Review of 5d/5n Burma Liveaboard Dive Trip with AICD (Based in Ranong, Thailand)

[Aidc]

Lars and Gitte ask me to put in this comment from the same trip….. Preben

When I read the comment from the Romanian couple, I could not even recognize the story. We were a group of 5 who was on the same trip.
It is true there were problems with the gear 2 times and we were delayed for the same reason. We were therefore in compensation, an extra day of diving and a private guided tour of the port city of Myanmar. All paid by AIDC.
We were all in the same boat and with good spirits (except the Romanian couple) we all got a really good experience. We knew that the Romanian couple stayed pretty much for themselves and were very often disputed our views. Now they write that someone close shortly had died. That I am sorry to hear, but that makes things clear to me . You always see the world based on your emotions. So maybe the Romanians should have chosen to postpone their travel. It makes me sorry on their behalf.

It also makes me sorry that it damages AIDC reputation, which is not justified.

I think we could have had 20 dives if we wanted.
I saw no air-condition in any of the cabins.
There was a briefing before each dive (if you were present and awake) and Romanians chose to dive alone, and since the competent diver instructors could not guide them, the Romanians obviously did not see the fantastic dive sites.
What a shame it will be if such a negative attitude is to prevent others from getting the same good experiences the rest of us got.
Some times damages occurs to a ship, that can happen to anyone and Preben did his utmost to make everyone happy.
We had a really good atmosphere on board. But maby the Romanian couple had expectations of more luxury and service. I can only recommend that they then take a luxury ship with French chefs, etc.
We had good Thai food and for fun (some of us - customers) made the dinner in the galley, because the cook was covered in oil as he desperately helped to repair the gear. That evening we made special meal for Romanians and we did our best with the vegetarian food. Here the Romanians also could have chosen to participate, but waited until we (who were also guests) served their food on the table and then they went to bed. They had a bed similar to the others on their deck and I have not heard others complain.
We had some great dives and the highlight for me was definitely the seven meter manta.
You are welcome to view pictures from this trip on our private web site under the gallery in the menu at Velkommen til Hydrobia.
We had a great trip and since it is the second time we were with AIDC in Myanmar and had not experienced any problems, I hope the readers will understand that the criticism in speak is based in an unhappy personal background more than in a sincere experience.
We clearly have a desire for another fantastic diving with AIDC, Preben, Carmen, Mischa, Pong and other crew members.

Sincerely,
Gitte and Lars

 

[Deefstes]

Thanks for posting that report Preben. There are always two sides to every story and I think it is important that readers get both sides before the make up their mind one way or the other.

Having said that, there were still a few worrying comments made to which you have not provided adequate response. Of course you are under no obligation to address all of these issues but as far as I'm concerned no response speaks volumes.

I've asked four questions which I don't think are out of place considering the allegations that were made. Would you mind answering these four questions to set my mind at ease. We've just returned from Thailand and would love to visit Burma as well. If we do we will most certainly try to get some diving done and it helps to have some insights on how operators in the area function.

1. Do you consider it acceptable that someone is required to sleep in a cabin from where the diesel engine is visible through the floor boards and which smells of diesel fumes?

2. Do you consider it acceptable that a DM continues a dive with half of the dive group missing? From what I understand the DM either knew that the two divers surfaced for extra weights but decided to leave them behind and continue the dive or the DM didn't know what happened to them and decided to continue the dive. Both scenarios sound ludicrous to me.

3. Do you consider it acceptable for a diver in your group to sever a starfish's leg? From your response it sounded like you do.

4. Under what sort of conditions would you consider offering some sort of compensation to your customers? I'm just wondering about stuff like cabins with slits in the floor that opens up to the engine room and a vessel breaking down such that the customers lose 2 days of their holiday. I would find it hard to convince myself (or others) to dive with an operator that does not consider those conditions to be grounds for compensating their customers with more than just a verbal apology.

 

[limirl]

Bowmouth
[My 2 questions are:
Is there any form of drift diving against the current?
How safe and fun will it be to go diving in dark caves with AIDC?]

Apparently not very safe since they have malfunctioning and insufficient supplies of torches to go around !

 

[Guitarfish]

Gitte and Lars, two Danish divers (just like Preben, the AIDC owner) had the luxury to stay in one of the two upper deck cabins, and obviously they did not had any problems with diesel fuel smell in their cabin.

I think many would dispute the views of divers who laugh about forcefully pulling a distressed moray out of its hiding place, or breaking a leg off a sea star.

Thank you for pointing out the mistake I made when I mentioned "air-conditioning". Of course I meant the fan, which of course also only runs with generator power at night.

Gitte and Lars where diving with another divemaster, so I cannot comment on their dive briefings. Our pre-dive communication with our instructor would not have passed PADI standards.

W.r.t. the food, we did not get only pasta, but "a lot of pasta". And we did appreciate the really nice food prepared for us on the last day by another Danish diver, who served this meal to all of us, not just to my wife and myself. We thanked the other Danish diver personally for preparing such a good meal, given that the ingredients were canned food left after an all too long liveaboard nightmare.

Yes, we did go to bed early, of course. If you read my review, you would know that we had not gotten much sleep at all during this trip, and you would know why.

The death of a close family member has nothing to do with the facts that I am stating in my review, apart from that it resulted in the AIDC owner pushing us onto the already full Burma boat, despite knowing about the cabin problem. You should be ashamed of even bringing it up, Preben!

 

[Aidc]

I will come back with some answers to some of the accusations, but we are on the way out for 5 days Burma trip and I don’t have the time now.
Will be back on April 8th.

Preben
Aidc

 

[jamiemac]

We read lots of trip reports like this, and it's inevitable that things sometimes go wrong on dive trips, and the further and longer you go , the more problems you're going to encounter.

I 've run some appalling trips, I'd hate to read a trip report about them, but generally divers and crew muck in together and return with a feeling of comradarie and satisfaction.

i'm not saying dive operators should be forgiven sloppy planning and practises but surely the adventure of a dive trip would be diminsished if it went exactly to plan every time, no variations,

the art is still getting the job done and having a good time, only my opinion.................

 

[Bowmouth]

Bowmouth
[My 2 questions are:
Is there any form of drift diving against the current?
How safe and fun will it be to go diving in dark caves with AIDC?]

Apparently not very safe since they have malfunctioning and insufficient supplies of torches to go around !

It's not just the torches I was thinking of.
True cave diving should only be done by properly certified experienced cave divers and not just by any certified recreational scuba diver.

Overhead environments are likely to become a death-trap for divers without proper training when things go wrong. Recreational divers have died in caves and caverns in Thai waters in the past and there are still many DM's and Instructors out there who will take their divers on a tour in caves and through tunnels without a blink.

Imho it's foolish, unprofessional and asking for trouble.

 

[Bowmouth]

the art is still getting the job done and having a good time, only my opinion.................

If we have to believe the OP then neither a good job was done by the operator nor did the OP have a good time.

 

[lord khram]

4. Under what sort of conditions would you consider offering some sort of compensation to your customers? I'm just wondering about stuff like cabins with slits in the floor that opens up to the engine room and a vessel breaking down such that the customers lose 2 days of their holiday. I would find it hard to convince myself (or others) to dive with an operator that does not consider those conditions to be grounds for compensating their customers with more than just a verbal apology.

Not wanting to go into too much detail as some of my experiences are already well documented on these forums. But I have found this no refunds policy is a problem throughout the industry in Thailand not only on liveaboards, most operators I have dived with operate like that.
Whilst things can happen that are beyond operators control, such as weather related problems and breakdowns etc, (we all have to accept those). To me the problem lies when what is sold is not provided to the customer through direct decisions taken for commercial reasons, such as when pre arranged destinations are changed because a big party of snorklers book on the boat. I have experienced such numerous times without any consultation, warning or appology.

 

[jamiemac]

If we have to believe the OP then neither a good job was done by the operator nor did the OP have a good time.

mmmmm, when it all goes south you want them to come back and say

' that was hell, but i enjoyed it in a funny sort of way!'