Overnight Reef Cruise, the ultimate way to see Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

You will be so glad that you chose the Reef Encounter.

Share Reef Encounter’s passion for the Great Barrier Reef. Everything we do is about making your Great Barrier Reef Experience outstanding.

Reef Encounter is serviced daily by her sister vessel Reef Experience, or by a spectacular scenic helicopter flight. You can choose to join us on the day that suits you. Stay for as long as you like! One of the reasons Reef Encounter is so great is you get to choose how long you stay.

Imagine coming face to face with brightly coloured marine life. You will be immersed in this magnificent destination. It is a dream come true and should be high on everyone’s bucket list.

This is the best way to Experience the Great Barrier Reef

Reef Encounter liveaboard tours is a floating boutique resort

About our Overnight Reef Cruise

Reef Encounter is always cruising Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Packages to suit everyone. Our family has been delighted to share our passion for taking guests to the Great Barrier Reef for over 30 years.

We understand the perfect Great Barrier Reef experience. Not everyone who will visit Australia’s Great Barrier Reef can swim or feel comfortable in the water.

Our passion is to give our clients the best Great Barrier Reef Experience. We are flexible for everyone. So, on our reef stay it’s possible for 1 person to snorkel and the other person scuba dive or learn to scuba dive.

It’s also possible for those who don’t feel comfortable in the water to have one of our friendly crew members show them the reef on a guided snorkel tour where we swim for you.

The Best Crew on the Reef

We share a passion to show people just how magnificent our Great Barrier Reef is. We think it takes no time at all for our guests to feel like part of our reef family.

It’s our aim to give our guests a unique friendly experience. As our reviews suggest our crew are really good at doing that.

So if you are a very aquatic person or if you have fears of the water and or even if you can’t swim or crew will assist you to have the best possible Great Barrier Reef stay.

The greatest highlight of a liveaboard tour is undoubtedly the night and dawn dives.

An experience is simply not possible on a day tour. These times are when the coral reef is at its liveliest as the coral colonies come to life and display their bright, luminescent colours.

Glass Bottom Boat Tours

The glass-bottom boat tours allow even those with no interest in entering the water to witness still the wonder of the highest concentrations of life in the world.

Great Barrier Reef Scuba Diving and Snorkelling

Snorkeling

All Reef Encounter tours include snorkeling and snorkeling equipment.

With up to 5 snorkeling sessions every day at a range of reef locations, our snorkelers have loads of time to discover the hidden wonders of the reef.

Our crew will give you a snorkeling brief at each of our spectacular outer barrier reef locations.

All of our reef locations offer outstanding snorkeling conditions. You can look forward to coming face to face with an enormous variety of brightly coloured reef fish and coral.

It really is an amazing experience to swim with the fish.

Scuba diving on our overnight reef cruise

Reef Encounter Great Barrier Reef holidays cater for all diving abilities, from the most experienced certified divers to first-time resort divers.

We offer excellent scuba diving opportunities.

Certified Scuba Divers and choose to either scuba dive with their buddy or discover our reefs with one of our dive crew. They are very knowledgeable about our reefs and the marine life that calls it home.

We offer refresher courses onboard if you haven’t scuba dived for a while. Along with Advanced Adventurer courses and Stress and Rescue courses if you would like to improve your scuba diving knowledge.

Try Scuba Diving

For our guests who are interested in trying scuba diving, we offer a wonderful opportunity for a free scuba dive demonstration. We will suit you up in our scuba gear and take you underwater to see if your comfortable breathing. If you are, you can choose to go on a handheld introductory scuba dive with one of our professional scuba dive instructors.

Learn to Scuba Dive

Reef Encounter’s Personalised Open Water dive course is certainly the best way to learn to scuba dive. You do need to be a good swimmer to participate in our learn to dive course.

Reef Encounter learn to dive course is all done in the crystal clear blue waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, with a maximum of 4 students in the class.

While you’re learning to scuba dive you will see a brightly coloured fish, turtles, and coral.

Once you have booked our trip we will send you a login to the online SSI learn to Dive school. Then you can start your course immediately and complete the theory before you board Reef Encounter. This will allow you to relax and have fun scuba diving while you are onboard.

Our learn-to-dive courses start at three days and two nights. It’s a great idea to add another day and really add some confidence to your scuba diving.

The Reef Encounter difference

This is no ordinary dive boat! Our onboard chefs prepare delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We can cater to all dietary requirements

Twin and Double staterooms are 12.5 square metres with large picture windows overlooking the Great Barrier Reef.

Top of the range A H Beard mattresses are on all beds to make sure that you get a great night’s rest.

All rooms have ensuite bathrooms. Toiletries are supplied as part of our packages, as are bath and deck towels.

Relax and Enjoy our Overnight Reef Cruise

Our overnight reef cruise, Reef Encounter has a large sundeck with deck chairs where you can work on your suntan during the day

See the Stars!

Because of our remote location on the Great Barrier Reef, our sundeck becomes an awesome place to see stars at night.

See the Milky Way and the Southern Cross. Ask our friendly crew to see our onboard astronomy books or download the Star Chart app. It’s free and will show you which stars and planets you are looking at.

Soak in our onboard Jacuzzi always a great place to relax after night diving. Be surrounded by the absolute beauty of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

 

Top Deck Club – VIP Treatment at the Great Barrier Reef

The Reef Encounter, Top Deck packages include everything in the standard tour options and much more.

If you love great service and personalised attention, our Top Deck Club is for you.

On arrival, enjoy complimentary champagne and cocktails later in the day to watch the sunset on deck in style.

Enjoy priority boarding, your valet, the best rooms on the boat and daily turndown services.

Breakfast can be served to your rooms, and 3-course dinners under the stars are an exclusive option to Top Deck Club passengers.

You won’t be waiting in line to collect your equipment when heading into the water. Your guide will head into the water with you to ensure the best possible experience.

A Great Barrier Reef tour is not something you will do every day so why not do it in style?

The Top Deck Club is your VIP luxury tour with no detail left out.