
The Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard – Overall review rating 9.3 out of 10 and 4.5 stars
If you’re set on scuba diving Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, your next decision is whether you do resort based diving vs scuba dive from a liveaboard. But as you’re reading this Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review, it’s possibly safe to assume you intend to dive from a liveaboard.
Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review: A review of the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard reveals a 37 metre (121 feet) custom-built boat for scuba divers. Sleeps 26 divers in 11 cabins with en-suites, air-con and some have sea views. Local + western food served buffet style with an air-con saloon and bar. Dive trips of 4 day 3 nights to 8 day 7 night.
The best way to dive Australia is by a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on Australia liveaboards using the following window:
You’ll have a good chance to see many sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, turtles wrecks, dwarf Minke whales and much much more on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Features of Australia Spirit of Freedom cabin and deck

The Spirit of Freedom is a state of the art liveaboard and was voted Best Australian Liveaboard by readers of Australasia Dive Log in 2015 & 2017.
The Spirit of Freedom offers liveaboard dive trips of 3-day, 4-day and 7-day diving out of Cairns to the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea reefs.
You can also enjoy the spectacular far northern expeditions to dive the pristine and remote reefs not dived from the land-based dive boats.
The features that are included with your stay on the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard are as follows:
- The Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard is 37 metres (121 feet) in length.
- Designed for up to 26 divers across 11 cabins.
- Cabins have private en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning, wardrobes for storage some with sea views and TVs and there’s daily housekeeping.
- Warm water showers.
- A leisure deck, and observation deck and a sun deck for those sun-worshippers who like to relax and enjoy sunbathing in-between dives.
- Food includes local and western style food and is served buffet style and can be eaten both indoors or outside alfresco style and a BBQ area.
- Both wine and beer are available at an extra charge and there’s free wine with dinner, plus a fine wines selection.
- Specific dietary requirements can be catered for including vegetarian and vegan options.
- Non-diver friendly for snorkeling.
- Indoor air conditioned saloon with bar and library.
- Scuba diving facilities include: DIN adaptors, sidemount diving, paid-for nitrox available, a camera station and equipment and scuba gear rentals.
- Free internet.
- Family friendly with family cabins.
- Converters for 110 volts.
You can check the Spirit of Freedom liveaboard availability and prices here.
More Reading: Best liveaboard Great Barrier Reef (5 best reviewed GBR liveaboards)
Australia Spirit of Freedom scuba diving review

The diving from the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard has a superb review rating and she was custom-built for scuba diving.
On this scuba diving liveaboard, you’ll be in the hands of experienced and professional crew.

Search for your favourite Australia Liveaboard here:
Table of Australia liveaboards
This list of Australia liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see below), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
Discover Liveaboard | Customer Rating | SDE Lux Rating % | Flexible Booking | Dive Courses | Dietary Requirements | Nitrox | Gear Rental | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Review: Shore Thing Catamaran; Book: Shore Thing Catamaran | 9.9 | 69% | YES | YES | YES | NO | YES |
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Review: MY Spoilsport; Book: MY Spoilsport | 9.4 | 73% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MY Spirit of Freedom; Book: MY Spirit of Freedom | 9.3 | 83% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: Coral Sea Dreaming; Book: Coral Sea Dreaming | 9.2 | 62% | YES | YES | YES | NO | YES |
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Review: MY Pro Dive Cairns; Book: MY Pro Dive Cairns | 9.2 | 52% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: Rum Runner; Book: Rum Runner | 9 | 44% | YES | YES | YES | NO | YES |
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Review: MY Ocean Quest; Book: MY Ocean Quest | 9 | 40% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MY Odyssey; Book: MY Odyssey | 8.6 | 60% | YES | NO | YES | NO | YES |
The Scuba Diving Earth Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating) is explained on each liveaboard review when you click the “Discover Liveaboard” link, and is my own Liveaboard Luxury Rating I’ve assigned to all liveaboards. Choosing between liveaboards is helped by customer scores, and if you get stuck choosing between two or three liveaboards, where each one has a high customer score out of 10, you can use the SDE Luxury Rating to help narrow down your choice.
Think about it like using Booking.com when searching for the best hotel. Booking.com also use a customer score where each customer rates hotels out of 10. This is similar to the liveaboard customer rating, which is also rated out of 10. But let’s say you only like to stay in hotels rated 8 and above on Booking.com, but you also want the hotel to have WIFI or parking, or to have a swimming pool etc. The features each hotel has is usually secondary to the score out of 10.
Scuba diving options on the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard:
Examples of the dive itineraries on the Spirit of Freedom liveaboard.
- 3N/3D – Swim with Minke Whales & Ribbon Reefs Dive Adventure – 4 days 3 nights trip. Approx. 11 dives in total. No Certificate needed for those not diving or looking to take a dive course to learn to scuba dive – No minimum logged dives required.
- Coral Sea & Ribbon Reefs Adventure – 5 days 4 nights trip. Approx. 15 dives in total. Advanced Open Water – 50 minimum logged dives required.
- Cod Hole, Ribbon Reefs, & Coral Sea Adventure – 8 days 7 nights trip. Approx. 26 dives in total. Advanced Open Water – 50 minimum logged dives required.
- Cod Hole and Ribbon Reefs – 4 days 3 nights trip. Approx. 11 dives in total. Open Water Diver – 10 minimum logged dives required.
The diving on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is varied and interesting with some deep dives, which can be up to 30 metres (98 feet) and there are night dives too. But The Spirit of Freedom is about including most experience levels of scuba diver.
On most of these dive trips divers will see a variety of marine life. This includes nudibranchs, Napoleon Wrasse, cod fish, moray eels, large schools of reef fish, eagle rays, various shark species including grey reef and white tip sharks, turtles, manta rays and the occasional whale sharks.
Plus there’s always that chance you could see a bull shark or a tiger shark too. Plus of course the chance to see a Dwarf Minke Whale! or humpback whales and coral spawning at the right time of year on the GBR!
You will also get the opportunity on some trips to dive some of the most beautiful shipwrecks too.
You can check the Spirit of Freedom liveaboard availability and prices here.
Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review by customers
Scuba divers that have stayed on the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review comments include:
- An amazing 4 days!
- Animals (sharks, fish, cuttlefish, turtles, manta ray…);
- Fabulous diving with a wonderful crew that exceeded my expectations;
- Amazing Dive trip;
- A Great Experience For Our First Liveboard;
- Wow… just wow;
- Incredible diving on the Great Barrier Reef!
- The crew was amazing, the food spectacular and amazing dives;
- The Whale shark;
- Bougainville reef, mantas, the cod hole and the shark feeding;
- seeing a whale shark;
- Excellent trip because of excellent crew!!!
- The BEST diving experience; my whole family loved it!
There are so many great reviews for the Spirit of Freedom, please click here to read them. If you weren’t already convinced how wonderful this top class liveaboard was before, then certainly after reading them all.
More Reading: Book 3 day liveaboard Great Barrier Reef (4 GBR liveaboards for 2 nights)
Here’s a review by a customer who rated the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard 10 out of 10 and 5 stars:
Only thing better than the food was the diving! “The staff on board took care of absolutely every last detail, whether a cable for charging a phone up to making sure we got everything we could out of every dive we took. The boat itself was super clean and very well prepared. Finally, and most incredible, the food was absolutely amazing. I’ve eaten in many restaurants on land that couldn’t hold a candle to what Chef prepared for us every meal. Definitely recommended!” Recommended for: Amazing dives, excellent food, fantastic staff!
Kareem S, Canada
Video of Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard
See what diving in Australia aboard Spirit of Freedom liveaboard is all about.
More Reading: 2 day liveaboard Great Barrier Reef (2 day 1 night Outer Barrier Reef)
I hope you enjoyed this article about the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your adventures of diving and snorkelling. Please use the comments section below. Please also share your photos. Either from your underwater cameras or videos from your waterproof go-pro’s!
But in particular if you’ve dived either in Australia or in particular on the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard, please share your experiences.
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about snorkelling or scuba diving (or specifically about the Australia Spirit of Freedom liveaboard review), please comment below with your questions.
There will also be many more articles about scuba and scuba diving safety tips (and on snorkelling too) for you to read and learn about this fabulous sport.
Have fun and be safe!