Then the thing nobody warns you about. Most places I dive have photo guides: people who know the biology, run small groups, and will give you ten minutes on a single frame. A large liveaboard does not work like that. We were seven in our group and eight in each of the others, split by experience, and the guides are there to keep you alive rather than to help you shoot. It was the first time in over a decade I had dived that way. If you are coming from a resort in Indonesia, plan to be on your own.
The guiding has a harder edge too. On more than one dive I watched guests stand on the reef to steady a shot while the guides held the camera for them, and nobody said a word. That is the number under Sustainability, and it is the thing I would ask about before booking.
The food was buffet and decent. The queue was not. Guests loaded up at the front and there was not enough left by the time the back arrived, a fixable thing, and it had not been fixed. My cabin sat at the bow, so I heard the anchor chain every night the boat moved.
I booked late at fifty percent off, and at that price it was remarkable. At full price I would not go back. At twenty-five percent I could be talked into it.
