Aggressor Fleet

The boat was excellent but the diving was below expectations. Cold water with hit and miss viz. Not a lot of the marine life which I had hoped for...

Overall, I have a great time on the Aggressor lll. The crew was attentive in most part. I'm impressed that each and every member alternate duties as matre de and dressed according, a nice touch! The food was delicious and plentiful. Also, the beer and wine was a nice touch, even though, I only drink one glass of wine for my night cap. The dive sites I would rate "8" couple sites was mediocre to visibility. I accepted better from a live aboard, since, they can find shelter due to wind. Plus, we moved from a great visibility to a bad one for dive 3&4 and 1&2 on the last days. I was a little disappointed on the Blue Hole dive! They only had 2 dive guides and it was mandatory group dive w 16 dives, 2 stayed on board. The first guide had a video camera and another guide was in the back. So many protocol was broken!!! Divers exceeded 130+ depth, buoyancy control, lots of narc divers. My friend and I had to help a diver out, since, he couldn't control his buoyancy and was sinking too fast. The guide w the camera, finally, noticed it and came to our assistant, but, handed her video camera to my friend. I was carrying a camera too, but was a customer. There was a diver that just got her nitrox certification the night before and used nitrox on that dive. She didn't watch her depth!! And that was her first deep dive and doesn't have a deep dive certification and it was the 12th dive! Also, her 1st dive of the cruise day one, she should have been required to do a refresher course. Since, she haven't dove for over 2 years. The family with 4 teenagers didn't have enough dive to have dive the BLUE HOLE. Blue Hole dive should have been required to have an ADVANCE certification. It was a chaos dives in the BLUE HOLE. Other dives, they were sometimes 3 or 4 dive guides, so, why didn't they have 3 guides on the deepest dive!! Maybe, one w a camera to film and 2 guiding and be a safety diver! Also, when the dive guide has a camera/video camera they need to limit themselves how long they are filming their sea life subjects. Other people, especially, paying customers might have a camera too and want to take a picture of the sea life before it vanished off. I finally got tired on 2 instances and took my shoots cause he/she was taking too long.. However, I didn't do that to any other divers only the camera crew. The camera outlet needs to be in a better locations. I have to cover my electrical plugs and two instance the grid was OFF. I lost footage on the Blue Hole dive and a different day. I finally moved my electrical inside to charge and the captain made a comment. I even used and shared my 2 surge protector plugs for other divers. Safety on the Blue Hole and camera etiquette should be held HIGHLY, especially ,from the crew! Other than that they were a great crew and I had a great time! The chef, Randy, was the friendliest !!! The food was the best I had, especially, Vanessa, turkey's stuffing. I didn't eat a lot of snacks but it was plentiful and delicious. Also, they accommodate of doing a midnight dive since it was New Years Eve. However, we should have pushed back an 1hr/2hr for our morning dive to the Blue Hole. I think the lack of sleep made people cranky, including me. And some people was excited and narc cause of depth and lack of sleep. Would I dive on the Aggressor again with the same crew, YES. Now, they know my expectations. I did tip them, but, I deducted some due to etiquette and safety.

You can't go wrong with the Aggressor fleet. The Palau Aggressor II takes you to more dive sites than you could ever do from a resort and if there's enough interest they can organize a land tour of Pelileu island. They can also organize a trip after your dive trip to jellyfish lake and rock islands. There is more free time on this trip than other liveaboards at the end. The food is fabulous and the divemasters know where to find all the things you came to see. There are usually 3 divemasters in the water with 2 groups of divers.