Sam's Tours Palau

Staff at Sam's Tours made sure I had a great time during the dives and on the boat. I really felt I got the best possible experience during my 6 days of diving. Sharon, Arnie, Neil and June were great dive masters and made sure everyone was attended to. I was super happy with my GoPro footage after every day of dives because Sam's took me to the best dive locations for the conditions. Thanks also to my driver Swel, who was very personable, and Jennifer for being there in case I needed anything. Staff at the front desk and gear rental were great as well as the knowledgeable boat captains. I would recommend Sam's Tours to anyone looking to go to Palau for a great dive experience.

I did not give the boat any stars since I didn't actually use them - I spent some time on the house reef and met a lot of the staff in the rental department and the shop.Sam's is fantastic. Free house diving on their reef? Borrow a tank - go dive. Right there. For free. The reef was fun, quiet, peaceful, and offered a lot of interesting animals! I saw the Razor fish or Shrimp fish dancing vertically right under their dock, beautiful corals everywhere! I looked for mandarin fish as I heard they are right in that area, but didn't see any. The dive is right in their little harbor - but there affords lots of unique creatures and topography! Next time I'm in Palau I will do some boat dives with them too!

Sam's Tours is a wonderful operation filled with very helpful and friendly staff. The site has everything you need if you left something at home and the on site restaurant has the locally brewed beer and quite a few items on the menu. Prices are reasonable for the island and they offer shuttle service to and from your hotel.The guides are all very professional and attentive to the divers needs and requests. Some are more personable that others and I think add a lot of excitement to the days dives but all were very flexible in getting a boat full of people happy with the dive sites even though everyone has their own preference and has had a different length of stay so far. It seemed that they tried to keep groups and guides together as much as possible, which really helps with the dive site selection.Palau is a beautiful location that shouldn't be missed by any diver and Sam's does a great job at making the trip a very worthwhile one.

My wife and I dove Palau once before and were disappointed with the operation that we went with.On our next dive trip to Palau we decided to give Sam’s a try to see if they would fare any better. We were very, very pleased with our decision!We were happy with every aspect of Sam's Tours. A boat came by to pick us up from our hotel every morning. When we arrived on the first day I was blown away with the size of the operation and staging area. Each boat was able to tie directly to the dock so there were not hordes of people trampling from one boat over to the next. On our past trip with another outfit, it was a nightmare having boats all rafted up and all sorts of people scrambling over your gear to get to their boat. There was tons of room to set up and move around. The rinsing area was large and easily accessible. The area where you get weights and other gear you might need is organized and easy to navigate. The storage locker where you store you gear for the night is HUGE, clean, organized and SAFE! The gals at the front desk whisked us in and out in a matter of a few minutes. The boat assignment list was on a eraser board right outside the check in desk, easy to read, in big bold lettering. The tanks were already there on the boat with the correct valves correct size and nitrox. The whole operation was a smooth as silk and we hadn’t even left the dock for the dive. Within 20 minutes we were checked in, got our weights, loaded on the boat, tested our Nitrox mix and heading to the dive site.We had the same dive master and captain for all our dive days. Jay-C (aka Jay-Z) was a consummate professional. Cool, calm and confident. Diving was relaxed and fun. We were paired with divers of the same ability levels and actually got to choose where we wanted to dive. For the first time diving on Palau I felt like I was on vacation from the moment we arrived at Sam’s dock to the day we left. Everyone was very friendly, helpful, accommodating and relaxed. The whole thing turned out to be a true pleasure.If I were to have any gripes it would be only that we chose to do three dives per day and the rest of the boat was only doing two. Unfortunately there were not enough three dive a day divers to make a whole boat till the last day of diving and consequently the boat went in to the dock to drop off the '2 dive a day' divers. Then we were taken out, just the four of us, me, my wife, the captain and Jay-C. We had to dive inside the reef for two days, on wrecks, in less than ideal visibility. Ideally, we would have preferred to dive outside the reef but we understood. The final day of diving we had a full boat of eight divers all doing three dives. The last dive of the day and the trip for that matter was probably the best of my life, maybe second only to diving with Great Whites in the Farallon Islands, no cage. The only other gripe is I wish we got a bit earlier of a start in the day but I can hardly whine about that though.Half of me does not want to write this review as it might impact Sam’s with more divers and I just want to have all the other divers still go with the other operations on the island. The other half that convinced me to go ahead with the review rationalizing that Sam’s deserves the business and can easily handle any uptick in the number of divers this may create.Go with Sam’s Tours and you won’t be disappointed, I strongly recommend giving Sam’s a try. If you are a repeat visitor to Palau, you might not ever go back to anyone else, I know that we never will.

Sam's Tours, located at their own boat dock on Malakal Island, offers a well-organized and spacious environment for both divers and snorkelers.The dive boats at Sam's Tours are comfortable, covered, and provide side seating, ensuring a drier experience compared to other operators. Convenient walk-up ladders and a dry box under the driver's seat for personal items add to the convenience on board.Gear handling is efficiently managed by the boat crew, although divers are reminded to retrieve their own wetsuits from the rack. Certified divers can enjoy complimentary Nitrox with 80cf/11l tanks filled with 32% Nitrox.Camera handling is well organized, with a crate immediately provided for cameras. Refreshments such as water and punch are available on board, and lunch is served between dives. While boat towels and toilets are not provided, the overall comfort and functionality of the boats are acceptable.Additionally, Sam's Tours facilitates access and transfers to/from hotels, ensuring convenience for their guests.The diving experience with Sam's Tours relies heavily on the teamwork of the boat captain and the dive guides, who vary each day and ultimately decide on the dive site based on prevailing conditions. They also set the direction and pace of the dives.During our two dive days, we noticed a significant difference in approach. The first day was characterized by a relaxed and non-prescriptive style from the guides. Dive times typically lasted around 60 minutes, including a safety stop. As photographers, we appreciated this unhurried pace, as it allowed us ample time to focus on interesting subjects without feeling rushed or losing sight of our group.However, our experience on the second day was quite different. Our guide set a very fast pace for the first dive, which was unsatisfactory for photography. We expressed our desire for a slower pace during the surface interval, but unfortunately, the second dive followed a similar hurried pattern. We were even scolded for lagging behind the group, which was frustrating.Overall, while the first day provided a positive experience with its relaxed approach, the second day's fast pace and lack of flexibility for photography detracted from our enjoyment.

I have dreamed of diving in Palau for many years, and finally I managed to squeeze in 6 days of diving after a work trip. WOW! For such a small country Palau has a bit of everything - macro, big fish, drop-offs, drift dives, cave dives and the list goes on.I had heard some good things about Sam's Tours and this was also the dive operator recommended by Bluewater Travel. I wasn't disappointed. The operation is big and popular which I generally don't like, but I was also clear at the beginning that I preferred diving with experienced divers and doing dives which depart from the norm. I was told about the Unique Dive Experience which is offered by Sams Tours in collaboration with two local marine biologists. They have studied Red Snapper and Bumphead Parrot spawning for the last few years and are now able to predict fairly well when and where they will spawn. They require divers to be a minimum Advanced OpenWater and to be comfortable diving on their own - just what I like!! The two days I did Unique dives were amazing. They are a bit on the expensive side, but otherwise the chance to see spawning Red Snapper was brilliant. This was a great start to my trip. I then joined the normal Sams Tours' dives. They do a good job of trying to keep divers together with dive guides they are comfortable with, and also other divers who are diving for more than one day. This also enables the group to not dive the same sites too often.Lunch is provided which is pretty good. Dive briefings were sometimes a little brief, and I had one boat without an auto bilge pump on a day with rough weather, but other than that the operation was great.Sams Tours has a wall dive right next to the shop which is a great place to see Mandarin Fish and just across from the shop is Chandelier cave which was just wonderful. They also come and pick you up from your hotel every morning and always have a driver waiting to take you back.There is a bar at Sams and always a few people hanging around to share dive tales. The atmosphere was great.I am just looking for another excuse to go back...

To do land based on Palau, my impression was that choices were limited. There're a few specially catered the Japanese speaking divers, and there's one who frequently by ones who don't adhere to rules of diving, such as no drinking and diving. So Sam's Tours was an obvious choice at that time.I was impressed by the efficiency and friendliness of the staff at the office, the two Philippinos ladies knew me by my first name and dive preference. The dive operation was a lot busier than I's used to in Hawaii and Guam, and the mixture of divers on each dive boat was interesting, which added to the fun part of diving. My Palauan dive guides and boat captions were fun and extremely knowledgeable and helpful. On day 2 of diving, the divers on our boat splited up in 2 half after the first 2 dives, since 4 of us wanted to dive the German Channel again and the other four wanted to dive the Chandeliar cave. The staff really did a good job tried to cater our needs as best as they could.We got a box lunch everyday, which included fish, some greens, and carb. It's fine, since you can't be too picky in the middle of the ocean, when the weather is about 80-90 degree. The scenery, dive sites, and people made up for everything that's lacking. At the end of the day, they brought all of your dive gears up to the washing area, and you were responsible to cleaning and storing everything in the dive lockers. There's never any problem with things getting stolen or missing at the dive lockers.There's a photography section, although the knowledge and help there was very minimum. So Sam's tours was more like a causal diving place than doing or learning serious underwater photography.One major drawback for me is the choice of dive sites, which is extremely limited. I traveled during the week of Thanksgiving, so they were pretty busy and full. I chose to dive 5 days 3-4 dives per day, since the dive sites were few, on my second to last day, I started diving the same site over again. I only wished they could go up further north for the divers who don't mind to pay extra gas fee. So maybe I need to do a liveaboard if I want to dive in Palau again.