Belize Aggressor III Liveaboard

Eat, Sleep, Dive, Smile...repeat! We loved our week with Belize Aggressor III and would very happily dive with them again. The diving was excellent and the dive masters/crew did a great job with safety, equipment, balancing skill levels and interests, and pointing out marine life and nuances for each dive site. On almost every dive we saw an abundance of friendly reef sharks, and so many opportunities to check out macro life as well. BAIII's lighting on the bottom of the boat made night dives that much more pleasant because it was easier to focus on the dive and less on navigation. The cabins were spotless and comfy, with a relatively spacious en-suite head. The food was excellent - every meal and snack was fresh, homemade, and good options for specialized dietary needs. The crew is top-notch (Thank You Jerome, Randy, Vanessa, Job, Jay, Monique, and Fermin - you combine fun and professionalism perfectly!). The week at sea felt like camp for adults - a week-long escape from the real world and getting to do the things I love most!

The ship was very nice. The food was good. The diving was spectacular. The whole dive operation was smooth. I did 3 to 5 dives each day. There was lots of fish life on the reefs. The dive deck was well laid out, the camera table was large enough for the the number of cameras during the week I was on the ship.

I was able to take one diving vacation last year, I was lucky to get on the Belize Aggressor III Liveaboard. The entire trip was incredible, the staff was amazing, I was able to get in 27 dives during the week. I swam with Sharks, Eels, Turtles, Squids, Octopi, and so much more. I even went Lionfish hunting. It has been the BEST diving trip that I have taken.

We spent 10 days on the Aggressor and had a marvelous time. This was my first live aboard trip, so I really have nothing to compare it to. The room was snug but comfortable, and always clean. The common areas were very nice, salon included large couch, big screen for movies (many available), dining area was tight but comfortable. Upper deck had hot tub, loungers, and beer on tap.The crew was absolutely top notch, worked very well as a team, efficient, and we often wondered when everything was getting done. They bent over backwards to make sure that all guests had anything we needed (including the Captain making a special effort to get me the world series scores that I was missing). Smiles were common, and they seemed to really enjoy their jobs. The food was excellent, tasty, served timely, and had a nice variety, including a full turkey dinner. There was certainly plenty of food.As to the dive operation, it was as good or better than anything I had experienced before. Tanks were usually refilled before we had time to change into dry clothes. Bench lockers to keep your stuff, hangers above for wet suites and rash vests, camera table enough for all. Good rental equipment. Large prep area and two hot showers at the dive platform. Easy stride entry, solid ladders for exit. It was incredibly effortless to dive, even after four or five dives in the day.As to the diving itself, it was marvelous, even despite some marginal weather (storm front came through). But then, what's a little rain when you spend most of the time at 45-90 feet. The crew altered the schedule to move to sites that were better protected and dive-able until the storm past by. We lost no dive time, although the visibility was down a bit (30-60ft). The reefs were rich with corral, fish and lobster everywhere, sting and eagle rays, octopus, morays galore, turtles, reef, white tip and nurse sharks, even a pod of 30 or so dolphin came by to visit...incredible. And of course, lionfish.This is definitely a trip for serious, focused divers, since that is what you will be doing most of the time. The wall diving was the best part, most starting at an easy 40ft and down to the depths. I thought the best areas were between 50-70 ft.This trip has definitely opened up my eyes to the ease and pleasure of live-aboard diving. Absolutely worth every penny. We are already planning our next trip.Aggressor is a top-notch value

This was my 2nd liveaboard experience - the other was only 3 days in the Great Barrier Reef. I was VERY happy with this trip. I have been diving in Belize before (mostly near Bacalar Chico Marine park on Ambergris Caye), but was never able to spend a lot of time at the outer islands.I'll start with the best part - the diving! The crew was fabulous - always friendly, very efficient, and always willing to buddy up when my husband didn't do the dive. They offered 4 dives a day AND a night dive after dinner. Because we were there for 10 days, I didn't feel the need to do EVERY dive, and there was NO pressure to do more than what I was comfortable doing. They did not coddle the divers, but they did answer any and every question you had. Diving was from the back of the boat, and it was a small step in and a ladder out. They took great care of everyone's cameras, and there was a separate wash tank for electronics. In addition, plenty of plugs for battery recharging. I especially liked their tank refill setup. All you had to do was separate the regulator from the tank and the refill hose was right there - one for each pair of tanks. Soooo easy to get ready for the next dive!All the dive sites has something special to see, and the dive briefings were thorough and varied. We saw all the major Caribbean reef fish, Caribbean round and Southern stingrays, eagle rays, reef sharks, hawksbill and green turtles, lobster, large and small crabs, tiny feeder shrimp. I also saw some unusual fish - cowfish, filefish, toadfish, spotted drum (my personal favorites!).Second best - the food. I wish the food hadn't been so good...it was hard to not eat too much. We had a nice custom breakfast (there was always a special, but you could also custom order), then a dive, then a freshly prepared snack, then a dive, then a lunch buffet (sometimes hot dishes, sometimes sandwich fixings), then a dive, then a hot snack, then a dive, then a lovely, delicious dinner, then a night dive. If you weren't diving any more that day, you could have complimentary wine or beer any time. Always available - tea and coffee - sodas and juices - breads and spreads - cookies and chips.Third best - accommodations. The public areas of the ship were very nice. Nice salon, nice dining room, nice upper deck with hot tub and lounge chairs for warming up between dives. The rooms were tiny, tho...really tiny. Nicely appointed, but small. 1 double bed with a single bunk above it. It would have been nice if the upper bunk swung up and latched away. It did feel a little claustrophobic for the person on the inside of the lower bed. There was one larger room up on the main floor (more expensive, but might be worth it if you want more room). You can check out the Aggressor website for pictures.A trip like this is made or broken by the other people - the crew was super nice - all six of them - I loved them all. In addition, the other 16 guests were also very nice. Divers are the best people to travel with - they are easy going and love to talk about their other trips. Almost everyone on the trip was a returnee to Aggressor - many of them had been on 5-8 other Aggressor and Dancer boats. I think that says everything. I know that WE will be back.

In June, I enjoyed diving in Belize for a week on the Aggressor III. I was without my favorite dive buddy (my wife), so I had a cabin to myself. I went to attend an on-board photo workshop, because I had new u/w camera equipment, and I wanted to learn how to take better photos.As to the boat, I'd say that in some respects this boat and crew exceeded the traditional Aggressor standards and in some other ways lagged behind a bit. The food was varied and flavorful, almost always nicely well-spiced. The tasty meals, served buffet style for breakfast and lunch, made it hard to not eat too much! And, surprisingly there was complementary Aggressor-labelled wine and local beer, both of which were actually quite good. The cabins were, well, "adequate". I think the boat is in need of a tune-up or redecorating. It may be a small complaint, but the towels (both in the cabin and on-deck) were pretty thin, and should be replaced with newer more fluffy ones. There was plenty of hot water, so no complaints there. The dining area, in the bow of the boat, was comfortable enough, but at times was a bit claustrophobic.The dive deck and dive operations were excellent. The crew were friendly, knowledgable and helpful with any equipment issues anyone had. They also always had towels ready to use when we returned from the dive. Easy on / easy off, no limits, no babying of the divers, and all diving was from the back of the boat. We put on our gear at our stations, and walk to the dive deck with our tanks and weights on, down a few steps. But after that it was easy. Perhaps they should have had a more explicit system for tracking who was on or off the boat, and getting our depths and times, but maybe they were doing so silently.The diving was far better than I had remembered for Belize from a trip 20 years ago. Lots of animals, in number and variety, and some new creatures I had never seen before. We saw an excellent range of creatures, including sharks and a wide variety of reef fish, along with morays, eagle rays, turtles, etc., plus a tremendous range of nudibranchs, crabs, squid, octopus, etc. I really enjoyed the night dives too. The reef was in excellent shape, and the water was generally very calm with little or no current. The visibility was good though not often excellent. (The crossing to and from Lighthouse Reef was a bit rough, however.) The entire week was the perfect opportunity to work with my new camera gear, for both macro and wide angle shots.The photo workshop with Mike Mesgleski of the Jim Church School of UW Photography was just what I needed. Mike is very talented and helpful (and often very funny). I had forgotten my battery charger (doh!) and he jerry-rigged something that saved my trip. His instruction both above and below the water were really excellent, and greatly helped me improve my uw photography. For once I had several pictures I wanted to show people!One of the nice things about a photo workshop is that almost all of us were there to take photos, not to see how far we could go underwater. Often, on other trips, my experience is that the dive guides/masters will take a group on an underwater race course to see how much of the reef you could visit. Not this time. We could spend as long as we wanted right under the boat, if that was sufficiently interesting. As I said at the time, I flew a lot of miles to get to Belize ... it didn't make sense to go any further underwater than I needed to go to find something worth photographing. It really was a wonderful way to see the reef, spending time with the animals I wanted to see, and taking photographs, rather than swimming along and occasionally taking a snapshot.A word about my camera equipment (though it's not actually a review of the trip). After a lot of research, I acquired an Olympus OMD-EM1, the latest "micro-four-thirds" mirrorless camera. It's a lot smaller than the traditional SLRs, but a lot more capable than the compact camera I had before. It has no shutter lag (this is a BIG deal under water), very fast focusing and lots of other great features that are useful above land. I was very glad to have the new Nauticam housing for the OMD-EM1. It's easy to use, and performed perfectly. Mark Strickland and Kelli Dickinson of Bluewater Photo were very helpful in getting me the housing and related accessories in a timely way. They patiently answered all my numerous questions, and gave me excellent advice. I still have a lot to learn (and I hope many opportunities to do so!), but at least now I know I won't be lacking the proper equipment (or any excuse) as a reason I didn't take excellent uw pictures.By the way, don't expect much from the local Belize restaurants or the airport. We went to one restaurant for our final dinner, and while the food was "okay" (not as good as the boat, actually), the service was incredibly slow! And the airport ... well, remember Belize IS a third-world country. No lounge, no real restaurants, and no air conditioning. It was a LONG wait to check in and go through security. Ah well, such is the life of a traveling scuba diver!All in all, this was a trip I'd recommend.

This was my first liveaboard, so I don't have a lot to compare it to. But overall, I thought it was great.The staff was awesome! They were always so friendly and helpful.The food was really good. Hot breakfast selections changed each day, and they were always tasty. Lunch was buffet style. Dinners included fish, chicken, and other things, dessert each night was awesome and included things like bananas foster and bread pudding. There were always cookies and chips available, and snacks were served between the two morning dives and the two afternoon dives. We had a few people with special food requirements, including one particularly difficult person, and they accommodated their needs completely without any hesitation.The diving was great, we saw reef sharks, nurse sharks, octopus, squid, turtles, seahorses and more! The divemasters were always great at finding and pointing out some of the harder to find things like pipefish, decorator crabs, etc. We didn't have too many people who required 'extra attention' during the dives, but they accommodated those people well. Everybody was happy. They took pictures and video during the dives. Video was available for purchase, but the pictures were included free - a nice perk! We also got to try out the black light fluorsecent diving on a night dive, which was pretty coolAccommodations were a bit tight, I'm guessing that's typical on a liveaboard. But the beds were comfortable, and they were made up each night with a chocolate left on the pillows.Overall, it was a great vacation! My first liveaboard but not my last!

This was my first liveaboard and I couldn't have been more pleased. I have been on a few since then and this was definitely the best bang for your buck. I was able to get in 5 nitrox dives a day in 83 degree water with almost no current. There were a lot of wall dives where you would drop in, swim out along the wall, then come up over the reef and swim back over the sand which gave you two different environments in one dive. We were also waited on hand and foot while topside (offering a great array of food and snacks for every palate). The divemasters were a helpful and fun bunch who were also incredibly talented. They had eyes like hawks and If you told them you were looking for something they would spend the entire dive trying to find it, and probably would. The vast array of marine life (groupers, eagle rays, white tips and nurse sharks, various nudibranchs, scorpion fish, frog fish, sailfin blennys, octopus, turtles, tarpin, etc.) made every dive completely unique and the richness of colors and fantastic visibility left me wondering if it was all downhill after Belize. This resort is best suited for anyone who is interested in a family friendly trip where you get top notch service for a very reasonable price. You will experience a great crew a vast array of colorful wildlife from tiny nudibranchs to eagle rays and reef sharks.