Kira Kira, Indonesia

I did a 10 night trip through Raja Ampat. Kira Kira has been recently remodeled so there are now 4 double/twin cabins and 2 small singles for a total of 10 passengers. Dive deck is spacious and well organized - lots of space to hang your wetsuit and clothes between dives and a covered area to hang out and relax. All diving is done off a small speedboat and dive guide/diver ratio is 5:1.. The crew, from the fabulous cook and always smiling dive boat driver was awesome and they seemed to work as a team, stepping in where necessary to help each other. Meals were always plentiful, favorful varied and the snacks were always homemade - you never went hungry on this boat! Beachside BBQ on the last night was great way to end the trip. The rooms are very basic but you're there to dive. All are below deck and ventilation is through the hinged roof part that props up. A small fan is the only other means of moving air through the room. Some people chose to sleep up on the top deck as it can get hot in the cabins. 2 bathrooms are shared among the 10 crew and 10 passengers and there is only fresh water to shower after the last dive. Don't expect hot showers and your shower is basically a rinse. Essentially, think of this as camping on the ocean. Diving: Raja Ampat sells itself so I won't comment on that. We did 26 dives of which 1 was a pretty mediocre night dive. Dives were stricly timed at 60 minutes or 50 bar. About 25% of our dives had some sort of current - if you have a reef hook, bring it as you may need it for stroner current dives. For the liveaboard: 2 dive guides Faldi & Safri appear to be new to the boat this season and their area of expertise seemed to be more in the Komodo/Lauban Bajo area rather than Raja Ampat. Safri was the "cruise director" and determined the dive itinerary . Compared to other dive guides didn't seem to be all that engaged with finding things or pointing out things except for the obvious - shark, pygmy seahorse, baraccuda, trevally, etc. He led the dive and made sure we stayed within our time limits but the other divers were the ones that were frequently finding interesting things and pointing things out. Safri wasn't particularly exceptional - it appeared that Faldi was more engaged with pointing things out to his group and checking in with them to make sure they were doing ok. Other: I found sorting out the bill at the end to chaotic. Prices for the Raja Ampat fee had changed from the 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 IDR but was never able to get an adequate explanation as was also the case for the rental equipment and beverages which had gone up compared to the website and briefing info that we received. In the scheme of what I paid, it wasn't a huge deal but I wish that they updated the informationn- all about setting expectations. Make sure you bring IDR to tip the crew - you can pay the balance of your bill through Wise (get that set up before you leave for the trip) or IDR cash. On the subject of tips, I wish they had given us an option to pool our tips as they gave each of us 2 envelopes marked "crew tips" and "dive guide" tips but with our names on it. 6 of us decided to put all our money into 1 envelope for crew tips and another for the dive guides and avoid the whole "xyz is from guest abc....". There's always that matter of how much to tip as well and how to allocate the tips - does the dive guide as an individual get 25% with the other 75% to be shared among the other 8 people or should it be more even? Do you take into account local wages vs a percentage of what you paid? All in all, a good trip as long as you understand that this is a pretty basic liveaboard but you get to enjoy the same diving as you would a liveaboard charging 3x the price.

First and foremost: diving was great. Dive guides Claire and Alex were very enthusiastic about diving and accommodating to guests’ needs. Instead of advertised 19 dives, we did 25 over the course of 7 days. This is wonderful! However the facilities on the boat and the boat itself are not very diver-friendly. The biggest issue: fresh water only for an hour or so after all dives for the day are finished. No fresh water at other times, even to wash hands before meals. This is just unsanitary, especially in the tropical climate. Only one small bucket with fresh water for cameras where the water would not be changed for days and become just gross. Another issue is the boat design with very narrow passes where people constantly bump into each other, and kitchen combined with the dining room causing the dining room to be very hot most of the time. Overall, Kira Kira is good value for the money, if all you are looking for is diving. It would be great value, if they could fix the fresh water issues. Maybe a second fresh water tank?