
The Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard – Overall review rating 8.5 out of 10 and 4.5 stars
If you’re set on scuba diving the Maldives, your next decision is whether you do resort based diving vs scuba dive from a liveaboard. But as you’re reading this Ari Queen liveaboard review, it’s possibly safe to assume you intend to dive from a liveaboard.
Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard review: A review of the Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard reveals a 33 metre (108 feet) custom-built boat for scuba divers. Sleeps 20 scuba divers over 10 cabins with en-suites and air conditioning. Western food served buffet style indoors or alfresco with an air-conditioned saloon and bar. Dive trips of 8 days 7 nights.
A brilliant chance to see whale sharks and other sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, turtles wrecks and much much more.
The best way to dive the Maldives is by a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on Maldives liveaboards using the following window:
Features of Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard

The features that are included with your stay on the Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard are as follows:
- The Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard is 33 metres (108 feet) in length.
- Designed for up to 20 divers across 10 luxurious cabins.
- Cabins have private en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning and TVs.
- Daily housekeeping.
- Warm water showers.
- A sun deck for those sun-worshippers who like to relax and enjoy sunbathing in-between dives.
- Food includes western style and is served buffet fashion both indoors or outside alfresco style, with all-day snacks.
- Specific dietary requirements can be catered for including vegetarian options.
- Indoor air conditioned saloon with bar.
- Scuba diving facilities include: DIN adaptors, paid-for nitrox available, sidemount diving and equipment and scuba gear rentals.
- Camera station and a separate rinse for your underwater camera.
- Paid for internet.
You can check the Ari Queen liveaboard availability and prices for this Boat here.
More Reading: How to book last minute liveaboard deals Maldives (Maldives diving deals)
Maldives Ari Queen scuba diving review

The diving from the Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard has a good 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 Maldives Liveaboard here:
Table of Maldives liveaboards
This list of Maldives 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: MV Scubaspa Yang; Book: MV Scubaspa Yang | 9.6 | 87% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Emperor Explorer; Book: MV Emperor Explorer | 9.6 | 63% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Theia; Book: MV Theia | 9.5 | 85% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MY Princess Dhonkamana; Book: MY Princess Dhonkamana | 9.5 | 79% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Scubaspa Ying; Book: MV Scubaspa Ying | 9.4 | 87% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Sachika; Book: MV Sachika | 9.4 | 83% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Emperor Serenity; Book: MV Emperor Serenity | 9.4 | 60% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Soleil 2; Book: MV Soleil 2 | 9.3 | 96% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Emperor Atoll; Book: MV Emperor Atoll | 9.3 | 77% | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
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Review: MV Azalea; Book: MV Azalea | 9.3 | 77% | NO | YES | YES | YES | 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 Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard:
Examples of the dive itineraries on the Ari Queen liveaboard.
- Classic Central – 7 Nights – 8 days 7 nights trip. Approx. 17 dives in total. Advanced Open Water certification – 50 minimum logged dives required.
Some of the diving in the Maldives are deep dives and up to 30 metres (98 feet), with currents so are drift dives and there are night dives too.
On most of these trips divers will see a variety of marine life. This includes nudibranchs, Napoleon Wrasse, moray eels, large schools of reef fish, eagle rays, various shark species including grey reef and white tip sharks, turtles, manta rays and whale sharks.
You will also get the opportunity on some trips to dive some of the most beautiful shipwrecks too.
You can check the Ari Queen liveaboard availability and prices for this Boat here.
Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard review by customers
There are a few mixed reviews about the Ari Queen liveaboard. Some of the ratings are low. Sometimes this is down to the weather, which isn’t the fault of the dive boat. The best thing is to make your mind up based on your budget, but to also read some of the good review points too.
Scuba divers that have stayed on the Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard review comments include:
- Staff were super nice and responsible. room is always keep clean;
- Good value for money;
- One afternoon a group of nurse sharks swam right underneath the boat and we jumped in the water to snorkel with them. Amazing!
- First Liveaboard: Well worth it!
- The diving was very good, the food onboard was delicious, and the convenience of the “dhoni” dive boat was great!
- Unforgettable manta diving;
- Great diving and great boat;
- The Ari Queen is great value for money for world class diving!
More Reading: Maldives liveaboard single cabin (Maldives diving as a single person)
Here’s a review by a customer who rated the Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard 10 out of 10 and 5 stars:
Amazing Alejandra, Fire, Hugo, and Captain Adam are the best! “Alejandra, Fire, Hugo, and Captain Adam are the best! The rest of the crew is awesome as well. I cannot say enough about the professionalism that comes with the employees of this boat. They went above an beyond to make everyone’s trip amazing. Manta Ray night dive was incredible as well as the Shark and Stingray night dive. Owner take note: Alejandra is awesome!” Recommended for: Staff, Staff, Staff.
Scott P, United States
Video of Maldives Ari Queen liveaboard
Diving on South Male Atoll, Ari Atoll in the Maldives, liveaboard on the Ari Queen. December 2017. Whaleshark and drone footage by yizhang and his amazing camera skills.
More Reading: Liveaboard Maldives 3 days all inclusive (Maldives liveaboard diving trips)
I hope you enjoyed this article about the Maldives Ari Queen 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 the Maldives or in particular on the Maldives Ari Queen 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 Maldives Ari Queen 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!