Review LOB Euphoria Raja Ampat

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indiedive

Contributor
Messages
105
Reaction score
37
Location
Minneapolis
# of dives
200 - 499
Review Euphoria LOB Raja Ampat
Departure date: 13 June
Return date: 24 June
Diving days: 10 (Central + Northern part of Raja Ampat)


Summary of the LOB: Poor value for money mainly due to disinterest from management guest experience. However the boat has friendly crew.

Advise: Excellent diving in Raja Ampat, I recommend anyone to dive in Raja Ampat. Wayag is certainly a stunning place. On a next visit to Raja Ampat, we will not choose Euphoria again.

UW Photos in Wayag, Raja Ampat is also available on my blog - Wayag Islands, the Icon of Raja Ampat | indahs: travel story & photography

Red line through our LOB experience with the Euphoria is the disinterest of management to ensure best guest experience. First sign of this experience started already when we were picked up from our hotel in Sorong. One of the staff arrived in our hotel, asked us to bring all our luggage outside, walk a few hundred meters to a street corner and wait in the burning sun for a taxi to bring us to the harbor. The taxi was actually a small van of public transport that had no passengers, in Indonesian language, it usually called as angkot.
Once arrived on board and shown to our room, we got a very short briefing on the boat. First thing we saw the crew did was spearfishing on a fish they saw swimming in the harbor! Later we found that the boat carried more than 10 spear guns on board (according to a German guest). What would a diving business need so many spear guns for?

Although the Euphoria is a nice boat with good facilities (our room has huge balcony) and we visited some great diving spots, our experience was not as good as it should have been:


  • Many meals had only fish as protein while there is guest had indicated that he did not want fish at booking the trip (and I mentioned also that I'd prefer less fish if possible). During BBQ in several occasions, the menus were only fish, fish, and rice.
  • One night we were served a menu of fried blue-spotted stingray. We checked online the IUCN Red List that there is a species of blue spotted stingray that has status as “NEAR THREATENED” - Taeniura lymma (Bluespotted Ribbontail, Bluespotted Ribbontail Ray, Blue-spotted Stingray, Fantail Ray, Ribbontailed Stingray)
  • With the boat having some technical issues on the power generator with the result the air-conditioning in the rooms were not working, we did not get any apologies, but were actually advised to sleep outside.
  • Except the owner/manager of the boat, staff hardly speaks any English. This included the dive guides. And most of the time - as I am an Indonesian - I also became an interpreter between the staff (also the dive guides) and other scuba divers.
  • Dive briefings were always done by the boat manager/director, but were very brief. A few times I had the impression that the dive guide (who never joined any of these briefings) did not follow the briefing content. Could be due to current, but also could be due to misunderstandings.
  • Dive guides were not Dive Master. Maybe they were rescue diver, but we have not been able to confirm. One of the dive guided did his best to show us nice things underwater, but both were clearly not as professional guides as we should expect on a trip like this.
  • There were several technical issues with the boat and half day storm. As a result we missed a few dive opportunities. On the last dive day we were really pressured to limit our number of dives - just because they wanted to return earlier to Sorong Port for other (Polish) guests who wanted to shop in Sorong before the shops were closed. We were told to do two dives instead of four dives but since I was angry then the boat director said we could do three dives - and it was with short surface interval. Again here is evidence management was not interested in our holiday experience, but seems to regard guests as funding for his boat.
  • As offered we could do max 4 dives a day but due to several unclear issues (including the broken generator), we had to skip a number of these dives.
  • The boat manager made an agenda every morning with times and dive sites. We mostly run late on this schedule and not due to the guests being late


Thinking back on this trip I cherish the great diving we managed to do, the beautiful Raja Ampat Islands we have passed and seen with almost untouched nature. The boat and crew itself I consider an ocean of missed opportunities to provide us with a great holiday experience...

I will update more article and photos on Raja Ampat diving in my blog - so far the posts are available here: http://indahs.com/category/diving/raja-ampat-diving/
 
Accurate summary of our trip. Raja Ampat is great! Wish I could say the same of this LOB.
 
There was a report of spearfishing taking place on this boat which they denied. I guess they were not being honest.

Most likely..but they did not offer us to do spearfishing..

I wonder about the menu of blue-spotted stingray - we did not eat it btw - one of the guests told us that the staff bought it on the market but they could not tell us what type of stingray. Not sure if the market in Sorong sell stingray, could be..but what if it was taken from the sea during our diving trip in MPA? :(
 
That's really disappointing on what should be the trip of a lifetime. Thanks for the balanced report and for warning the SB community. I hope you get back there on day on a better boat.

Best fishes x
 
I was on Dewii Nusantara when in Raja Ampat. The experience was vastly superior to that which you describe buddy i tell you this because we were also limited to two dives on the last day. This was known ahead of time. If i recall correctly we knew this prior to booking and then were reminded upon boarding and during later briefings.

---------- Post added July 31st, 2014 at 05:07 PM ----------

Oops, that is supposed to say
"but I tell you this" not "buddy I tell. . ."
 
@Tippytoes12, yup I am sure we will be back to Raja Ampat, it's too beautiful to be missed :) Thank you!

@ChillyinCanada, I think if we were informed earlier, I would not feel angry and most likely I would skip to stay at Sorong for safe flight after dive...we were informed in the morning on our last diving day. The anger was reduced as we had remarkable last dives in Raja Ampat on that day - saw many sharks and amazing school of barracuda :)
 
UPDATE 9th August 2014

I informed Premier Liveaboards - where we booked the boat - on my online review in Scuba Board forum related to the service of Euphoria LOB. From Premier, we found out that other guests who were in the boat with us received refund for similar complaints but the boat refused to refund us since we wrote negative review about their boat in Scuba Board.

Additionally just couple days ago I got pictures from a boat staff who joined our trip on how a blue spotted ray captured by other staff through (traditional) spearfishing during our diving trip in Marine Protected Area in Raja Ampat. This ray was served as one of our menu during our diving trip with the boat. This practice is outrageous. If you have any contact information on to how I can send these pictures to Raja Ampat Authority to pay attention on this boat business practice, please let me know.

The boat in the background is Euphoria Boat.


Euphoria 1.jpgEuphoria 2.jpgEuphoria 3.jpg
 
Hi Indiedive

I pinged Shawn Heinrichs as he's been very involved in conservation, particularly mantas, in Raja Ampat. He has recommended sending the photos and information to Conservation International, they have teams in the region who are dedicated to strengthening the MPAs and working with local businesses to bring in best practices.

Hopefully they are able to put pressure on to stop this behaviour, shocking to me that a dive boat crew would even consider this appropriate. Such a shame you had to experience this in RA...better luck next time,
 
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