Undercurrent 03/07 did not like KBR

[aqualportal]

I came to this thread late, but it appears the offending article has been removed from the forum. I must admit I'm curious to know why.

As somebody in this thread already suggested, the negative review may have been an act of pique by the author trying to get some revenge for a perceived sleight. Or it may have been a true reflection of the author's judgment of the resort in question.

If the latter, then congratulations to Undercurrent; it's a rare dive magazine these days that doesn't prostitute its editorial to advertisers. Since I've started dealing with dive mags as an advertiser, I've stopped buying them as a reader. It's become very clear to me that there is a direct relationship between advertising and reviews. This seems especially true of equipment reviews.

Or perhaps I'm just tired and cynical.

I did not have a way to put the Undercurrent article with my post. If someone else can post it please do. Undercurrent is a U S newsletter not a magazine that takes advertisers. It only exists by subscription and therefore is supposed to be unbiased.

 

[reubencahn]

I let my suscription to Undercurrent lapse, out of laziness not dissatisfaction. But generally, I find their articles to be fair and trustworthy. Reviews in the Chapbook are another matter. They are just reader comments and are no better and no worse than comments posted here or on any forum.

I was at KBR in 2005. Diving was excellent. Our guide was also excellent though I wasn't relying on him for safety in any way. But his attitude and willingness to find what you wanted to see and give you time to see it were exceptional. I thought the food was okay, not great. My bungalow was one of the older ones and was more than a bit run down. The bathroom also had a considerable amount of mold in the shower that was never cleaned out despite requests. The bungalow's location was also problematic as it was close to the dive center and the main building. No a/c meant the windows needed to be wide open but that was a problem for privacy with traffic around the bungalow. If I were going back to KBR, I would request one of the newer bungalows and preferably one away from the main facilities. We are going back to Lembeh this summer but have decided to try Lembeh Resort. If money were no object, I would book with Kasawari but their price for three of us for a week was $1700 higher than Lembeh Resort.

 

[xariatay]

Hi,

We also loved KBR when we visited in Sept 07. The resort is great and the food is pretty good. The people are really nice. My wife absolutely loved the diving which is at most 10 minutes away by boat.
I would say the only downside, as it is at most dive ops in asia, is that the dive guides are not divemasters but simply scuba certified "guides." They are great at finding the animals and getting you photo ops, but they do not emphasize or truly understand dive safety. My wife had an out of air incident at 40 ft and had to make a free ascent. We think what happened was that the boat driver accidently closed the valve part way when he handed the BC/tank down to her. I was photographing a macro subject and did not see her until she was on her way up. I followed her up to find out what was wrong. At the surface, I found out she did a free ascent and we decided to go back down to at least do our safety stop. The dive guide, who was only guiding the 2 of us, basically finished the dive and didn't come by until we were done with the safety stop. Once back on board, we told him about what happened and he just shrugged it off. No comments or suggestions, but he did keep asking if we were still going on our scheduled Mandarin fish dive next. I don't think anyone would really want to dive a couple of hours after a free ascent.
Anyway, just be responsible for your own safety. We dive with a spare air now b/c of the incident. Still, KBR is the best diving resort that we've been to in Asia.

Mike

Have never stayed at KBR but am interested to share some "info" I have "gathered" abt the guides at Bunaken & Lembeh. Had asked our Lembeh guides why weren't they taking the DM course, they told me they were detered by the high costs, as their salary was only abt US130 per month... One said that when he was working at another "smaller" outfit, 5 guides had to share 3 dive computers... :11:
Then we spoke to the owners of a Bunaken resort, they cited the guides' poor command of English as 1 of the reasons for the delay of their DM training. PADI does not have the training mat'l in Bahasa Indonesia & the guides would "struggle" to pass their OW & AOW "papers". Therefore, not all crew could be trained as guides & not all guides could be trained as DMs, this resort had trained at least 1 local DM... Most of their guides had started out as boat crew for a few years, before they get proper dive training if they show interest & amplitude etc & have reasonable grasp of English...

Btw, I think sometimes it was the boatcrew who fixed up the tanks at Lembeh, my guide & I had encountered the octopus being fixed wrongly... Well, I guess it made me more careful with my pre-dive checks, which I had be slacking...

 

[freed1ver]

This is an interesting thread and I would definitely like to read the undercurrents review.

Regarding my earlier post, we also do not rely on the dive guides for safety. However, it gets kind of annoying when your dive guide keeps asking you if you want to go on the next dive right after you've had a dive accident. I don't expect them to keep me safe, but it would be nice if they had a better understanding of dive safety.

Hindsight is always easy with any type of accident, diving related or not. We did our pre-dive buddy check in the boat, but we will be doing the in-water check from now on. Also, most people have had a boat driver/dive guide hold on to the top of their tank when they are getting up or getting in position to jump in. Be careful of partial valve shutoff. This cuts your air off suddenly in the water. Counting on your buddy works most of the time, but it's really not practical to say that it works all the time. After air cut off and then finding out that your octo also does not give air, you may not have enough time to swim to your buddy and get his/her attention. That is why we use the spare air now.

 

[Travelnsj]

I stayed at Lembeh Resort just 10 days ago loved it. Ran into a couple who were staying at KBR and they did not have any problems and loved it.

 

[reubencahn]

I stayed at Lembeh Resort just 10 days ago loved it. Ran into a couple who were staying at KBR and they did not have any problems and loved it.

Any chance of a trip report? We're heading the Lembeh Resort this summer.

 

[frogfish]

Haven't stayed at KBR but visited Lembeh resort last year - Very nice; I would say that it's the best upmarket dive resort I've visited in Asia (on par with Mabul Water Bungalows), and I have tried quite a few.

 

[Travelnsj]

Any chance of a trip report? We're heading the Lembeh Resort this summer.

Got back at 2pm yesterday...trip report by the end of week.

 

[Travelnsj]

As Wayman said, Undercurrent is from the writer’s perspective. I was a feature article in June of this year about Tahiti. I did not have a problem of discussing the good and bad of my trip. In researching KBR, I not only read the Undercurrent article about KBR but also read about other people’s experiences on SB and other boards. I read both good and bad. The bad mostly being in the last year. I even read somewhere where KBR responded by stating they were bringing in new management and doing some upgrades. My travel agent has been at KBR a couple of times a few years ago and loved it. I chose Lembeh Resort. The management has been here for years, the staff, meals and room have exceeded my expectations. The dive operation was about average for the first day or two. Being this is Christmas time many of the regular staff were off December 25 and 26 (this is a Christian area of Indonesia). You could immediately see the difference when the regular boat crews and DM’s returned. I would return to Lembeh Resort in a heartbeat.....but as I said in an earlier post the people I ran into last week loved it.