Bali/Penida/Komodo questions, travelling with family

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qwimjim

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Location
Canada
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Hi, I'm planning on travelling with family the last week of September, first week of October. The plan is to spend a week in Bali and Nusa Penida, do some dives around Penida and a day at Tulamben. I'm not super interested in macro/muck diving. Week two we would move onto Komodo, and do 4 days of day trips, a day or two of snorkeling with the family. My questions are:

1. I know Nusa Penida and Komodo have challenging dive conditions, lots of current. I'd like to take my son who will be 11 and has his Junior Open Water (max 40ft) on at least one day of diving if possible. Are there any shallow reefs, or easy dives that would be appropriate for him, and still be quality diving with some wow factor? Either in and around Bali and Nusa Penida.. Would the USS Liberty be good? Or is there some sites in Komodo that we could make a daytrip out of?

2. Ideally there would be sites where I could dive with my son, and my wife could snorkel with my daughter (who's too young to dive yet). But if not, we could just do a snorkeling day or two, in which case where would be best spots for young kids to snorkel but still have some great coral/fish to look at?

3. Is there anywhere that's affordable to stay in the Komodo/Lubuan Bajo area that would have a nice beach for my wife and kids to hang out on while I'm away on a day trip? I looked at the beaches around Lubuan Bajo on google maps, they don't look great.. I saw the Komodo Resort on one of the islands but it is very far from being affordable. I saw Scuba Junkie too, but not sure if the beach would be that nice. Any suggestions would be great

Thanks!

PS. Before this we were planning on doing a few days in Egypt as a pit stop on our way over, and I was contemplating maybe spending 3-4 days in Sharm El Sheik.. has anyone been to both areas, is the diving on the same level in the Red Sea as in Indonesia? Or should I scrap Sharm, and add those days to Bali/Komodo instead?
 
We have been to Egypt and Indonesia multiple times. As brilliant as Egypt is, Indonesia is way better. Coming from North America, you may not have lots of leave. But don’t underestimate the complexity of traveling to multiple destinations in the time of Covid and make your plans too elaborate. We were on one of the first flights for three years from London to Sharm. On the return leg we queued for two hours to get into Sharm airport.

With regard to your other questions, the beaches around Komodo are not great, so you may have to compromise. Komodo Resort looks wonderful. The Gili Islands have excellent snorkeling, and beautiful beaches. The diving is not brilliant though. Most of the East Coast of Bali has very good snorkeling and beautiful characterful black sand beaches. There are easier sites off Nusa Penida with great coral and amazing fish life.

Have a wonderful time !
 
Diving in komodo is suitable for everyone, especially if you go to central. Siaba besar, mauwan, makassar are all shallow dives with either a easy drift or protected area. Many people go snorkeling in these sites aswell, especially makassar reef (Manta point). Komodo is not a good place for nice beaches but theres some awsome scenery of you go exploring a bit around flores and theres is always trips out in the park to see the dragons, pink beach and hiking padar island.
 
3. SJ has a nice house reef for easy diving and snorkelling. They have two dive boats so very good chance that one of them would go to least challenging sites. The AC room is good enough for a small family of four. Everyone loves The Dragon if they have never seen one!
2. As already suggested: Gilli Islands for the beach and easy diving.
1. Liberty wreck is a easy shore dive.

Spend all the time in Indonesia to recover from jet lag.
 
Tulamben and USS Liberty are a great choice for your junior! It’s a great first dive of the vacation for getting yourself sorted out and getting your confidence back after a long time out of water. Best to arrive the early evening before and dive the next morning and afternoon here.

Lombok/Gilli is good and non-threatening too but requires a flight-hop from Bali if not a taxing boat-ride. Especially the turtle dives not to miss - you can see at least half a dozen large turtles resting and gliding around the place not to mention swarms of sicssortail sergeant fish and others around the site. I think Gilli will have a fair amount of resorts with pool based water fun for off-diving childrens leisure fun to keep them happy and occupied. Next the mild current and clear waters off Gilli look like a good place for your kid to take the 1st level of freediving classes at a local school to boost their confidence and watermanship… it will improve their snorkelling experience to a level where the more expensive diving activity need not be the one and only option, speaking realistically around the assumption that everybody has a budget especially when it comes to expensing for the whole family…
 
We have been to Egypt and Indonesia multiple times. As brilliant as Egypt is, Indonesia is way better. Coming from North America, you may not have lots of leave. But don’t underestimate the complexity of traveling to multiple destinations in the time of Covid and make your plans too elaborate. We were on one of the first flights for three years from London to Sharm. On the return leg we queued for two hours to get into Sharm airport.

With regard to your other questions, the beaches around Komodo are not great, so you may have to compromise. Komodo Resort looks wonderful. The Gili Islands have excellent snorkeling, and beautiful beaches. The diving is not brilliant though. Most of the East Coast of Bali has very good snorkeling and beautiful characterful black sand beaches. There are easier sites off Nusa Penida with great coral and amazing fish life.

Have a wonderful time !

Thanks!

We'll probably budget a week or so for Egypt, I spent a month there years ago backpacking around, I just want to pop into Cairo for 2-3 days to show my kids the pyramids, and a bit of the crazy chaos of Cairo, and then either move on to Bali/Komodo for three weeks, or stop in Sharm for 4-5 days and just spend two weeks in Indonesia instead of three. No matter what we're going to pitstop in Cario, it's just whether I should bother with Sharm or not.

Komodo Resort does look great, but we're definitely going to be budget travelling on this trip as it will be a three month trip, so $500/night is not going to happen for us :)

The focus is diving quality first, snorkeling second, beaches a distant third.
 
Diving in komodo is suitable for everyone, especially if you go to central. Siaba besar, mauwan, makassar are all shallow dives with either a easy drift or protected area. Many people go snorkeling in these sites aswell, especially makassar reef (Manta point). Komodo is not a good place for nice beaches but theres some awsome scenery of you go exploring a bit around flores and theres is always trips out in the park to see the dragons, pink beach and hiking padar island.
Great! I would love to have a day where I could bring my junior diver :) Would these sites also be suitable for snorkelers too? And how do you ensure that you go to easy dives sites, how many people are on a typical boat out of Lubuan Bajo? Would we need to hire a private boat for the 4 of us? I imagine most people going all the way to Komodo are not going to want the "mellow" dives?

Definitely going to Rinca to see the dragons and hiking/pink beach on Padar. When you say the beaches are not great in Komodo, do you mean the water too? I don't need a pristine white sand Caribbean beach, so long as the water is clean and clear to swim in, has something to look at, and isn't filled with seaweed or trash :)
 
3. SJ has a nice house reef for easy diving and snorkelling. They have two dive boats so very good chance that one of them would go to least challenging sites. The AC room is good enough for a small family of four. Everyone loves The Dragon if they have never seen one!
2. As already suggested: Gilli Islands for the beach and easy diving.
1. Liberty wreck is a easy shore dive.

Spend all the time in Indonesia to recover from jet lag.
Thanks, we'll actually be in Morocco a couple of weeks beforehand, then stopping in Cairo for a couple of days, then either moving onto Indonesia for 3 weeks, or spending 4-5 days in Sharm before moving onto Indonesia for 2 weeks instead. So just a matter of whether the extended time in Egypt is worth it (since we're there anyways) or if we just move on.

As for Gili islands, the beaches do look lovely, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice scuba or snorkeling quality for beach quality, if you know what I mean :) The reason we're going all this way is for the diving, I'd just like to find the best beach possible, that's affordable to stay at, while still getting to dive Komodo everyday :) We're from North America so we've been to some beautiful beaches in Cuba and the Carribean, I know we're not going to find that in Komodo, I just don't want to end up at a beach that's dumpy if I can help it.
 
Tulamben and USS Liberty are a great choice for your junior! It’s a great first dive of the vacation for getting yourself sorted out and getting your confidence back after a long time out of water. Best to arrive the early evening before and dive the next morning and afternoon here.

Lombok/Gilli is good and non-threatening too but requires a flight-hop from Bali if not a taxing boat-ride. Especially the turtle dives not to miss - you can see at least half a dozen large turtles resting and gliding around the place not to mention swarms of sicssortail sergeant fish and others around the site. I think Gilli will have a fair amount of resorts with pool based water fun for off-diving childrens leisure fun to keep them happy and occupied. Next the mild current and clear waters off Gilli look like a good place for your kid to take the 1st level of freediving classes at a local school to boost their confidence and watermanship… it will improve their snorkelling experience to a level where the more expensive diving activity need not be the one and only option, speaking realistically around the assumption that everybody has a budget especially when it comes to expensing for the whole family…

Well if we nix the 4-5 days in Sharm after our pitstop in Cairo, we would have time to add Lombok to the itinerary, I know there's a nice Mount Rinjani hike as well to mix things up.
 
Tulamben or Amed are more than macro/muck diving, there are interesting coral dive spots that are worth more than a day or a single dive on the Liberty : the coral garden in the back of the Japanese Wreck is simply fantastic.
Take a look at my UW photo gallery in Bali if you need some proofs : UW Bali 2011/19

I would vote for Dragon Dive Komodo in Labuan Bajo : they can bring everybody on board their slow boat and you have plenty of dive sites that are snorkelable. Whenever you are on your own, there are some nice beaches on the islands such as Bidadari where an awfully expensive resort is set (Angel isle) but it's also a public beach : your wife can just rent a taxi boat from LBJ harbor and spend a halfday there.
 

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