Sipidan
- Thread starter Muzzman
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I'm on my way tomorrow, and have not "pre-booked" any permits. It's not necessary to do so. The resorts give the park authorities the names of the divers only the day before anyway.
Really, completely different to what I was lead to believe by the dive place. Very odd, how have they guaranteed me the next available free spot on the 11th. I believe what you say, just strange emails ive been having with them.
Yah, Muzzman, I'm guessing you booked with Scuba Junkies? That's just the way they run their own organization/office. It hasn't got anything to do with the way the permits are actually assigned. Each dive op gets a set number per day. The most anybody gets is 14 per day, some ops get fewer, some get none.
Ops with permits will make every effort to get you to Sipadan a certain number of times per number of days you book, so if you book 3 days, you get to go to Sipadan one of those days. If you book five days, they try to get you there two days. If you go during a slow period when an op may not have a maximum demand for permits, you may luck out and get to go more often.
Ops with permits will make every effort to get you to Sipadan a certain number of times per number of days you book, so if you book 3 days, you get to go to Sipadan one of those days. If you book five days, they try to get you there two days. If you go during a slow period when an op may not have a maximum demand for permits, you may luck out and get to go more often.
It really depends where you stay. From my understanding resorts get 14 permits each, so you are better staying at the smaller resorts if you want to dive sipadan. I stayed at Mabul Water Bungalows, while being a fantastic resort, I would not stay there again because they have many more guests, but the same number of permits, so while they will do whatever possible to get you to sipadan, they will only guarantee one day in sipadan if you stay there one week.
Actually, not every resort gets 14 permits. That's the maximum any operator gets, and not all resorts get the maximum. Some get 14, some get as few as 7 and some get none at all. But it's correct that the 14 (or however many) have to get divided up amongst all the guests at the resort, so the divers at larger resorts with more guests find they're in competition with many more others for the same number of permits. It's also true that if a resort doesn't need all its permits in a particular day, they may cede some to other resorts that do need them.
---------- Post Merged on July 11th, 2012 at 07:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was on July 10th, 2012 at 02:52 PM ----------
I just found out late today that I'm scheduled for my second Sipadan permit for tomorrow! Yay!
---------- Post Merged on July 11th, 2012 at 07:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was on July 10th, 2012 at 02:52 PM ----------
I just found out late today that I'm scheduled for my second Sipadan permit for tomorrow! Yay!
dirtfarmer
Contributor
Quero, how was your time diving Sipadan/Mabul? I just booked 9 days diving there in Nov.
I see your diving Dauin soon. Enjoy! Love that area, I got my first taste of muck there. I was lucky to be able to dive "the Pier" when it was open. It was incredible!
I see your diving Dauin soon. Enjoy! Love that area, I got my first taste of muck there. I was lucky to be able to dive "the Pier" when it was open. It was incredible!
Yeah, I'm actually waiting to board my flight to MNL right now. Mabul was good. I spent ages (one entire dive in fact) trying to get decent shots of mandarin fish! I got two Sipadan permits over 3.5 days of diving, which was pretty lucky.
---------- Post Merged on July 22nd, 2012 at 12:07 AM ---------- Previous Post was on July 21st, 2012 at 11:58 PM ----------
What are you looking for in terms of comfort and price? BD and SJ both have low-end bungalows (though not as gritty and low end as places like Billabong and Uncle Changs). There's a new resort being built, but it looks like it will be a long time before it's ready (right now it's only pilings in the sand bank). SMART has bungalows too, but as noted above they share permits with MWB. There's SWV, but it's packed with Chinese snorkelers, who also use permits (like 2x the number of snorkelers as divers). Based only on the diving services, KDR would be my choice for more comfort. BD for bungalows. If I wanted lots and lots of dives on Sipadan proper, I'd book CE.
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