Oktavia liveaboard review

Here is a comprehensive Thailand liveaboard review for the Oktavia from a trip in March last year:

Hey Paul!

We did see some cool stuff! I have very little dives under my belt and can already proudly boast about seeing several manta rays, saw a whale shark, and, obviously, lots of the small cool stuff.

Now for the feedback:

Rooms: Spacious enough, but sometimes the air conditioning disappointed. I remember one night in which Vinny and I were freezing and another one when it was too hot. When I complained it was too hot to Jeremy, he told me it was freezing in his room. So, apparently, inconsistent. Apart from that it was clean and comfortable.

Food: Nice food overall. I liked that they gave us plastic bottles to use throughout the trip, and that there were several snacks. Sometimes I felt like people would eat more but the food was over, but I had no complaints (though I was usually starving so I would jump to be one of the first guys in line, haha).

Diving: We were put in Jeremy’s group while diving. Vinny and I were pretty inexperienced and were put together with two other guys who apparently were far more experienced were with us. I think it would be better if we were together with a more newbie group, but I’m not sure if that was possible because apparently everyone had more dives under their belt than we did. I felt like Jeremy kind of got tired of having to deal with us doing rookie mistakes throughout the trip, but he was very helpful anyway.

We did get a Nitrox course, as well as a Night Diving and Deep Diving courses, and Oktavia didn’t charge for lending me a computer for the nitrox course (for 3 days), and for using the lantern for one night dive, which was nice.

I felt like the other divemasters would come up to their group after the dive and review the animals they saw and help with filling the divelog, and he did not – but again, I didn’t miss it until the very end and didn’t ask him to, so maybe Vinny and I were at fault with his one.

The Thai crew was absolutely brilliant, and the logistics (picking us up from the hotel and than dropping us off) were great as well. Absolutely no complaints there. I really liked your service as well for booking and stuff. 

Yours,

Guilherme (Brazil)