d_aviddiver
Contributor
This will be more of use for researchers than lovers of flowery prose ;-)
We left for Bali from Albuquerque, NM on Sept 13, 2010, arrived in Denpasar on the 15th and went directly from the airport to our hotel in Ubud, the Tegal Sari:
Welcome to Tegal Sari
We had a spectacular second floor room with wonderful rice paddy views, and certainly considered it a bargain. Staff, grounds and location were wonderful. We enjoyed five days in Ubud to recover from the flight, relax, enjoy the sights and wait for the rest of our group to arrive.
We are five friends (two couples and a man with a NDS) that met in Cozumel through our ownership of condos at El Cantil. Each of us has about a thousand dives and many of them diving as a group.
On From Ubud we flew to Labuan Bajo and were greeted by our liveaboard staff and taken to the boat, Lalunia. We were very pleased to discover we were the only guests on the boat for our ten day excursion!
Nomad-Diver | Facebook
Pricing was a big consideration when we booked the trip, and here is a "review" of the operation:
The boat itself was comfortable in a "budget" way: no personal dive lockers (they gave us a couple of plastic tubs), not much room on deck for showering or hanging wet suits (the shower was two kitchen sink sprayers on the side of the boat (think narrow) - one taken through the window and used in the kitchen and the wet suits were "hung" on the waist high railing. There is a nice shaded area on the front deck for off gassing, and an upper sun deck, which was only used a couple of times due to the sound of the compressor. The cabins were downstairs, each had a/c and a couple of portholes. Beds were reasonably comfortable and there was adequate storage room. There were two shared heads below deck. Each had a toilet, sink and the "kitchen sink sprayer" shower. Water was warm and adequate. The boat, at that time, was not set up very well for photographers. No one in our group is a photographer, but we borrowed an Oly 5050 (no external strobes) for the trip. Forget camera table, rinse tanks, compressed air, etc. We were given a plastic bucket to keep it in and that did meet our needs.
The food ranged from quite good (stir fry fish or chicken with some very nice sauces) to pretty boring (fried eggs on white bread). There was always plenty to eat, however, and on this trip we just considered "food" to be "fuel".
The staff were all young men/boys from the neighboring islands and were all very courteous and helpful. Most of them spoke little english, but our Indonesian is limited, also. They all had wonderful smiles. We were very pleased with the service they provided, including the "traditional Indonesian wedding dance" they performed for us on one of our birthdays (looked suspiciously like a Texas line dance).
The diving. That's why we went! When our dive master - Sham - ( sic?) gave the first briefing, my buddies all looked at me when he said we would head up after 50 minutes. That was the check dive. The rest of the dives (28 in total, I think - don't have my dive log here) were all as long as we wanted (75 > 85 minutes). Our divemaster was great. We got to dive all the sites we wanted, from the south to the north. All diving was done off the tender. Gear was cleaned for us (not a big deal, since it never really dried out) and was waiting for us on the tender. Dive times were flexible and were usually three per day (8am, 11am and 2pm). We didn't do any night dives, and probably didn't ask about availability. Most of us wore 5 mils or more, but I would have been okay with a 3 mm in the north. Bottom line, we could not have had better diving if we had paid twice as much for the boat. I'm not much of a typist, so I'm not going to list the sights seen or the sites dived, but please email me if there are any specific questions.
In summary, if you want luxury in a boat and a gourmet menu for every meal, or if you are a group of photographers, this may not be the boat for you. However, each member of our group would happily return tomorrow to Lalunia.
We returned to Bali on 30 Sept and went to Tulamben, where we stayed at, and dived with, Tulamben Wreck Divers. We should have gone there first - Komodo was an impossible act for Tulamben to follow. At any rate, we did twelve (or so) dives there, some off the cool Balinese fishing boats and the rest challenging shore dives over the slippery, rounded rocks in various wave heights. We are all good once in the water, but those shore entries exposed our weaknesses!
Dive Bali with Tulamben Wreck Divers - Bali Diving - Home
We enjoyed the muck diving of Tulamben and were very pleased with the dm we had. He found some wonderful critters. A blue ribbon eel was on my "bucket list" and now it's been done. The Liberty is a wonderful wreck dive and home to tons of fish, big and small.
We stayed in the penthouse suites at TWD, and the rooms were very nice - large and spacious. Three things that we didn't realize: the resort is across the street from the stoney beach (they have porters take your gear to the beach - women carry it on their heads); roosters crow at random times during the night and continually crow too early in the morning); and the "free range" cattle can be smelled at the pool. We likely won't return to Tulamben, but, if we did, would likely look for a more secluded beach hotel.
Hope someone finds this helpful.
We left for Bali from Albuquerque, NM on Sept 13, 2010, arrived in Denpasar on the 15th and went directly from the airport to our hotel in Ubud, the Tegal Sari:
Welcome to Tegal Sari
We had a spectacular second floor room with wonderful rice paddy views, and certainly considered it a bargain. Staff, grounds and location were wonderful. We enjoyed five days in Ubud to recover from the flight, relax, enjoy the sights and wait for the rest of our group to arrive.
We are five friends (two couples and a man with a NDS) that met in Cozumel through our ownership of condos at El Cantil. Each of us has about a thousand dives and many of them diving as a group.
On From Ubud we flew to Labuan Bajo and were greeted by our liveaboard staff and taken to the boat, Lalunia. We were very pleased to discover we were the only guests on the boat for our ten day excursion!
Nomad-Diver | Facebook
Pricing was a big consideration when we booked the trip, and here is a "review" of the operation:
The boat itself was comfortable in a "budget" way: no personal dive lockers (they gave us a couple of plastic tubs), not much room on deck for showering or hanging wet suits (the shower was two kitchen sink sprayers on the side of the boat (think narrow) - one taken through the window and used in the kitchen and the wet suits were "hung" on the waist high railing. There is a nice shaded area on the front deck for off gassing, and an upper sun deck, which was only used a couple of times due to the sound of the compressor. The cabins were downstairs, each had a/c and a couple of portholes. Beds were reasonably comfortable and there was adequate storage room. There were two shared heads below deck. Each had a toilet, sink and the "kitchen sink sprayer" shower. Water was warm and adequate. The boat, at that time, was not set up very well for photographers. No one in our group is a photographer, but we borrowed an Oly 5050 (no external strobes) for the trip. Forget camera table, rinse tanks, compressed air, etc. We were given a plastic bucket to keep it in and that did meet our needs.
The food ranged from quite good (stir fry fish or chicken with some very nice sauces) to pretty boring (fried eggs on white bread). There was always plenty to eat, however, and on this trip we just considered "food" to be "fuel".
The staff were all young men/boys from the neighboring islands and were all very courteous and helpful. Most of them spoke little english, but our Indonesian is limited, also. They all had wonderful smiles. We were very pleased with the service they provided, including the "traditional Indonesian wedding dance" they performed for us on one of our birthdays (looked suspiciously like a Texas line dance).
The diving. That's why we went! When our dive master - Sham - ( sic?) gave the first briefing, my buddies all looked at me when he said we would head up after 50 minutes. That was the check dive. The rest of the dives (28 in total, I think - don't have my dive log here) were all as long as we wanted (75 > 85 minutes). Our divemaster was great. We got to dive all the sites we wanted, from the south to the north. All diving was done off the tender. Gear was cleaned for us (not a big deal, since it never really dried out) and was waiting for us on the tender. Dive times were flexible and were usually three per day (8am, 11am and 2pm). We didn't do any night dives, and probably didn't ask about availability. Most of us wore 5 mils or more, but I would have been okay with a 3 mm in the north. Bottom line, we could not have had better diving if we had paid twice as much for the boat. I'm not much of a typist, so I'm not going to list the sights seen or the sites dived, but please email me if there are any specific questions.
In summary, if you want luxury in a boat and a gourmet menu for every meal, or if you are a group of photographers, this may not be the boat for you. However, each member of our group would happily return tomorrow to Lalunia.
We returned to Bali on 30 Sept and went to Tulamben, where we stayed at, and dived with, Tulamben Wreck Divers. We should have gone there first - Komodo was an impossible act for Tulamben to follow. At any rate, we did twelve (or so) dives there, some off the cool Balinese fishing boats and the rest challenging shore dives over the slippery, rounded rocks in various wave heights. We are all good once in the water, but those shore entries exposed our weaknesses!
Dive Bali with Tulamben Wreck Divers - Bali Diving - Home
We enjoyed the muck diving of Tulamben and were very pleased with the dm we had. He found some wonderful critters. A blue ribbon eel was on my "bucket list" and now it's been done. The Liberty is a wonderful wreck dive and home to tons of fish, big and small.
We stayed in the penthouse suites at TWD, and the rooms were very nice - large and spacious. Three things that we didn't realize: the resort is across the street from the stoney beach (they have porters take your gear to the beach - women carry it on their heads); roosters crow at random times during the night and continually crow too early in the morning); and the "free range" cattle can be smelled at the pool. We likely won't return to Tulamben, but, if we did, would likely look for a more secluded beach hotel.
Hope someone finds this helpful.
