Pelagian

★ 5 · Louis Romano · 2025-09-21

You can't really call this a live aboard. When I think of live aboard I see a ship with as many cabins as they can stuff in as possible. As many people per dive guide as possible. Mediocre food, Minimum amount of staff. Not the best maintained ship. The Pelegian is the opposite of all of that! 10 guests max! 5 divers per guide max! Every single meal is made to order and chosen by you same day, and it is all excellent and a great variety! The ship is older and I was concerned before I went but it is so well maintained that it's in better shape than most newer ships i've been on, its also been renovated at least a few times and has all the modern amenities you could want. The staff are all professional, friendly, efficient, and ready to cater to anything you need or want. I will continue to make this a yearly experience, if not more. If you are looking for a bespoke diving experience on a Yacht that you don't have to charter, this is it. Ignore the bad reviews, I promise you will have the best dive trip of your life. I was on Pelegian from Sept 11-18 and the resort from Sept 18-25. I already have another trip booked for August 2026. Oh, and the diving will blow your mind, but if you've read this far, you already know that about this region of the world.

★ 1 · Steve Noble · 2013-06-11

The locations and dives were great but the Pelagian boat and the Wakatobi Resort we found to be pretentious and unpleasant. One of the worst experiences of my life! Overpriced! They charged $12 for a glass of wine, $3.50 for a soft drink. This is absurd when you pay such a premium for the trip to begin with. Management was dishonest with us. They promised certain things then broke their promise and left us high and dry. Our cabin was cramped and there was a horrible odor that emanated from the bathroom. My wife was getting headaches so we had to leave our cabin door open 24 hours a day to get a little fresh air. Even with this ventilation the stench was overpowering every time we entered our cabin. They did not resolve the problem and stated that it must have been some spoiled paint that had been applied to the cabin the week before. The dive master was not at all professional. She seemed a bit scattered and inexperienced. The rest of the staff was great and the food was very good. Wakatobi shuttled all the departing guests that week to the Wakatobi airport at 10:30 AM. Our flight to Bali did not depart until 2:30 PM. Many divers in our group were convinced that this was so Wakatobi would not have to provide us an additional lunch that day. We left with a bad taste in our mouth for Wakatobi. The flights getting there and back were a mess. Many divers had to reschedule their flights home for a day or so due to flight delays (a real costly inconvenience). Do yourself a big favor; go with a different dive provider.

★ 4 · Hilary Elder · 2011-09-19

The boat was nice, the crew were great, as were the dive guides. However, the diving was disappointing. The hyperbole that surrounds Wakatobi and its diving is, from our point of view, overrated. The corals are good but there are equally as good corals elsewhere and in some areas there was quite bad coral damage, although we only found this when the currents were running such that we were unable to dive the actual site that had been planned. There was quite a lot of the usual reef fish but nothing particularly special, other than bumphead parrotfish. a mobula ray, some dogtooth tuna and barracudas and several species of pygmy sea horses that the dive guides were very good at pointing out. However, we were unable to dive the muck dive sites as the Idonesian Navy was undertaking exercises in the area, which was rather disappointing. There was, as at the resort, a distinct lack of creatures such as octopus, cuttlefish, pipefish, frogfish etc. Diving in other parts of Indonesia is much better.