Palau Siren

The Palau Siren Liveaboard offers a floating hotel type experience in Palau with some notable highlights and areas for improvement.The Palau Siren is a beautifully presented traditional Phinisi. One of her best features is undoubtedly the a la carte plus buffet breakfast served after the first dive, providing guests with a delightful start to their day. The liveaboard, owned by Master Liveaboards, boasts a large lounge, dining area, and well-appointed cabins.The cabins are equipped with modern showers, toilets, and daily housekeeping services, including fresh towels. However, some guests may find the air conditioning to be noisy and prone to temperature fluctuations. Additionally, there is no onboard WiFi, but guests can purchase local SIM cards for internet access, although coverage may vary depending on the location.Meals onboard are of very good quality and plentiful, with a wide selection of breakfast options cooked to order plus a generous hot buffet of side items. Delicious lunches and dinners are served buffet-style as well. The onboard bar offers a selection of local light beer on tap, cocktails, and some spirits to enjoy after diving is completed for the day.The dive team on the Palau Siren Liveaboard comprises the Cruise Director/instructor, assistant CD, and two experienced guides, maintaining an overall ratio of approximately four guests to one guide, although this ratio may vary slightly on different dives. Dive briefings were engaging and informative, featuring rotations among the team and supplemented by humorous anecdotes and visually appealing graphics displayed on a large screen in common areas. However, there were instances where the dive plan did not achieve its objective due to misjudged current conditions.Diving activities are conducted from banana boat skiffs, with travel times ranging from 20 to 40 minutes. While the dive boats are comfortable and covered, the open sides can lead to exposure to wet and windy conditions, especially during rough weather. It's important to note that there is no provision for water onboard the dive boats, but the ever cheerful hospitality team always serves water or juice before and after the dive.Equipment handling is primarily self-setup, and equipment stays on your allocated skiff. Tanks are filled in situ, and the crew ensures wetsuits are rinsed after each dive. Guests should be self-sufficient in terms of camera handling, although the crew is supportive in passing equipment as needed.Nitrox at 31% is available, with guests required to sign for each tank, although an on-site O2 analyzer is not provided. The compressors onboard are essential for dive operations but can be noisy.The itinerary is collaboratively decided with input from the Cruise Director, boat captain, and skiff drivers, taking into account prevailing conditions and a routine itinerary. However, there may be room for improvement in optimizing the itinerary for the best diving experiences throughout the trip.During our 10-night trip, we found the itinerary somewhat disappointing as we spent 4 nights in Malakal Harbor (2 at the beginning and 2 at the end), 2 nights at Ulong, and just 4 nights in the Ngemelis area. The diving experience was notably better in the Ngemelis area, which hosts premier dive sites like Blue Corner and German Channel. The Ulong area was also good, but Malakal Harbor had poor visibility and lacked marine life. Pelileu dives were conducted using the skiffs, with one boat remaining behind for guests opting for a land tour at Pelileu instead of a second dive.For non-divers, the liveaboard offers snorkeling and kayaking options, adding to the variety of activities available during the trip.Overall, the Palau Siren Liveaboard offers a memorable diving experience with excellent meals, comfortable accommodations, and knowledgeable guides. However, improvements in air conditioning stability, WiFi availability, and itinerary. The Palau Siren Liveaboard offers a floating hotel type experience in Palau with some notable highlights and areas for improvement.

We Just got back from a 10 day trip on the Palau Siren. They picked us up from Palau Pacific Resort at 5:30 PM and took us to Sam’s Tours where they put us on a boat to transfer us to the Palau Siren. The boat looked great and seemed to be a good condition. The rooms are all very large by liveaboard standards and could be put in a king or 2 twin formation. The rooms had plenty of power outlets and cabinet space. The salon was large but had very low ceilings, with plenty of seating and a big sceen TV. All the meals were served in their spacious covered outside dinning area. Meals were served in a buffet style with breakfast having eggs cooked to order. The crew did a great job to make you feel at home and they were very attentive to your needs.The dive deck was nice and each person had a station with a large drawer where a warm towel would be waiting for you after your dive. All diving was done from the two skiffs and your gear stayed on the skiffs since they have long enough whips to fill from the Siren. We were separated into three groups of 5 or 6 with three guides. All you had to take to the skiff was your camera. The crew would help me lift and transfer my camera to the skiff. The Captain was always there at the end of the dive to take my camera from me. There were two large rinse tanks for cameras, torches and electronics. Camera tables were inside and not very roomy, but there seemed to be plenty of electrical plugs for our group. The boat has 220v European style plugs with the two prongs. We only had two big camera set-ups and two video set-ups and that took up most of the room. They had a great drawer system with your number on it so each person got a big drawer and a small drawer. This was perfect for storing stuff like your camera accessories or logbooks.The dive sites we did were great but they did not do the itinerary that they advertise on the website. The guides said they never do that itinerary. We spent 5 days moored in the same location and dove the same sites over and over again. We did two sites (German Channel and Blue Corner) five times each and we were definitely ready for something different. The guides were fun but we seemed to miss the current on every dive. In fact we only used our reef hooks on one dive and we probably didn’t need them. They told us we would have 45 minutes at the Jelly Fish lake but called us out of the water after only 35 minutes so I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get more time there.We saw lots of black tips, white tips and grey reef sharks. Blue Corner has a resident Napoleon Wrasse who is quite friendly. I suspect someone is feeding him. Schools of barracudas were frequently seen. Every site had Green and Hawksbill turtles to enjoy. We even had a visit from a huge Dogtooth Tuna.On our down time we took the kayaks out and enjoyed a paddle around the rock islands. The Siren had a huge sundeck with great lounge chairs, but my favorite place was in one of the hammocks on the shaded dive deck.Overall the Siren is a nice boat with a great crew but I would have preferred diving some of the other dive sites of Palau.

This was my fifth or sixth trip back to Palau, but my first time on the Palau Siren. The boat, made of ironwood and teak, in traditional Phinisi style, is spacious and quite charming. The cabins are very roomy, though be careful walking down the steep stairs to the lower deck. At night, a pump kept cycling on and off, making sleep a little difficult, but frankly there are few liveaboards where I find it that easy to sleep. There was plenty of room on the dive deck, and all diving was done from a skiff, and there were never any long rides to the dive sites. We never had to carry our gear on or off (except for camera equipment). The crew provided fresh towels and a fruit drink on returning from each dive. There is lots of room undercover for storage, setup and charging of photography gear. Among the amenities that make the Siren unique are free Nitrox and the availability of on-board massages and laundry service.All meals were served buffet-style, on the open aft deck of the boat (and where plastic curtains can keep out the rain when needed). The food was plentiful and flavorful, each meal usually including a variety of protein foods (chicken, pork, or beef and always seafood) along with great veggies and steamed rice. The chef would begin the evening meal with a "dinner briefing" which he ended by saying "ATTACK!", which we all gratefully did.The crew were all very friendly and helpful, and it was pleasant spending 10 days getting to know them along with the guests. Traveling in June, I should have expected the frequent wind and rain. It didn't really dampen the diving much though, as the seas were never really rough.When I was there, the Siren had been operating in Palau only for a year or so, and unfortunately, the crew was often confused by the presence or absence of current at various dive sites. You want to dive at The famous Blue Corner, when the current is roaring, to hook in and see the dozens of sharks on parade. Sadly, though we dived Blue Corner several times, on most occasions there was virtually no current, and no sharks. Other times there was current at locations where there shouldn't have been. The Siren begins and ends its week at Sam's Tours in Palau. One evening we dove right in front of the place, hopefully to see some mandarin fish just at sunset. I would have preferred a different setting, away from the boats docked there (and the trash that collected at the docks). Some of the divers were unhappy at these small misfortunes, but it's always fun to be on a dive trip.The diving in Palau, no matter the conditions, is always spectacular, and the beauty of the islands above water is matched by the incredible variety of life underwater. The reef is generally in excellent condition, and there are opportunities to do drift dives, wall dives and night dives. There are always large numbers of small and larger reef fish including parrot fish, groupers, snappers, barracuda and Napoleon wrasse and ... of course ... reef sharks, to be seen, along with a broad array of morays, nudibranchs, turtles, sea fans and coral. In addition to seeing the sea life, we dove on a couple of wrecks including a well-preserved WW II plane. I recommend seeing the famous Jelly Fish Lake and the Chandelier Caves, which make up a memorable part of the unique Palau experience.It's a long trip to Palau, no matter where you start, but it surely is one of the premiere dive destinations in the world!