I had a great time. The equipment was in good condition and our guides were very motivated. Also this is not mass tourism like for example in Thailand. We were nine people plus two guides and there were no other boats at the same spot. Also the sea life is amazing there. We saw tons of white tips, black tips, some Galapagos sharks, lots of rays and a sea turtle. On my second dive trip I finally saw the hammer heads and some sea lions as well. Even if there are only two dives per trip and the costs are about twice the price you pay normally in the rest of the world it is definitely worth it!

We had a great time with academybay diving. The service was uncomplicated and they responded fast to our questions. It was also possible to add on an extra tour. The accomodation in the tourist category was in nice hotels with comfy rooms. Academy Bay diving have really good instructors and crew personal. Thanks for the great time!

Amazing diving experience. The diving itself is just mindblowing, but that was expected. The team of Academy Bay went instead beyond expectations. They are excellent and extremely competent, they took care of everything with great detail and made all the trips more special and relaxed. They even managed to make quite easy (thanks to how they organised it and how they prepared us) the more difficult drift dives with strong currents. Highly recommended (especially compared with some other dive centres on the other main islands).

The three trips we booked with Academy Bay Diving were excellent. Except for a minor glitch regarding meeting time/location on the 2nd day trip (Academy Bay resolved to my satisfaction) ... the guides were excellent as were the crew. Very knowledgeable and accommodating. Lunch served on board each boat was some of the best food we had while visiting Galapagos! Thanks for the wonderful experience!

This is a Tiburon Explorer liveaboard review (NOT Academy Bay Diving): Considering the huge price of this live aboard, we were really disappointed with the experience. The boat was only two years old so we thought we were paying a high price for high quality. Not so. The boat was very tired. The top deck had been patched many times with glue but still had holes in it. When it rained, water poured into the main salon, onto the floor, sofa, dining table and around all the ceiling lights. It also poured into one of the cabins, onto the bed. The crew did their best, with towels everywhere, but it was a mess. Tiburon is a boat that was made cheaply with the wrong materials and it’s now not fit for purpose. Safety was not taken seriously by the dive leaders. The briefings were poor, using slides with the wrong information on them. No currents or temperatures were checked at sites prior to briefings. We were told temperature would be 22/23 degrees when it was 27-29 degrees in the water all week. Currents in the water were often completely different to what had been briefed. Communication from dive leaders during the dives was poor. Certain divers were running out of air and sharing on octopus regularly, deliberately. It was hard to catch up with the leaders in order to tell them ‘low on air’ because of the currents. No checks were made on divers depths vs nitrox percentage. One diver wasn’t nitrox certified but was allowed to dive on nitrox all week without any understanding of the implications. Despite saying divers needed 50 dives, they accepted one diver with only 25 dives. Then buddied her up with us, meaning our dives were short as she used so much air. If Explorer is accepting inexperienced divers they should insist that they have a private guide, like other boats do. No focus on non-decompression limits. Some divers went into deco dives. One diver told the dive leader (Alex) that she was almost at her no-deco limit and he told her to go up, by herself, in strong currents. Despite my friend and I paying a huge amount and booking early, the 3 single divers who booked at the last minute with enormous discounts were the ones also given single cabins, with no single supplement paid. We should have been offered these cabins first as we had paid significantly more. The diving was good, the rest of the crew worked hard and the food was good. But there are much less expensive options and I would not recommend Tiburon Explorer.