Trip Report Trip Report: Mermaid 1 (Route: Bali-Komodo-Bali)

[jetsettingbarista]

Beautiful video! I always enjoy your footage.

I agree, bad things can happen at any time, and that applies to anything in life. I place a high standard for liveaboards when it comes to maintenance and safety, more than other types of vacation experiences. IMHO, besides weather, most instances of a liveaboard to cease operation before and during a trip are avoidable and human driven. Proper and regular maintenance checks will keep the boat in tiptop shape. These liveaboard companies are insistent to turn the boat for the next trip, and I wonder how they can do any bow-to-stern inspections in the short time the boat is back at the dock. Well, they really can't, because greed drives the schedule.

An experienced captain who is well familiarized with the waters in which he/she is sailing should not hit obstacles in the ocean. My only experience on a boat is as a passenger, but it seems like GPS, gauges, nautical plotting maps, and advanced technology should keep any boat from impacting any fixed object in the water.

Very much of the same opinion, particularly when two issues occur on the same trip. One incident can of course be chalked up somewhat to bad luck, but two issues impacting the same trip is IMHO less likely to be bad luck and more likely to be due to controllable predictive maintenance and proactive servicing and repairs not being followed as rigorously as you'd hope, as a passenger.

 

[jetsettingbarista]

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Thanks for your report. I was on the Mermaid I in October 2023 and my trip also started late due to maintenance. It was only about 8-9 hours late but still pretty frustrating. I can't imagine losing 3 days on a liveaboard trip. Land based diving does not compare to liveaboard diving- especially when it comes to the cost of premium liveaboards like Mermaid I.

I feel this! Any diving time lost is always a disappointment. Glad you only missed part of a day!

 

[jetsettingbarista]

I am super impressed how gracious your report was...not sure I would have been so generous towards Mermaid if I were in your shoes.

I suppose it does go to show that even though lemons were tossed about, the way a company deals with them really is important, and the Mermaid team seem to have done a fairly decent job of making lemonade from the dem lemons.

Glad you got some good diving in.

Were you offered any form of compensation for missing out on a third of your trip?

Thank you for saying that! I wanted to be fair and factual, so that members of this board could have the information and draw their own conclusions from the data. I also wanted to be sure to give praise where praise is due, as plenty of people (particularly those on the boat) weren't the responsible party and worked hard to accommodate, and the boat is also their livelihoods.

From what I've read on a few other threads, including other ID liveaboards, it does seem like Mermaid did a fair-to-very-fair job of providing an alternative diving option and covering additional costs. The compensation was loosely as follows:

- 3 days of replacement shore diving covered (though note that the accommodation was a 3-star hotel, definitely not the 5-star as they claimed in their official comms linked above; the hotel was the Mimpi Tulamben - Mimpi Resort Tulamben · Mimpi Resort Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia, Tulamben, Karangasem, Kabupaten Karangasem, Bali 80853, Indonesien)
- no charges for rentals through the trip (we only needed regs)
- refunded our fuel surcharges
- covered the Komodo park fees
- complimentary nitrox through the trip
- covered transport costs (~50 euros)

They also offered a 20% discount for a future trip if occurring within the next 2 years, but after the second maintenance issue, I'm not sure we're keen to use it.