Raja Ampat Aggressor Liveaboard

This was my first liveaboard experience so take this perspective with a grain of salt. That being said, the boat, crew, guides, and diving were all awesome. We were on the Raja Ampat Aggressor for 11 nights and 12 days during the crossing from Sorong to Bitung.The crew was very friendly and professional. They were very accommodating of requests and made every effort to make the stay memorable and pleasant. Rooms were cleaned and checked daily. The dive guides were fun and knowledgeable. They were able to identify everything underwater and find many creatures that would be very difficult to spot without a ton of local experience and knowledge of the sites.The food was great. I am a bit of a picky eater and I was able to find an enjoyable plate of food for every meal. Lunch was family-style, dinner was exquisitely plated with attention to detail. Everything came out well cooked and hot right off the stove.I expect that this trip may have been the best coral and muck diving I will do in my life, and I have a lot of diving left to do. Every dive we came up laughing, smiling and shouting about how great the dive was. If you are looking for endless corals Raja will not disappoint. If you are into weird critters for macro photography you will love Lembeh. This trip is really unique with its itinerary of a few days of coral diving, a few days of pinnacle diving, followed by a few days of muck diving. If you are looking to see a sampling of the variety of island geologies, seascapes and marine life that Indonesia has to offer, this trip is really unique in being able to provide that experience.If you're on the fence with the Raja Ampat Agressor, I vote you book the trip. The only thing that will disappoint you is that you can't stay longer!

Booked 10 days on the new vessel operated by Aggressor in June.The boat in itself was well equipped and comfortable enough. The room was clean and everything was working well.I really enjoyed the food throughout the stay as well. Gluten free options on the boat were very very limited but I expected that before coming.The crew was really helpful and friendly. Loved our dive guides - they showed us some incredible marine life that I would have never spotted by myself and that really made some dives extra special. Herry, one of the dive masters, also had a board with him so he could tell us exactly what we were looking at (made it so much easier to understand when he showed us the tiniest bobtail squid!)We weren’t so lucky with the visibility during the 10 days so some dive sites were maybe a little less impressive to see however overall I did see everything I went there for (Acroporas as far as eyes can see, Mandarin fish, blue ring octopus and so many more!).I also really loved that we had small groups for diving since the boat wasn’t full - we were told June is the beginning of low season so even though conditions weren’t as good as during high season, we had groups of 3-4 divers onlyOverall, I really enjoyed the trip and the staff, and would do it again!

We had hoped to be on a traditional style of vessel for our Live-aBoard experience, but the boats got switched right before our trip. We were on the Ocean Rover, just signed on with Aggressor. The owner was aboard making sure everything ran smoothly and we enjoyed getting to know him. The boat is undergoing a bit of updating-the bathroom and carpet in our room needed a refresh, But the staff were super helpful and the common quarters were roomy and adequate. I liked having a canopy over the sun deck to keep us a bit cooler from the hot sun. I also loved some little excursions that our cruise director worked into our experience to see some of the islands close up. The diving was exceptional and we enjoyed all the dive sites we visited.

The staff aboard the Aggressor is terrific and super friendly. It goes without saying that the diving here is amazing. Our dive guides, Jemy and Herry, knew all the best places to go and where all the good stuff was. They are especially adept at finding nudibranchs, which are a new view of the underwater world for me and a new obsession. Michal, our cruise director, is an excellent underwater photographer and I highly recommend taking the photography course from him if he is here while you're here. He is an excellent teacher and will show you how to get the best shots of the best stuff. Michal is first class.A couple of issues occurred in a few rooms (air conditioning went out in one, a shower leak in the another, my toilet leaked). Aside from that, the hotel experience was good. Each of these issues was handled professionally and quickly, but would have been a serious issue if the boat had a full compliment of guests.I am a vegetarian and my only negative experience here has been the food. And since it was an ongoing issue for 10 days, it was a big one. When I booked the trip, I made it clear that I was a vegetarian and was told it would not be an issue. But it was. If you are NOT a vegetarian, you will likely consider your meals to be excellent. Beef stroganoff, fish with white wine sauce, sirloin steak, chicken parmesan, calamari, and many more restaurant quality menu items - all prepared and presented with great care and attention to detail.If you are a vegetarian, you'll get nothing like this. The kitchen staff clearly has little or no experience with vegetarian foods and doesn't even seem to try. I brought it up with the staff on the second day, and they said they would serve me better food. But from that point, my "main courses" ended up being ALL fried foods. I even once received fried tempeh covered in sauce that had bits of meat in it from the entree others were eating. While others were dining on fish, I got deep-fried tofu. While they ate steak, I ate deep-fried corn cakes. While they ate a nice Italian dish, I got deep-fried vegetables or tempeh. It's not like the tofu or tempeh was prepared in an entree. It was simply a plate of plain tofu or tempeh. That was it. And even though Michal constantly told the kitchen staff to prepare me proper meals, they were obviously uninterested in doing so, always serving me the same fried foods. Eventually, I just stopped eating it and ate more side items instead. It was only on the last full day of the trip that the chef finally prepared me a vegetarian lunch, which was great!I'm assuming the food issues were just growing pains and I am fully aware that sometimes it just takes a good push to get things done. Having said that, I highly recommend the Raja Ampat Aggressor if you have no dietary restrictions. It really is fun and first rate. After 10 days at sea though, I was glad to get on land and eat a proper meal.The TOTAL experience for me was amazing. It was still a trip of a lifetime. And, even with those issues I would go on this exact boat and do it all over again. That's how good it was, and it's why my star rating is high.