Live aboard caught fire. looking for contacts in Hurghada

[Finn_Diver]

As you might know already, Elphinstone is a world class dive site from Marsa Alam, you should not miss it.

 

[Hawkeye Mark]

Sounds good. Better than turning around and going home.

I never used to buy trip insurance. I do now for every big trip outside the US. Used once or twice and it paid off. My wife had to go to an ER room in Rio. Had to pay but insurance paid us back

 

[KathyV]

Resort is nice. The bartender loves us. We did two shore dives at different sites and rest of week will be doing 3-tank boat dives. Plus night dive tomorrow night. I don’t think anyone is completely happy considering what we had expected but we will not be shut out and not a total loss. We are making the best of it focused on the future. Shoulda coulda woulda can wait.

This may not be much consolation, but at least your boat made it back to port and you were able to find a resort and diving in the area. The Majestic Explorer recently ran aground at 3:30 am in the morning and sank in the remote Galapagos islands. The passegers and crew were evacuated by the Ecuadorian Navy and no one was hurt, thank goodness, but that probably put an end to their dream trip:

https://www.explorerventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Majestic-Explorer-press-release-01JUN19.pdf

News : Luxury ship Majestic Explorer Runs Aground – and Sinks

 

[nippurmagnum]

guys, get yourselves to soma bay. the breakers if you can get in. all inclusive. great diving, maybe best shorereef anywhere...according to taschen anyway. i dove there for 5 days before getting on a liveaboard. it was great. fantastic food, i was doing 6 dives a day, the diveshop onsite is orca dive club run by germans. Just a great all round joint.

Thanks for this tip. I am doing a liveaboard out of Hurghada in Sept., and if there are any problems getting on the boat, I'm going to head straight to that resort. Looks fantastic.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

I always try to get to 'wherever' around 3 days before the boat departs to get some diving in and this place really ticked the box. I actually quite like hanging around the germans as they all eat together, very 'camaraderie' focused. Had no issues with language even though several of the divers didn't speak english, they made and effort and my weak german effort was enough that they appreciated me trying and put me out of my misery with a smile.

I liked that the whole place is 'everyone gets up eats breakfast and then gets stuck into diving or kitesurfing etc' they also are happy for everyone to sleep outdoors ont he big beds if they want to. It's also in soma bay which has a security gate before you even get into the compound where the 5 resorts are, so no issues with safety etc.

I'm going to take my nephew there to learn to dive next year.

I wouldn't fly through London though if you can avoid it. The flights from London are a pain in the a$$, they basically weight the contents of your pockets and charge you for everything. and all the allowances are 2 inches less than every other bloody flight int eh world so that all of your equipment etc is immediately a higher charge...

 

[davehicks]

Sounds good. Better than turning around and going home.

I never used to buy trip insurance. I do now for every big trip outside the US. Used once or twice and it paid off. My wife had to go to an ER room in Rio. Had to pay but insurance paid us back

Most of the higher end credit cards offer "automatic" trip insurance if travel is purchased with the card. It's equivalent to what the standalone policies offer. For anyone that travels for diving even once per year, this easily covers the cost of the cards. Chase Sapphire for example is $500 annually. They give an instant credit of $300/per year for any travel category expense, so really it's only $200. For that you get trip insurance, lost or delayed baggage, Airport Lounge access, etc. Travel insurance on a $5000 trip can easily cost $250 - $500, so a high end credit card is a no brainer for frequent travelers.

 

[Newdiv]

per year, this easily covers the cost of the cards. Chase Sapphire for example is $500 annually. They give an instant credit of $300/per year for any travel category expense, so really it's only $200. For that you get trip insurance, lost or delayed baggage, Airport Lounge access, etc. Travel insurance on a $5000 trip can easily cost $250 - $500, so a high end credit card is a no brainer for frequent travelers.

Also has a great rental car insurance policy!

 

[Shasta_man]

<<great rental car insurance policy>> I've benefited from that for a trip to Europe where someone (I'm sure it was the bed and breakfast people we stayed at) damaged our car.

$1500 damage claim cost us zero. Note that you should check the details because my last check showed coverage is limited to 30 days and not all vehicles are covered including potentially surprising ones like SUVs.or "sports cars". So maybe renting the Porsche is not covered.

For credit card travel insurance, note that doesn't cover dive accident or flight evacuation insurance. So remember to pursue that separately. It's apparently easy to get a five figures bill for flight evacuation even in the US of A (might be even easier to happen)

 

[KathyV]

Hi all.

We are a group of 24 divers from the U.S. Long story short the M/Y Galaxy 720 was going to be out boat for the week. They had "mechanical issues" (there are rumors it was rented out from under us) put us on a boat called the M/Y Conceptum that had massive electrical issues. It caught on fire and lost electrical on route to Tiran Island. The fire never escalated and we made it back to port with no electrical. This morning we got word it was on fire in the New Marina in Hurghada.

Does anyone have good contacts in Egypt that could help us out?

We are scheduled to fly out of Hurghada to Cairo on the 8th. Unfortunately we are stuck in Hurghada with no plan until the 8th.

We're not really sure what to do at this point. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

I am on this trip. First moments in our cabin we blew an outlet. Figured it was our adapter even though we had no device drawing current. Then a few hours later came into room to find 3 big spots on bed where oil was dripping from seams in ceiling panels. I think the oil probably seeped all over. Repeated blown plugs, electrical pops, smoke and smells. And these are just the highlights.

How did it work out for your group? Was the resort and land-based diving good? Have you gotten your money back from Galaxy yet - or at least a solid date when you can expect it to be returned?

 

[ReefHound]

How did it work out for your group? Was the resort and land-based diving good? Have you gotten your money back from Galaxy yet - or at least a solid date when you can expect it to be returned?

Royal Brayka was a nice AI resort and onsite Coraya Divers was a good operation. Most of us managed at least a dozen dives and we had a lot of fun. The trip was obviously not what we signed up for and a great bit more logistics hassle than the ease and convenience of liveaboard diving but not a total loss. I don't know anything about the status of negotiations with Galaxy.