Chris Underwater
Registered
Earlier this season (October/November) I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Raja Ampat, which included three liveaboard trips on La Galigo.
La Galigo is what I would classify as an upper middle class boat - nothing fancy, but way above a budget liveaboard. They offer three different trips: Ultimate Raja Ampat (12d, all around Raja), South (9d, Misool & Central), North (8d, Central & North). I did all three of them back to back, and here are my overall impressions about these trips:
- boat: enough space for everyone and everything, 14 passengers max, with 16 crew. In good shape and well maintained, great cabins with lots of storage space. There were some minor issues in the cabins during the trip, which were taken care of by the crew swiftly. The sundeck could be improved with more shade, which apparently is already planned for the future.
- food: great food quality and variety, a nice mix of indonesian and western.
- crew & service: among the best I have seen on any liveaboard. Everyone was super attentive, you always got a helping hand before you even knew you needed it. The crew members were super friendly and great fun as well, and always up for a chat and/or joke. They were also great at their respective jobs.
- organization: extremely good itinerary planning and execution. We got an extensive briefing each evening on the following day. Distribution of dives and the occasional land visits over days felt perfect. The land visits themselves (1-2 per trip) were very well received by all guests. Individual pickups/dropoffs from or to the hotels/airports were well organized and worked flawlessly.
- diving operation: divers were split into three groups, so 5 people max per group. The group setup was done by experience and air consumption of the divers. Groups were staggered a bit when going for dives, since the dive deck is on the smaller side. Diving is done from to smaller dinghies, the crew handles all the equipment with care and efficiency when loading/unloading those. Dive briefings were extensive with some very exquisite map drawings. The divemasters knew the sites well and did a very good job.
- communication: both the back office before and the cruise director on the trips did a fantastic job at providing the necessary information and answer any questions at lights speed.
Overall I (and everyone else on all three trips I did) had a fantastic time on La Galigo. While it misses a few nice-to-have things many of the upper class boats have, like a camera-room for example, it is a very solid and well run boat. And more importantly: you get to be part of a family-like group of extremely friendly and fun, but also highly skilled, motivated and service-oriented people. This makes this boat great value for money and a fantastic choice for diving in Raja or Komodo. I will be back!
Trip video:
Surface intervals in Raja:
La Galigo is what I would classify as an upper middle class boat - nothing fancy, but way above a budget liveaboard. They offer three different trips: Ultimate Raja Ampat (12d, all around Raja), South (9d, Misool & Central), North (8d, Central & North). I did all three of them back to back, and here are my overall impressions about these trips:
- boat: enough space for everyone and everything, 14 passengers max, with 16 crew. In good shape and well maintained, great cabins with lots of storage space. There were some minor issues in the cabins during the trip, which were taken care of by the crew swiftly. The sundeck could be improved with more shade, which apparently is already planned for the future.
- food: great food quality and variety, a nice mix of indonesian and western.
- crew & service: among the best I have seen on any liveaboard. Everyone was super attentive, you always got a helping hand before you even knew you needed it. The crew members were super friendly and great fun as well, and always up for a chat and/or joke. They were also great at their respective jobs.
- organization: extremely good itinerary planning and execution. We got an extensive briefing each evening on the following day. Distribution of dives and the occasional land visits over days felt perfect. The land visits themselves (1-2 per trip) were very well received by all guests. Individual pickups/dropoffs from or to the hotels/airports were well organized and worked flawlessly.
- diving operation: divers were split into three groups, so 5 people max per group. The group setup was done by experience and air consumption of the divers. Groups were staggered a bit when going for dives, since the dive deck is on the smaller side. Diving is done from to smaller dinghies, the crew handles all the equipment with care and efficiency when loading/unloading those. Dive briefings were extensive with some very exquisite map drawings. The divemasters knew the sites well and did a very good job.
- communication: both the back office before and the cruise director on the trips did a fantastic job at providing the necessary information and answer any questions at lights speed.
Overall I (and everyone else on all three trips I did) had a fantastic time on La Galigo. While it misses a few nice-to-have things many of the upper class boats have, like a camera-room for example, it is a very solid and well run boat. And more importantly: you get to be part of a family-like group of extremely friendly and fun, but also highly skilled, motivated and service-oriented people. This makes this boat great value for money and a fantastic choice for diving in Raja or Komodo. I will be back!
Trip video:
Surface intervals in Raja:
