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Dive Review of Palau Siren/Palau Pacific Resort in
Micronesia/Palau

Palau Siren/Palau Pacific Resort: "A Really Nice Trip", Jan, 2015,

by Gary & Robin Schiendelman, PA, US (Sr. Contributor Sr. Contributor 27 reports with 43 Helpful votes). Report 8122 has 1 Helpful vote.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 5 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 4 stars
Dive Operation 4 stars Shore Diving N/A
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ N/A
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments We wanted to arrive early in case of missed connections or lost bags so we stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort for 5 days before boarding the boat. It is a fairly expensive resort but well worth it. Beautiful grounds, nice rooms, a great beach with terrific snorkeling out front. See our full review of this hotel on TripAdvisor. A taxi or shuttle is needed to get to town but with a beach bar and two restaurants on site, we didn't leave the premises except to take a scenic plane ride. If you have the time in Palau, this is something you really need to do! There are a couple of companies that provide this service. We used PMA (Pacific Mission Aviation). They provide low cost or free services to the people of Palau for emergency medical evacuation, search and rescue etc. They use the income from the sightseeing flights to help offset the cost of operations. You really get a different perspective when seeing this beautiful place from the air. They fly over the Rock Islands and all of the famous dive sites like Blue Corner, Blue Holes, German Channel, Jellyfish Lake and more. They take one door off so the person sitting by that door can get really good photos!
Transfer from the resort to the Palau Siren was quick and easy. They picked us up first and then stopped at a couple of other hotels in Koror before heading to the marina. Only about 30 or 40 minutes in total.
The Palau Siren is beautiful and well set up. All of the cabins are on the lower deck and they are large and well appointed. Big showers with plenty of hot water and really good water pressure too! The main deck has a large salon and 2 camera tables with outlets for charging and drawers for all of your camera stuff. There were also smaller drawers that could be used by guests for miscellaneous items like sunblock, hats, sunglasses,etc. Nice as it kept you from running down to your cabin.
Food was served in a covered area with open sides. Plenty of room. Meals are buffet style and the food is good, varied and plentiful. Free beer on tap. Wine and liquor at additional charge. They had a couple of wine selections at $30USD per bottle. Coffee, tea, juices and soft drinks always available.
Safety was a priority. We had to bring life jackets to the muster site and put them on the first night. Everyone had to deploy their safety sausage on the first dive. There were non skid mats in many areas on the dive deck and walkways.
The dive deck is large and comfortable. Everyone has their own station with a drawer for small things. Your bc, reg and fins are kept on the dive tenders. There didn't seem to be any problems with anyone who needed access between dives. There is adequate area to hang wet swim suits, towels, etc on the dive deck. After the dive, Lita, the hostess (she's great!) provided juice, a smoothie or hot chocolate. The crew helped remove your wetsuit, then rinsed and hung it. Towels were provided after each dive, and after the night dive, they were warm. Loved this after dive service.
The boat was divided into 2 groups and each was assigned a tender. They did a good job of dividing us based on experience. Our group consisted of a Belgian couple, a German couple,a single traveler from New Zealand and us. The other tender had 6 Americans and a couple from France. The tenders are large, have sun cover and are pretty comfortable for the short boat rides (most were about 10 minutes). Two small camera buckets on each. Backroll entry with 5 entry points. Dive briefings were pretty good but often the dive varied due to current and also to the number of other divers in the water. This place is crowded. We saw up to 18 other dive boats on a single site!
We were run over (underwater) a couple of times by other groups. Safety sausage mandatory due to the amount of boat traffic. They told us in the beginning that we would have opportunities to dive as buddy teams and not have to stay with the DM but that never really happened. You were encouraged to stay with your DM. Most dives were 60 minutes and our original DM was starting the safety stop by 52 or 53 minutes. Too short in our opinion. Three of us were not real happy with the original DM so they did put another DM in the water for us. Other than that one person, the rest of the crew were really good.

In a nutshell, the Siren was a really good boat and we would recommend it. We will definitely look into other boats in their fleet for future trips. It was nice seeing sharks on almost every dive and also the mantas at German Channel. Jellyfish Lake was really cool and there were a couple of other sites that we enjoyed. But, there are not too many dive sites and the most popular are crowded. There are a lot of fish but not the abundant variety of species you see in other places. Very few critters. The coral is healthy and beautiful. There are wrecks but we only dove 2 of them so it's not for wreck junkies. We are happy we went and we did have a really nice trip.

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience Over 1000 dives
Where else diving Cocos, Galapagos, Indonesia, PNG, Solomon Islands, Maldives, Red Sea, Socorro Islands, Honduras, Various Caribbean Locations, Florida, New Jersey
Closest Airport Koror Getting There United to Honolulu to Guam to Koror
Only food for sale. $70 for second bag. 5 of the 6 flights had no entertainment.

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny Seas calm, currents
Water Temp 81-82°F / 27-28°C Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility - Ft/ - M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile no
Enforced diving restrictions Stay with DM. 60 minutes on most dives (although the DM ended sooner). Our group was good on air so not sure how they handled other groups staying together if someone ran low on air.
Liveaboard? yes Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks Lots Mantas Squadrons
Dolphins 1 or 2 Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 4 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 2 stars Large Fish 4 stars
Large Pelagics 4 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 4 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments Good facilities on the main boat. 2 fairly small rinse buckets on the tenders.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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