Ocean Quest, Australia

Great experience traveling to the GBR

Loved this LivaAboard experience. It was our first time diving since becoming certified and it was lovely. Great safety checks before we went out. Very happy with the room size.

Suggerito a:

The variety of dive sites and experiences.. The night dives.. Warm drinks available to enjoy all day..

Don't expect much dive site variety

The staff was great, very friendly and helpful. The boat conditions were on par with what you'd expect, and it never felt overcrowded. However, they advertise 14+ mooring sites on 3 different reefs (totally understand weather conditions can limit some locations), but we continually went back to the exact same dive sites which was frustrating.

Suggerito a:

Large dive deck with plenty of space. Air compressor on board so no tank switching. Always stayed on schedule.

Best suited for a 1-2 night stay

I I think this boat is best for a one or two night stay. The Positive things were outlined above. There were several guides that were very good at pointing out interesting features along the dives. The ride out and dives were organized chaos. My sons regulator did not have a mouthpiece and my daughters first stage was not attached correctly. They did not want me to use my regulator on the two dives out because it was so hurried. The staff on Ocean quest were polite, but not overly friendly. We were all experienced divers with advanced certifications. We did do guided dives for every dive in the hopes that the knowledgeable guides would point out interesting features and creatures. We had several dives with knowledgeable guides that pointed things out and we had multiple dives, where the guide simply swam out to a point and swam back without stopping or showing any features. The guided groups were grouped at random. We had several dives with someone who burned through the air cutting our dive short by 20 minutes. We asked to be paired with similar divers yet were paired with this person on other dives. because new people were coming on every day we dove the same areas multiple times. We also had new diver briefings every day. They also required that you cash out every day usually within 15 minutes of your last morning dive. checkout was at noon for a boat transfer at 2:30 and during our last dive, they put all of our clothing and luggage on the floor to change the bedding by 11 o'clock. I think this boat is best for one or two night experience Where you wish to sleep on a boat and get as many dives as you can within a short period. They did not provide a very diverse diving experience. I feel people on self-guided tours, saw much more than we did on guided tours.

Suggerito a:

diving the barriee reef. the meals were very good. equipment overall was good.

Look elsewhere

Dive staff and reef sites were great. The cabins and public spaces are extremely bare bones and outdated. En suite bathroom fixtures so old they are almost unusable. Food extremely substandard and bar only open for 10 minutes once or twice per 24 hour period.

Suggerito a:

Diving sites. Dive guides. Staff efficiency.

Will remember this for a while and hope to be back soon!

I was a bit apprehensive going into this first Liveaboard for me, because I only had the 4 minimum dives for Open Water PADI certification, afraid of running into long hair problems again, and also sea sickness during the rougher waters. In the end, the 3 day 2 night trip went basically as smooth as I could have imagined. Seriously, I think all the staff were friendly, knowledgeable, effective, and made you feel safe (I only say I think because there were some that worked in the background that I haven't interacted (much) with but probably felt their positive impact indirectly (e.g. food)). Special shout out to my guides and people personally helping me out which were Liam, Alfa, Deanna, Skye, and Van! They also had really good patience and seemed happy to help you out! Only nitpicking downsides I can think of right now is that the inside can be warmer (but limited due to construction of the boat, have wifi, and the hot water machine can either give more water at a time or accomodate larger cups/bottles.

Suggerito a:

Staff was friendly, knowledgeable, effective, and made you feel safe. Accomodations. The Reef!.

Week of a lifetime

We had an incredible 6 days with Ocean Quest and were very sad to leave. The dive sites were beautiful and the guides were extremely insightful; we always felt educated about our dives. The food was great, huge props to the chef! All around a very fun, relaxing trip with some amazing sights.

Suggerito a:

The food. The crew. The dive sites.