LOB Raja Ampat Indonesia March 2012
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We stayed here ...
Makassar Hotel, Makassar Convention Center, City Hotel | Hotel Horison Makassar
It was fine as a place to overnight before your flight out. We didn't do any touring around the town, so I can't give you any feedback about anything but the hotel, but as a place to stay, it's clean, modern, and the staff was very professional and polite.
Try Hotel Pantai Gapura, it's on the waterfront and is a good place for beers at sunset. Also centrally located so if you want to have a walk or bemo ride along the promenade. Takes around 25mins from the airport..prices start from 60USD per night. Also has an outdoor pool. For flights from Makassar to Sorong you should use Express Air.
I'd be curious to hear your reasoning behind this statement. We flew Express Air on the return leg only from Sorong to Makassar. It was the oldest 737 I have been aboard, with the worst interior condition I've ever seen (I wonder how it was mechanically?), and the tightest seat pitch (spacing) I have seen, making it literally impossible to sit in the seat. I had to change seats with someone so I could put my legs in the aisle.
If that wasn't enough, when we got to Makassar, where we had to reclaim our luggage for an airline change, we found they had left all of our dive gear sitting on the tarmac in Sorong because they were overweight. Luckily, we had an extra layover day in Bali before our international departure, and the person who booked our trip did a bunch of calling and got our gear to Bali about 8 hours before our departure.
Express Air??? Never again for me. In my opinion, if Lion Air still serves that route, use them.
Lion don't serve the route Makassar to Sorong so alternatives are Merpati, Batavia or Sriwijaya. Regardless 24hrs before international connection is advised for delays, baggage. The annoyances you speak of are fairly common place on this route with all airlines, just Express are just that bit more reliable in my opinion.
Imperial Aryaduta
Good restaurant on premises. The mosque next door provides a perfect wake-up call at 4:30am.
We just came bk from RA. Spent a night at the airport hotel. The "hotel" is called Home-stay Spa or something like this... It was quite comfortable 500k rupiah for 1night or 396k for 6hrs. HOWEVER, a pair of EXCELLENT ear plugs is a must! The walls are thin & the airport has really LOUD speaker system that sprang to life very early & keeps going on & on & on... gosh... On the way back we had another 6+hrs n decided to just idle the time away, the cafe of the Home-stay has a nice coffee maker, that makes real coffee ~20k (for the discerning palette)... 
We were happy to have stayed in that Makassar airport spa too. We were even happier as we DID have earplugs! It was luxurious compared to just sleeping on the floor in the airport and well worth the money.
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