way around the world, used all our vacation days for the year and spent a lot of money in airfare, new gear, kennels for our dogs etc just to sit in the middle of the passage off the end of the runway in Male on a disgusting boat that couldn't move and we were being told they had no solutions to fix the problem. Infact, they didn't even so much as offer an apology.
We try and deal with our frustration and take off for our third dive. We get on the boat to find one of the dive dhoni crew analyzing our tanks. It's luck that we caught him analyzing the tanks because the tanks had no markings what so even to indicate they were Nitrox. Neither of us dive nitrox so we asked him to replace them with air. As we near the dive site we gear up and get ready to enter the water. One of the dive masters shouts out this side of the boat with me the other side follow Risey (one of the other dive masters). This is not what we had discussed in the dive briefing where we were separated into 3 groups, so things got a little chaotic. Everyone gets into the water ok and we start to descend. I started to have a little bit of problems equalizing so I descend a little slower than normal. The dive master from my side of the boat signals to me asking if things are ok and I signal back saying that my ears aren't good. That's the last I see of him. I continue a slow descent with my dive buddy. We get down to 60 feet and realize that there is no one else to be seen. We look around a little bit but realize that we are not sure of the direction to go (the dive site consists of a pinnacle that we were told to follow the guides to and then we would all follow them back to a wall to continue the dive). We don't see the pinnacle or the wall or any other divers so we decide to go up, do a safety stop and go back to the boat. We deploy our safety sausage at beginning of our safety stop. We get to the surface and look around and identify our boat. Not only are they not on their way over we can see all the crew sleeping on the top of the dhoni. It takes another dive operator to get their attention so we can be picked up. We get back on the boat just fine. While we are waiting for the rest of the divers one of the divemasters surfaces alone. He gets back on the boat and comments to us "No one wanted to follow me so I came back up" (what?). Anyway, we wait for the remainder of the divers. The remainder of the divers finish their divers and get back on the boat. Our dive master gets back on board and we question why he didn't wait for us when I was having trouble equalizing. He simply replied "we don't do guided dives" in a very snarky tone. In talking with the other divers is evident that multiple other dive groups got lost on the dive as well and never saw the pinnacle or the reef because their dive masters just kept swimming full speed and never looked back to see if anyone was with them.
At this point, we are getting really angry. The boat is in horrible condition and the engine is broken. We have no real acceptable solution being offered and the diving is a little scary because safe dive standards are really not being followed.
We get back to the boat and several other passengers ask to use the Shumi's phone to contact Aggressor in the US. Aggressor's response is, It's monday morning and we are just getting into the office and reading the emails from Shumi from over the weekend. We need to assess the situation and we will get back to you. What! You have a charter of paying customers stranded on a disabled boat on the other side of the world and this is the first time you are learning of it!
At this point we are appalled. There is no sign that any progress has been made with the engine and there is no other boat available to accommodate all the passengers. We decide that we didn't come all this way to sit on a dilapidated boat off the end of the runway in the Maldives and we ask Shumi to find us a travel agent to talk to so we can make alternate arrangements. We ended up leaving the boat the following morning and staying at a resort with a dive operator for the remainder of the week.
I know this is long winded but I don't even think it covers all the atrocious things that happen on our short 48hrs ordeal. Let it be known we are seeking a full refund from Aggressor and will never go on another trip with them and I would never recommend them to any other diver.
I hope my post will help prevent other divers from ending up in the same "boat."
