@Dan
We spent 10 days at Sorido Bay during our last trip to RA, returned just about 5 weeks ago.
Without giving you all the details here's a quick summary:
- The resort (given the location) is nice, comfortable, food was good, etc. AC in the villas; beach front, friendly staff.
- The dive operation: ran efficiently, boats are fast (although the tank layout and securing the tanks is poor - longer trips saw a tank or two come loose, etc.). Very important to let the dive manager know what you are interested in finding/seeing. Our original guide was good at finding the big schools of fish, etc. but did not have a great eye (or interest) in finding the small stuff. The dive manager allocated a 2nd guide midway through our trip, she was phenomenal in finding the small things. It was a bit odd to dive with both of them on the same dive, but we were a family of 4 so it worked out. Some of the local dive sites (Sardines, Cape Kri, Sorido Bay Wall, etc.) are deservedly famous, others are typical for the region. We did see mantas on a couple of dives, as well as wobbegongs, and large schools of fish.
- The house reef (right off the dock) is worth a dive or two. The area forms a natural bowl, with nice hard coral coverage. The hard coral isn't pretty or varied, but it is prolific. There are 6-8 (fairly large) broadclub cuttlefish resident in the area - find 1, and you'll find the rest. You will also occasionally find turtles in the bowl (along with blacktip reef sharks along the flats around the bowl).
- One of the highlights for Sorido Bay are the resident Cuscus that show up in the restaurant in the evenings. They enjoy bananas - and will accept them directly from a human. We also saw a couple of other varieties of Cuscus in the surrounding trees. These are not domesticated, just residents.
We were left with a feeling that the experience was really good, but we felt like we may have missed out on a few things (walking sharks, although easily viewed snorkeling right off the beach, not on any dives, etc.). In the end, for the distance traveled, we likely were looking for a little more (although we couldn't quite name much more of what we thought was missing). We're headed to Triton Bay and Misool next year to see how that differs.
As I'm guessing you're aware, one of the dives they used to do was The Passage (which I did by LOB years ago). Fantastic dive, but the salt water crocs that have taken up residence have prevented anyone from diving this site for the last several years.