Dive Review of Grand Sea Explorer in
Red Sea/Hurghada

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Grand Sea Explorer: "Happy to dive in the Red Sea, not going back", Jul, 2023, by Alice Ribbens, MN, US ( Sr. Contributor 20 reports with 23 Helpful votes). Report 12809 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We were part of a REEF trip on the Explorer Ventures' Grand Sea Serpent. We traveled around Egypt for about a week before meeting up with the boat in Hurghada. We had some lost luggage issues when we first arrived in Egypt and had to have some luggage delivered to the boat. The office at the marina was extremely helpful in sorting that out via WhatsApp and even sent me a photo of the luggage once it had arrived. (At least half of the people in the REEF group had some sort of luggage issue--and one person never received one of his bags at all.) The boat generally is very comfortable and the diving was really good. There were some sites that they let us dive on our own if we wanted or we could go with the guide. We enjoyed being able to explore and look for all kinds of different fish and critters. However: the head dive guide seemed to rule with an iron fist, with the other dive guides and the rest of the staff following whatever he told them to do. We asked repeatedly for a schedule for the day--even approximate dive times--and nothing was ever posted. This was probably the only liveaboard I've ever been on where there was no continental breakfast out before the first dive. We started asking for fruit or something and then they provided it. The first day's dive and boat briefing went on for at least 2 hours--with a lot of people being jetlagged and hungry, I don't know how much information was actually absorbed. They said we would do a fire drill later in the day and we actually never did one. We were told not to charge things in our rooms, but there wasn't any sort of dedicated charging area on the boat, just random plugs in the salon that people would commandeer to charge their stuff. At dinner, someone would tell us what time the first dive was the next day. Otherwise, the schedule was often a bit of a mystery. The food generally was pretty good and they seemed to deal with everyone's various food issues (vegetarian, gluten free, allergies, etc.) BUT a number of people had some sort of GI issues develop on the boat and they seemed remarkably unbothered by this. They told us to use bottled water to brush our teeth and "here's a box of medicine." Given the number of people getting sick, I think this was kitchen/cleanliness related and not related to ingesting a small amount of tap water. [I've been on ~25 liveaboards all over the world and this was the first time I've ever gotten any sort of food poisoning while on the boat.] There was a rinse tank for cameras and electronics, but nothing for wetsuits. They basically said "you can rinse your gear at the end of the trip." On the last day, there were still no rinse bins, just a freshwater hose that all 18 of us were supposed to share. (One of the only boats I've been on where the staff did zero to help you sort your gear at the end.) There were some staff on the boat that had obviously been told to help divers in and out of their gear--wetsuit zippers, etc. This was fine, but on the last day after the last dive, I was really cold and wanted to stop shivering before I broke down my gear. One of the "helpers" immediately started in on my wetsuit and started harassing me to break down my kit. Which seemed an exercise in futility since I had to wait until everyone else got a turn with the freshwater hose. And after the lecture about not using the electronics rinse bin for anything other than electronics, we saw the head dive guide put his hood and mask in that bin. To sum up, we're happy we dove in the Red Sea. We loved diving the Thistlegorm and some of the other sites, but we're not going back.
Websites	Grand Sea Explorer
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Komodo, Raja Ampat, Banda Sea, Philippines, Maldives, Palau, GBR, Fiji, British Columbia, Monterey, Puget Sound, Hawaii, Bonaire, Turks & Caicos, Caymans, Honduras, Belize, Cozumel, Akumal, Sea of Cortez, Lake Superior, Solomon Islands, St. Croix, St. Vincent, Socorro, Cuba, Lembeh, Ningaloo, etc.
Closest Airport	Hurghada	Getting There	International flights into Hurghada or short flight from Cairo
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	choppy
Water Temp	79-84°F / 26-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	25-75 Ft/ 8-23 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Keep dives to ~1 hour, no deco
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	One rinse bin for electronics/cameras. If there were a lot of people with big camera rigs, that would have been problematic.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Grand Sea Explorer in Red Sea/Hurghada

Grand Sea Explorer: "Happy to dive in the Red Sea, not going back", Jul, 2023,

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Dive Review of Grand Sea Explorer in
Red Sea/Hurghada