Nekton Rorqual Review

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5166narda

Guest
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
Location
townville
# of dives
100 - 199
I was on the Nekton the first week of May 2009 and here are my comments.
I sent these to Nekton and their response is below my comments.
You can see by their response, that they are not looking for repeat guests.

We have sailed on the Pilot in Belze in the past and had a super time which is why we came back to Nekton.
My wife and I just returned from the Nekton Rorqual and thought you would be interested in some of our observations.
The briefing on Saturday evening did not start until 9:30pm and some guests were falling asleep as it was a long travel day for many.The briefing took just over an hour.
The Sunday morning briefing did not start until 8:40am and lasted over an hour again. This caused us to only be able to do one morning dive on Sunday.
There were no dive masters available for night dives.
There were no dive masters available for the pier dive on Thursday afternoon (I did two dives in the afternoon and asked both times).
They did not do any presentations/talks in the evenings even after being asked by multiple guests and saying they would.
The crew liked to watch movies.
The smoking section expanded as the week went along to include everywhere except the main salon.
The captain (Denise) was burnt out and let us know it. I believe that this is her last week.
The staff just did there job, period, nothing extra or without being asked. Ryan was the exception and was always helpful and friendly.
The boat is showing its age. The bathroom door did not close. The outside rinse showers were very hot and the spring to automatically shut the shower off did not work (this was a problem for my wife as she if very short).
The food and Grace were excellent!
The reef is great and in pristine condition.

Here is Nektons response:
Thank you for your feedback. We are in a transition period for the Rorqual crew and we appreciate your feedback. I am glad you enjoyed the diving and we look forward to getting the rest of the operation back up to our usual service level.
 
5166narda,
welcome to this board.
sorry to hear your trip was not perfect.
i'm sure this won't stop y'all from going on liveaboards in the future.
i'm sure the next trip will be great.
regards,
 
I'm under the impression the turnover is fairly high on Nekton as a mechanism to log sea hours. In addition, there is little 'corporate' can do to effect change on your trip after the fact... So, unless you speak up while underway, no one can really make efforts to improve the experience of your vacation.

I did a week on Pilot last year, and planning on a repeat to Cay Sal in September... we filled half the boat with rebreathers, so we're mostly low maintenance divers DM\guide wise, but VERY finicky about gear, stowage space, etc...

I hope you adjusted your tip envelope accordingly...

-Tim
 
Thanks for the candid message.

You didn't mention the destination, but I guess it's St Croix?

We had a similar experience, as in adequate job done, but nothing more. Feeling was more of going with them on a trip. This is not the trip to go on for the full liveaboard experts on board experience. Not the end of the world, but liveaboards in Asia would work these guys under the table. I'd agree that corporate can do little afterwards but are completely in control beforehand.

Nice Rush reference, netmage. "The more things change, the more they stay the same"
 
Hey, at least you got a response. :wink: After speaking with the captain at the time of my trip, the sales rep afterward, and sending two emails to the owner/manager, I never received a reply back from the owner/manager. My emails were extremely polite and tactful... very poor showing on the management's part, IMO.
 
You would think in this economy, businesses would at least keep the rules of six in mind.
 
Well folks seem to love or hate these guys.

They are sort of like the Motel 6 of liveaboards. It you know that going in - you have a more favorable outcome.
 
I was on the Rorqual last year and we had presentations most nights and some of them were very good. They can adjust how hot the water is for the outside shower. All we had to do was ask and it was done.
Yes, the bathroom door stuck. I talked to the engineer about it and he said they have to work on them all the time.
There was always a Divemaster or two in the water for each dive. I don't remember anyone using them to guide a dive but it was offered during the briefings.
There were some problems during the trip but if you took the Captain aside and discussed them, they were solved as best as they could.
 
Judging by the variation in experiences mentioned on the board, things change from trip to trip.

We didn't have any presentations on our last year trip except the last night where we saw the trip video.

The video itself was disappointing from capturing our trip viewpoint. Since the dive deck is smaller and tank to tank, we, along with some others, usually let a particular group go first and then dove. Only after seeing the video did we realize the video guy always went with the first group, so we weren't on the video except the arrival picture, which they shot up our nose since the photog was sitting. Only my wife's persistence got our only appearance changed. I still bought the video for the good critter video of what we saw, but the people shots were just a showcase of that particular group. Ironically, most of the featured divers cried about the video cost and didn't buy it. How video dude didn't figure out he was only covering half the guests was unfathomable to me, but it was par for the course. Amazingly, the video captured night dive critter harassment I witnessed by divers I'd initially considered ethical. Yes we brought it to the captains attention and his reaction was appropriate. I don't know what he did.

Funny that we missed being first on the dives, because too many dive briefs, usually from specific offenders, sucked with very little info. They didn't even know which way the current was going which is usually essential for most of my trips where I'd end up in Japan if the direction is wrong.

We dove a couple times with crew members when we didn't have buddies. Dives were never led. Most of the doors stuck to some degree since it's essentially a big metal box which tweaks and rusts.
 
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