Hello,
recently I came back from week long liveaboard at Dedalus and St. John with Red Sea Aggressor IV. This was only my second liveboard, first being the Bajak (
Trip Report - Komodo Bajak liveaboard (Scuba Republic)) and I only had 50 dives before, so take the report as such, and as with any other report, this is my subjective opinion and impression and nothing else.
We did not have a large budget and were looking for 900-1000ish boat, trying to avoid Russian boats. This was not so easy, but eventually we chose MV Tillis. Just before booking, I discovered one of their boats just burned up and another one a year before, which made me fairly hesitant: However, at that time (and still up this week), I bumped over Aggressor having 63% discount on summer cruises, so the choice turned fairly clear. Later (in May), they added the same discount for the rest of the year and going to -67 % during summer - had we known this, we would have probably gone in October. If you look on their websites now, the discounts are still there, so I am not spilling any beans here, but the cruises are almost full. I should say, we would never have paid the full price, which is somewhat 2700 USD, we are simply not that wealthy; we would not even pay 1500 USD (in the context of the Red Sea).
First, to sum up my impressions:
Good
- Outstanding organization during the cruise.
- Up to 23 dives.
- Long dives - I averaged on 57:30 per dive - and many of them were deep.
- Great service crew.
- Safety seemed to be handled well.
Bad
- Some last minute itinerary decisions were not to my taste and were not discussed with (all?) guests.
- Only one dive at Elphinstone!
- Some guides were not so pleasant to deal with (not rude, just not pleasant) and I had very hard time understanding one of them under water.
- The conditions clearly specify there is a voluntary tip only, but the director said on the last day, that the tip is required at minimum of 100 USD pp.
- Bill for tips, gear, park fees etc. is prepared in USD, but then you pay in EGP (unless you have cash) and they used rate 3 % lower than the actual rate.
General organization:
There were 25 guests split into 3 groups. The groups were not set in stone and some people switch to get to their buddies or possibly for some other reasons. Here I truly understood this dive - eat - sleep - repeat thing. The organization was top notch and everything ran as a Swiss watch. The programme was fairly intense - four day dives every full day and an added night dive when possible. Almost everybody dove on nitrox (100 USD), air divers (and not just them) skipped some dives.
Safety breefing was thourough, I tested the emergency exit myself and it was open. There is a night watch. Charging in cabin is forbidden to prevent fire, there are charging stations outside, I never once had a problem to find a free outlet, but many people seemed to use them to keep swimming suits, glasses, other clothing etc.
They keep records of every diver's max depth, dive length and air left, which seems responsible: however, they do cheat on the sheet and if you report less than 50 bar, they just put fifty, sometimes the same for depth.
En suite
cabins were good, we were in a double, which was smaller, but not really by much given how the space is used. The engine sound is worse up front and of course boat rocking as well, but the sea was calm during the week. Toilet was placed very high and front to the wall, so it was pain to use.
Food
Food was decent, but nothing to write home about. Buffet breakfast after the morning dive tended to be the best, buffet lunch was ok, dinner was served. Fish and seafood was nearly always very overcooked, chicken so-so, red meat generally very good. For buffets, the choice was wide and not too heavy on meat.
Gluten-free note: The crew really did great job in providing gluten free food, I always had a plenty of options. Desert was almost never gluten free, but they usually made something extra for me. I was not expecting this kind of service, and would be good with just stuff to eat that is not always plain rice. Now I do not have a strong obvious reaction to gluten, so I do not know how well they actually did, but everything seemed trustworthy. I had diarrhea for the whole week, though, but it really seemed not food related, more like too much diving too deep. Apart from three meals, there were bowls of fruit available at all times and an afternoon snack, which I usually missed (and which was often not gluten free).
People (guests)
I would not expect myself to put this into a trip report, but the experience was strong. I have never ever been in a group of so inconsiderate, unkind and rude people and I definitely did not expect that this would happen among divers. Now, I am not talking about not responding to greetings, whatever. People would just go where they want to and bump into you, saying no word. My gear was next to a gear of a Spanish in his 50s, when he went there, he just went through me, without a single sound. I tried to explain him what manners are and he did not do it again, but... come on. One German in our group pushed (like pushed pushed, not like tapped on her a few times to get her attention, nothing like that) my wife away from a moray eel, because she (as he evaluated) spent "too much time there" and he wanted to take a photo/video as well. Back on surface he made something up about not seeing a guide anymore and being back, but not why he would not simply swim around...? I read a while ago an opinion "I would never go with a company, which calls themselves "Aggressor"". I did not have this issue, but maybe the poster had a point and the name simply attracts such people.
On the bright side, eventually we discovered that we simply got mixed up with the wrong kids in the beginning and about half of people were nice and pleasant to talk to.
There was also a francophonic group, which stuck to themselves as they usually do.
There was only one Russian on the boat, he seemed like a nice guy, but was pretty much singled out. I felt rather bad for him, but even I found it difficult trying to approach him.
Majority of divers on the boat were from German speaking countries, mostly speaking German.
Also, some people (not correlated with their kindness) were really expecting way too much care and hand holding regarding diving. I saw people running low on air in some 20 m deep after 40 minutes, sharing gas. One girl went for the first dive and did not have a buddy, expecting that someone would just assign one to her (we were odd), but not asking and still going under water unbuddied. On the dive she got separated from the group (don't know why and how, as I ran out of air before her) and surfaced alone. By the way during the first safety briefing it was mentioned to buddy up. I think people need to be more active and responsible regarding their diving safety.
Speaking of hand holding, the guides were really there mainly to point the general direction and keep an eye on safety, not really guiding and looking for (small) stuff as in Asia. They were looking and pointing during the starring-into-the-blue dives.
