Max is a 7th Day Adventist, as are many of the staff that work at either Sorido Bay or Kri Eco Resort. The fact they don't operate the dive boats on Saturdays (the day of the week most of the staff get a day off), is well documented, on their website, and part of information shared with each guest as part of the booking process. We dove the house reef twice on the Saturday during our most recent stay - so with planning this day off had virtually no impact on us (the kitchen service isn't limited, diving the house reef is available, etc).
My point is that when you are going on holidays to a resort it's not like you're going to a church, the owner beliefs are not supposed to impact on your vacation time. I would understand that if you were in a family homestay with very limited staff but not at this price level (one of the most expensive around) for a fully equipped resort catering to a well-off crowd.
You are paying your own vacations not the owners' holidays nor for a religious conference. (As a side note, all of Max Ammer's resorts reps are very active at sales shows in Europe on saturdays. There is no religious off day for selling or advertizing
. )
I guess all the staff in various resorts of Raja Ampat have their own beliefs the managers will cope with. That's called staff scheduling, there are also lots of 7th day adventists in Vanuatu for instance, never heard about a hotel doing nothing that day.
Why not then fast and avoid drinking water in Ramadan daytime when you're diving Indonesia, a mostly muslim country? (FYI that's what I experienced diving in Weh 10 years ago, you need to duck in the diveboats so that people don't notice you're drinking water.... been to Weh once, never been back, no thanks. You either want to welcome tourists or spend your personal time with your own stuff. Can't do both.)
- The house reef (right off the dock) is worth a dive or two.
Your own words... "a dive or two"... After all you "only" pay more than 400€/day per person in a dive package, in the end you spend one day on the housereef, the same housereef that you can dive everyday as a 3rd or 4th dive... "worth a dive or two" (sic.) What a great value for that day.
If you enjoy Raja ampat only diving the house reef, no problem it's your choice and your bucks... while all other resorts around will get you pay at most and for the more expensive 10%-20% less per day on average to get unlimited diving and boat trips everyday saturday included, not limited to housereef diving.
How can this be a "scam" if you knew this before booking? Conversely, how could you not know this before arriving if you are so well informed on everything?
I am not that infatuated as "some" to always be speaking about myself, I know it might be hard to conceptualize for some not to talk about theirselves.
Believe it or not- the FACT is I had feedbacks from some of my friends/people I spoke to who were surprized they were limited for diving on saturdays.
For some others who discovered that it was a no go decision at booking time.
You see, the purpose of being on a board is sharing information useful for people who -like the OP- are asking for, so pls do have the courtesy to provide the max useful information like for instance having limited dives one day of your stay, not just brag about how the holiday was so great ...
Add on top that it's only been quite recently, maybe 5-6 years that the renewed bungalows at Kri Resort the sister resort were equipped with full inhouse bathrooms not shared bathrooms outside the bungalow, at the price level it was sold (same price level as RADL for instance with full equipped AC bungalows) I still think it's not a good Q/P ratio and that there are better options.
That's where in my opinion the "
scam" is with Papua Diving resorts : too much marketing and too expensive compared to other options once you read all the lines of the quote.
Personally I like to go beyond the kool aid of marketing...
Last - "it's americans favorite resort" - during our 10 day stay we were the only Americans. The other 10 people were all Europeans or South Africans.
Being favorite resort to X type of customers doesn't mean customers are exclusively X type.
European divers will favor Papua Explorers, Agusta for italians, Raja4divers for upmarket customers or lesser known resorts (Biodiversity, Cove, etc.). Which doesn't mean they don't go to Sorido as once again Papua Diving (Max Ammer's operation) is very agressive on the marketing side, but they aren't overrepresented like americans are in this resort. Not sure the South African market is really a segment on his own for Indonesia.
FWIW : on the 5 last american divers I've been speaking to on various trips to Indo or Philippines and who have been to R4, they only mentioned staying at either Sorido or MER.
On the other hand, say the 10 last european divers I have been speaking to and who have been to R4, only 2 I know have been selecting Kri, I only remember one at Sorido. We can live without aircon
