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Maldives Emperor Leo Liveaboard Review

Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard with rebreather support on board
MV Emperor Leo 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.

The Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard – Overall review rating 9.0 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 Emperor Leo liveaboard review, it’s possibly safe to assume you intend to dive from a liveaboard.

Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard review: A review of the Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard reveals a 35 metre (115 feet) custom-built boat for scuba divers. Sleeps 24 divers over 12 cabins with en-suites, air-con + some have sea views. Local + western food served buffet style or fine dinning + an air-con saloon. Dive trips of 8 days 7 nights + 10 days 9 nights.

One of the best places in the World to dive with 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 Emperor Leo liveaboard

Features of Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard cabin review
Features of Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard cabin review – Image courtesy of Liveaboard.com

The Emperor Leo 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 Emperor Leo liveaboard are as follows:

  • The Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard is 35 metres (115 feet) in length.
  • Designed for up to 24 divers across 12 cabins.
  • Cabins have private en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning, some with sea views 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 as fine cuisine and can be eaten both indoors or outside alfresco style.
  • Both wine and beer are available at an extra charge with a fine wine selection and wine with dinner.
  • Specific dietary requirements can be catered for.
  • Non-diver friendly for snorkeling.
  • Indoor air conditioned saloon with bar and a library.
  • Scuba diving facilities include: DIN adaptors, rebreather support, Free nitrox available, a camera station and equipment and scuba gear rentals.
  • Paid-for internet.
  • Other activities include a Jacuzzi/hot tub.

You can check the Emperor Leo liveaboard availability and prices here.

More Reading: How to book last minute liveaboard deals Maldives (Maldives diving deals)

Maldives Emperor Leo scuba diving review

Maldives Emperor Leo scuba diving review – Image courtesy of Liveaboard.com

The diving from the Maldives Emperor Leo 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.

Search
Sort by
Total Records Found: 53, showing 10 per page
Discover LiveaboardCustomer RatingSDE Lux Rating %Flexible BookingDive CoursesDietary RequirementsNitroxGear Rental
Review: MV Scubaspa Yang; Book: MV Scubaspa Yang 9.6 87% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Emperor Explorer; Book: MV Emperor Explorer 9.6 63% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Theia; Book: MV Theia 9.5 85% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MY Princess Dhonkamana; Book: MY Princess Dhonkamana 9.5 79% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Scubaspa Ying; Book: MV Scubaspa Ying 9.4 87% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Sachika; Book: MV Sachika 9.4 83% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Emperor Serenity; Book: MV Emperor Serenity 9.4 60% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Soleil 2; Book: MV Soleil 2 9.3 96% YES YES YES YES YES
Review: MV Emperor Atoll; Book: MV Emperor Atoll 9.3 77% YES YES YES YES YES
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.

Liveaboard.com search Maldives-scroll

Scuba diving options on the Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard:

Examples of the dive itineraries on the Emperor Leo liveaboard.

  • Best of Maldives 7 Nights – 8 days 7 nights trip. Approx. 17 dives in total. Open Water certification – No minimum logged dives required.
  • Best of Maldives – 10 days 9 nights trip. Approx. 24 dives in total. Open Water certification – No 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 Emperor Leo 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.

You can check the Emperor Leo liveaboard availability and prices here.

Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard review by customers

Scuba divers that have stayed on the Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard review comments include:

  • Good diving, majestic crew & dive guides;
  • Dives sides were excellent, the food service had good vegetarian options and the crew and dive guides really made the trip worth it;
  • This was my first liveaboard with emperor and I can totally recommend it;
  • The overall trip was very good with a good value for money;
  • Fantastic diving with great group of people;
  • Diving with manta’s and lots of sharks, snorkling with whale shark, bbq on deserted island;
  • The evening dives with the mantas and nurse sharks are experiences that I will never forget;
  • An amazing value for money dive experience;
  • Dive highlight was definitely the dive with the nurse sharks and the night dive with mantas;
  • Best diving experience I could hope for during rainy season;
  • One of, if not the best, dive trips I’ve taken;
  • Excellent crew made everything easy;
  • Truly amazing above and below the water.

There are so many great reviews for the Emperor Leo, 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: Maldives liveaboard single cabin (Maldives diving as a single person)

Here’s a review by a customer who rated the Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard 10 out of 10 and 5 stars:

Top notch operation. “Whale sharks and manta rays. Hook diving to watch the sharks is always interesting.” Recommended for: loved the roominess on this boat. By having a seperate dive dhoani there is a lot more space on our live aboard. The dives were quite varied which made it interesting. The crew were awesome.

Patricia N, Canada

Video of Maldives Emperor Leo liveaboard

Liveaboard Emperor Leo, Maldives
This is where your guarantee for a memorable Maldives diving holiday starts. Built to a high standard for today’s discerning diver, Emperor Leo exudes comfort and, measuring 35m, happily accommodates 24 divers in 12 ensuite cabins.

More Reading: Liveaboard Maldives 3 days all inclusive (Maldives liveaboard diving trips)

I hope you enjoyed this article about the Maldives Emperor Leo 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 Emperor Leo 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 Emperor Leo 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!

Maldives Emperor Leo Liveaboard Review

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.

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