Any Tropic Dancer, Palau reviews??

[Scoober]

Just spent a week on the Tropic Dancer, and everything went well. The Cap and Mate (literally and in terms of rank) are fresh in from Belize and did a fine job, but I was happy to have Ike as engineer and lead dive guide. Ike has been boating and diving Palau for nearly 25 years and he understands the currents and other conditions better than any other diver or driver I have dealt with in Palau. We also had a well qualified chef--the food was mainly excellent, although more than a week would have tired me out on a repetetive flavor profile based on butter and bacon. It would have been great to have some Asian nights, eg, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese. Especially with all of the fish around. All in all a great trip, and we had no hitches and glitches--except that the sat system was down and we had no email access on-board. Another thing: We had a particularly nice tender which was rented or borrowed from Neco Marine. Loved it! Not sure what the "usual" tender is like, but I hear that it is known as the "Ugly Duckling". And another thing: We had only 9 guests, all in one group, and the Dancer is outfitted for 18. This was really great! Obviously, a full boat would be a different deal altogether. Finally, I have never been on an "American" liveaboard before, and there was at times a sense of a bit too much official process. Sort of PADI-like. Such as no night dive on Friday, because the crew needed to sell viddies and fotos of our trip. Anyway, great trip, and I can recommend the Dancer.

[backpacking diver]

We just spent a week on the Dancer and it was the worst diving experience of my life-- I don't want to go on at length here (please see my trip report in this forum) but there were issues with safety as well as just lousy diving for the most part from dive supervisors who didn't seem to know or want to know where to put in/what to see. More info at my longer post! Hopefully it will help someone not make the same mistake I did.