Is a liveaboard club worth it? An honest breakdown

Any club that charges you a fee to save you money owes you an honest sum. So here it is, without the marketing.

A membership here costs US$ 45 a year while the founding places last, and US$ 89 after that. A liveaboard week costs, in our catalogue, somewhere between US$ 1,800 and US$ 7,000. Members pay an average of 7% less than the price shown publicly. On a US$ 3,500 cabin, that is about US$ 245 back in your pocket on a single booking, against a US$ 45 fee.

That is the whole argument in one paragraph. Everything below is what you get besides the number.

The member rate, and why it exists at all

We never add a markup. The price you see on this site is the operator's own published price, the same number you will find on the boat's website. Membership unlocks a lower, members-only rate on top of it.

The reason that rate is not simply shown to everyone is that it lives behind your login and never appears in public search. That is the mechanism that lets a boat protect its published price and still reward a closed group of divers who book through us. It is a normal arrangement in travel, and it is the reason a club exists rather than just a discount banner.

If the member rate were public, it would not be a member rate. It would just be the price, and the boat could not offer it.

The saving you never see on an invoice

The cheapest week is not the one with the lowest number on it. It is the one you do not have to redo.

Divers lose far more money booking the wrong week than they ever lose to a markup: Raja Ampat in August, when the fleet is somewhere else. Galápagos with fifty logged dives and no cold-water experience. A boat with a fantastic photo of the sundeck and a dive deck built for eight, sold to sixteen.

What you actually pay a club for is somebody answering "that boat, but not that week" before you have paid a deposit. Nobody can run that check from a search form.

Cabins before they are listed

Liveaboards cancel. Someone's dive buddy breaks a wrist, a couple splits, a group of six turns into a group of four, and a boat that was full in November suddenly has two cabins to fill in three weeks.

Those cabins move fast and they move cheap, and they almost never reach a public page. Members get the alert. If you have flexible dates and a passport ready, this alone is worth more than the membership several times over.

Hosted trips and the people on them

A liveaboard is 20 strangers in a confined space for a week. Who those people are decides a surprising amount of whether you enjoy it.

Members get first refusal on our hosted departures, which travel with underwater photography coaching aboard, and they are among divers from the same club rather than a random assembly of whoever booked. Over time, that is the part people renew for. The discount gets you in; the people on the boat are why you stay.

Gear discounts, coming

We are negotiating member pricing on dive equipment with a number of brands, to go live for members during the coming season. Regulators, computers, exposure suits, lights. We will announce each brand as it is confirmed, and it will be included in the membership you already pay for, at no extra cost. If you are already a member when it launches, you get it.

When you should not join

We would rather say this than take your money.

• You are not diving in the next twelve months. Then the fee buys you nothing this year. Get on our list instead, and we will hold the founding price for you when the places run out.
• You have one boat, one week, already booked and paid. The membership cannot rebate what is already spent.
• You want the absolute cheapest week on earth and nothing else. A club that curates is not the tool for that. A price alert is.

The short version

If you do one liveaboard week in the next year, the membership pays for itself several times over on that one booking. If you do two, it stops being a question.

If you are not travelling this year, wait. We would rather have you as a member in twelve months than as a refund next week.

See what membership includes →