MV Azalea Liveaboard – Maldives liveaboard dive boat – image courtesy of Liveaboard.com. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.
Maldives Azalea liveaboard review: A review of the Maldives Azalea liveaboard reveals a 38 metre (125 feet) custom-built boat for scuba divers. Sleeps 16 divers over 9 cabins with en-suite, air conditioning and some have sea views. Local + western food served buffet style indoors or alfresco with an air-con saloon and bar. Dive trips of 8 days 7 nights.
The 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 Azalea cabin and deck
Features of Maldives Azalea liveaboard cabin review – Image courtesy of Liveaboard.com
The Azalea is more than just a liveaboard boat. She is more like a floating hotel and spa with absolute luxury than just a normal Liveaboard boat.
The features that are included with your stay on the Maldives Azalea liveaboard are as follows:
The Maldives Azalea liveaboard is 38 metres (125 feet) in length.
Designed for up to 16 divers across 9 cabins.
Cabins have private en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning, some with sea views and there’s daily housekeeping and a laundry service.
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.
Both wine and beer are available at an extra charge and a BBQ area.
Specific dietary requirements can be catered for including vegetarian options.
Non-diver friendly for snorkeling.
Indoor air conditioned saloon with bar and library.
Scuba diving facilities include: DIN adaptors, rebreather support, paid-for nitrox available, a camera station and equipment and scuba gear rentals.
Additional activities include kayaks, water skiing, wakeboarding, jet ski, fishing, stand up paddleboards, a glass bottom boat excursion and a Jacuzzi/Hot Tub (some of these are optional extra charges).
There’s a naturalist guide on board.
Relax with a massage after diving as an optional extra charge.
Maldives Azalea scuba diving review – Image courtesy of Liveaboard.com
The diving from the Maldives Azalea 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 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.
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 Azalea liveaboard:
Examples of the dive itineraries on the Azalea liveaboard.
Best of the Maldives – charter only – 8 days 7 nights trip. Approx. 18 dives in total. Open Water certification – 50 minimum logged dives required.
Best of the Maldives – 8 days 7 nights trip. Approx. 17 dives in total. 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. But The Azalea is about including most experience levels of scuba diver.
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. Plus there’s always that chance you could see a tiger shark too.
You will also get the opportunity on some trips to dive some of the most beautiful shipwrecks too.
The Azalea does things differently, they do their best to get you to popular dive sites when others are leaving so you can enjoy uninterrupted, uncrowded, and unspoiled dives;
This was my first liveaboard and I am sure it will be the best.
There are so many great reviews for the Azalea, 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.
Here’s a review by a customer who rated the Maldives Azalea liveaboard 10 out of 10 and 5 stars:
Most amazing dive experience of my life… “I booked this trip via liveaboard.com and had only moderate expectations. This high-end Azalea liveaboard cruise has exceeded every expectation that I ever had! Everything from the operator and crew having such attention to detail made my dive vacation the best I have ever had. It was truly luxurious and everything the dive guides said we would see in the briefings, we saw, and more!!! They were so knowledgeable in taking us from site to site. The food was prepared fresh daily and was absolutely delicious. This being one of the more expensive liveaboards, it attracted a high quality group of divers which will be life-long friends to me. This experience was like no other and I will be repeating it, bringing some of my South Florida friends with me.” Recommended for: Quality: The accommodations, crew, dining, and guides were over the top. 2. Attention to detail: Everything was taken care of for the passengers. 3. Relationships: The group was amazing.
I hope you enjoyed this article about the Maldives Azalea 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 Azalea 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 Azalealiveaboard 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.
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Article written by Russell Bowyer who has been a scuba diver since diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1989. After his first dive he trained as a BSAC diver in the UK. He attained his Diver Leader certification with BSAC. He then went on to become a scuba diving instructor, teaching others how to dive and was voted as Diving Officer and Treasurer for the Saffron Walden BSAC club too. Russell has dived all over the world, including the UK, on liveaboards in the Red Sea, the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA. Russell is experienced in all dive types, including drift diving, deep dives that involved decompression stops and recreational dives too.
