Great trip on Kararu Cheng Ho, Ambon-Raja Ampat

I just got back from an incredible trip.

Absolutely incredible diversity of marine life. Hard corals, soft corals, schools and schools of fish.

The boat and crew were also fantastic. If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

I shoot video and hopefully I'll have something up on the net for people to see soon.

I never thought I could find anything better than Palau...then I found Raja Ampat/Papua!

How are currents in Raja Ampat? I would like to go in a years time. By then I may have 50 or so dives logged total so am not experienced like most of you folks. How suitable is it for a moderate experience level?

I recommend you get some more dives under your belt. You don't need to be a pro, but staying calm is important and that generally comes with experience.

The currents varied in strength and direction often on the same dive. Up currents, and down currents as well.

Ron, Glad you had a good time and good to hear you had a good experience with Kararu. Would love to hear more about the boat experience, especially given the mix reviews we seem to have seen recently on the Cheng Ho.

Hey Pakman. I admit I was a little concerned prior to the trip after reading the mixed reviews.

After coming back, I re-read the complaints just to get a perspective on things. IMHO, the complaints people had have either been corrected, are unusual or are what I'd consider minor gripes.

For example, hot water was not a problem at all. Minor water drips happened here and there on the rainiest days. I believe the cabin that leaked most frequently has become a crew cabin for the cruise directors. The crew was very careful with equipment and camera gear. Divers always had the option of handling their own camera if wished. But everyone elected to let the crew carry the cameras to/from the tender. The crew rinsed the cameras too before setting them down on the camera bench.

There was one person who lost their dive computer in the transition back onto the tender. I believe it had to do with some kind of failure or loosening of her hose quick connect, but it's hard to determine. They were given free nitrox in exchange and I believe some other additional compensation.

Tender boat crews were very attentive and I don't think anyone waited more than 30-60 seconds to get picked up.

My customer review card was filled with good remarks. The only suggestion for improvement I gave was to add 1 additional local divemaster experienced with the dive sites. That might be a difficult request to fill, as I'm sure they are in high demand. We had 2 very good divemasters. The cruise directors doubled as dive masters. They were competant dive masters, but could use more experience with the sites and finding the critters.

Ronscuba,
Wexare planning to joın Cheng Ho in december 2008...
No doubt diving in Raja Ampat is all divers' fantasy...
May I ask you about the rooms?
Did you have problems having a shower, finding hot/cold water,? What about toilets??
What can you say about the comfort, cleanliness etc...
Thanks in advance...

i have just returned from a trip on the Cheng Ho to Komodo in September.
I have also seen some of the negative reports and can confirm that the dive directors have clearly taken this on board and currently the boat is run really effectively, and this allows you to really enjoy the splendidly varied diving around Komodo.
I have been on quite a few liveaboards but found the night dives especially unique with so many original and unusual sights that I have been rather ruined for the average night dive offered.
I may have been fortunate not to have much ( if any?) rain whilst aboard and so had no problems whatsoever with leaking, and found the boat very spacious and genuinely very comfortable to be on, which along with good food and great diving meant I would thoroughly recommend this trip.
One interesting addition is a series of short informative video presentations which were very well received and are quite unusual in my experience on liveaboards.

Another view posted on Undercurrent.

The recent report on the Cheng Ho in Undercurrent was accurate, but overly
kind. We have have been on many of the major liveaboards, including Peter
Hughes, Aggressor, and Mike Ball. Kararu charges similar fares to these
operations, but falls short of them in terms of service and facilities.
The Undercurrent report points out many of these deficiencies, but I would
like to point out a couple more.

The biggest issue we had was with the cabin we were assigned. We booked a
"Deluxe Twin" cabin, but were placed in the smallest cabin on the
boat - smaller even than those housing one person. The cabin was about 100
square feet, including a small toilet/shower and bunk beds. There was
virtually no storage space, and barely enough room for the two of us to
stand up at the same time.

To make things worse, off-duty crew were constantly sitting, standing,
smoking and eating outside our door, leaving us with no privacy and keeping
us up at night.

After the trip we checked the ship layout on the web site. The room we
were in is marked "single" on the diagram. In fact, all four
cabins on the main deck are marked "single", yet two of them were
assigned to couples on our trip. We discovered this was because they
booked two more people on the trip than the posted maximum capacity of the
boat.

When we complained to Stein at Kararu Voyages about this issue, he refused
to acknowledge that anything was wrong with our accomodations. He said
that since the cabins on the main deck have bunk beds in them, they can be
used as doubles. So if you book a trip on the Cheng Ho, be aware that this
could happen to you.

The Undercurrent report mentioned the leaks on the Cheng Ho, but didn't
mention one aspect of it. The main indoor public area on the boat is the
lounge/dining room. There is a large counter in this room that serves as a
charging area for batteries, etc. As such, it is covered with 220 volt
power strips, along with various other electrical equipment.
Unfortunately, everytime it rained, water would fall on the charging table.
The staff would cover the area with plastic sheets, but water would run
off and pool on the floor. I shudder when I think about people reaching
under those plastic sheets with water on the floor.

The bottom line: Avoid Kararu/Cheng Ho like the plague.

I would say to sinemtaslan to have no fears at all re your December trip, it really is a boat that measures up, the trip I was on had no complaints, I guess it wasn't completely full but all the other guests compared it favorably to other trips they had been on, as did I. The diving was all I had hoped for - which is after all what you go there for - isnt it.
I do have sympathy when something isnt right it naturally colours your whole opinion, but I would go back again without reservation and to state "avoid like the plague" is not really very good advice IMHO.