Dive Review of
VIP One in
Red Sea/Sharm El Sheikh

California, Florida, Italy, Greece

Dive Conditions

30 meter depth by the region.  

A tank to rinse the cameras was available.  There were no laptops to
download pictures on, but many electical outlets to use.  

Overall Rating

A wonderful trip.  I made this return trip to Sharm to dive with this
Liveaboard because they are affiliated with the Red Sea Diving College that
I did Day Dives with a couple of years ago (see previous post).  I expected
quality service and I was not diaappointed.  I traveled to Sharm with two
friends from Athens through Cairo.  The real adventure started at the Cairo
airport with a midnight transfer from the international terminal to the
domestic terminal.  

We traveled a day early hoping to avoid lost luggage and all the luggage
made it with us.  Upon arrival at Sharm airport, we were met by a driver
from the Red Sea Diving College and transferred to our hotel.  We checked
in at the College and spent that day looking around.  The next afternoon,
we were transported to the boat.  It was in a marina across town from the
College.

The accommodations were outstanding.  Each room had a bath with shower.  It
was very well kept and the beds were comfortable.  The common areas were
very large and the only area that was crowded was the dining area.  That
was understandable though because there were 15 divers on the boat for that
week.

The Divemaster briefed us on the plan for the week and decided to reverse
the usual itinerary, to put us on reefs when they were not crowded.  This
worked out very well, as all the sites we visited were practically ours
alone.

We had a day of bad weather, but as a benefit of a liveaboard, we were able
to move into a small lagoon and dive inside the reef that afternoon without
problems.  The weather did delay our visit to the Thistlegorm by a day. 
However, with  the change, we actually made an extra dive on this wreck.  

All the sites, except one were beautiful.  The day we dove Jackfish Alley,
we waited for several day boats to leave the area and the site looked
"picked over".  We attributed this to the fact that the Day Boats
had just left the site.

Overall, it was another outstanding trip to the Red Sea for me.  I had
talked about my last trip to Sharm with my friends here and they were not
disappointed in this trip.  I would highly recommend VIP One to anyone
wanting a Luxury Liveaboard experience.  The only disappointing factor on
this trip was that two of us obtained Nitrox certification before we left
for this trip and the nitrox compressor was not working after the first day
of diving.  The only suspicious thing about the Nitrox problem was that on
the first day, we mentioned that we were told that it would cost 50 euros
extra for Nitrox for the week and the divemaster told us that it normally
costs 150 euros for a week of Nitrox.  He said that he would call back to
the college to check and when we returned from that dive, then we were told
that the compressor was broken.  That made me wonder if our quoted price
for Nitrox may have played a part.

The boat had just come out of dry dock and one of the improvements they
made was that they installed a "Whip" to fill tanks.  This
allowed us to return from a dive and put our tanks (or should I say, 'have
them put') in the tank holder near the bench where we kitted up.  Before
the change, you had to take your tank to the compressor and then move it
back to your kit-up area.  

The service was outstanding and the food was excellent.  Our Divemaster,
James, led us to the good spots and also let us do our own thing.  The
divers were very experienced and the diving was great.  I would dive this
Liveaboard again and highly recommend it. 

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