Well its been a full two weeks and no response from anyone at Aggressor. I emailed Wayne Brown and about 4 VPs.
This is the letter:
"To Aggressor CEO Wayne Brown, Et al.,
I sailed with the Philippines Aggressor on the April 30-May 7 trip.
Having heard both good and bad reviews about Aggressor boats, I decided to book this liveaboard due in large part to billing itself as “new” in 2020 with its maiden voyage April 7.
Unfortunately, this was hands down the worst experience I’ve had on a liveaboard and dive trip in general.
From the very start of the trip, the tone was set.
Four days before embarkation, I queried if I might still avail of the hotel pick up, knowing there was a 7 day minimum window. The answer was no. Fair enough, I was happy to meet at the airport at the allotted time window of 4-5pm. At 5:15, with still no sign of Aggressor staff, my driver and I went around asking if anyone had seen any. At 5:30, I asked staff from the Atlantis Azores if they knew where the Aggressor was docked as that boat was on the same schedule. They were kind enough to ask their boat to relay a boat to boat message and was told an Aggressor van should be at the airport.
At 5:45, with still no staff in site, the driver found out from the hotel that the Aggressor van was there picking up a guest. As it turns out, a fellow diver was at the SAME hotel I had stayed and had booked the hotel transfer.
Why Aggressor did not know this and tell me as much is odd to say the least. I had submitted my hotel information on the GIS portal weeks before. So had the other guest who did schedule a pickup. Why the disconnect? It would have saved much stress and anxiety. We raced back to the hotel so I could join the pickup only to return to the airport to pick up one more diver.
Absurd.
At this point, it was 6:30pm. Way beyond the scheduled meet time (and embarkation) and I found myself regretting not booking with the Atlantis Azores when I had the choice of both boats.
The schedule for the first night was confusing. Guests were checked in and eventually shown to their cabins but we were told to wait to have dinner before we could deal with our gear. At that point it was almost 9pm.
Dinner (which served as a bad omen for meals to come) was lobster but was almost raw. One guest ended up with stomach issues the next day and I was to join him in that state but caused by another dish.
My cabin, #5 was uninhabitable. I spent one night in it since I was very tired but the next day requested that I be able to sleep in the salon if there was no other cabin. The worst issue was the smell of diesel that emanated from the engine room. The noise was expected but the air quality was hazardous. Apparently, there had been some last minute cancellations, so I was able to change to another cabin. I must add that the my first cabin was very dirty. There was visible dirt on flat surfaces. And as with the entire boat, looked not new but at least 10 years old. Aside from the dirt, there were rusty drains, cracking walls, mismatched carpeting, stains on carpets…
This was supposedly the 3rd trip ever and it felt as if this boat has been in service for a decade.
Having a plastic mat on the shower stall floor that has probably never been cleaned or replaced was not hygienic. The second cabin I was in had no soap, no soap/shampoo dispenser in the shower, the shower door did not close all the way, water took at least 8 minutes to get warm if at all for showering, and there was only one useable outlet. For a boat based in Asia, why are there Middle East outlets and no adapters?
Eighty percent of the time I entered my cabin, it reeked of the toilet drainage system. This was shared by other guests and one guest had her shower drain overflow with terrible smelling water. Luckily for her it was on the last night.
Returning to the food: On the first day of diving, the midday snack was eggrolls. I ate one and it was fine. I looked at the second one after I bit into it and noticed too late the pork was raw. Unfortunately, I suffered because of that later that evening. I spent the night in my cabin vomiting. The crew thought it might be seasickness but I do not suffer from it. By the next morning luckily it had passed since my body vacated all food the night before. That is when I found out a fellow guest also had gastrointestinal trouble from the food.
Overall the food was not to my liking. Meats were often times swimming in a sweet sauce. Vegetables were of the frozen variety prepared in different ways in differing sauces. Salad was just lettuce. I learned to just ask for olive oil as the dressings offered were just not good and indiscernible.
A main dish one day was a whole red snapper. Impressive to look at but it was served raw and had to be put in the oven only to be ready after everyone was finished.
There was a granola I enjoyed but only had one bowl since there was only one small bag of it for the entire trip, for all guests.
The 2 meals I enjoyed were the lechon kawali and the breaded chicken cutlet with spaghetti.
Could a better chef be more creative with the budget given for food? I don’t know.
The free-flow wine caused a shortage in the red wine since a group of French divers would plow through 3-5 bottles a night just amongst themselves leaving the rest of the boat with no red wine for ½ the trip. Some sort of policy should be in place for that.
One of the biggest issues was the fact the itinerary was changed unbeknownst to the guests. By luck of having a diver on back to back trips, it was revealed that there would be no dives on the 6th day as advertised. Instead, we would return early to Puerto Princessa and all be “treated” to a day trip in town.
As explained, this was so the boat could be turned around in time for the next trip.
If that were to happen, I was planning on just leaving the boat when in port and flying out. As word spread, as expected, no one was happy with this bait and switch. Apparently, some calls were made and the itinerary that was sold to us and paid for was put in place.
How management thought this was a good idea, I cannot fathom.
On the last night while in port, an agent was on board to take payment for fees and we were told credit cards could not be used. This would be fine if I had not sent an email to Jimmy Summers before the start of the trip asking specifically if credit card can be used to pay fees. Ultimately, a workaround was found but why again the misinformation?
Finally, a small negative was not having medals and BC tags for the “Iron Divers” on this trip that is Aggressor hallmark. Myself included.
I will add that the only reason I have fond memories of this trip is due to the friends I made and the crew who tried very hard to make us divers happy. They were all very nice and helpful and I have nothing but praise for the cruise director, Chris Cruz on down to the engineers. Thankfully, the dive experience was very good and it was a pleasure to be underwater. On board was another story.
But, ultimately, because of this experience, I can safely say I will never book another liveaboard trip on an Aggressor boat. I know all boats are a separate franchise and this one should be given closer scrutiny. I wondered in awe how some of my fellow divers had been on multiple Aggressor trips if they were all like this one.
Thank you for your time and consideration."
As an aside, I learned the trips before and after mine both had Covid on board. At least we dodged that bullet.
