lavieafond
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Trip Report for The Cove
So we were at The Cove from approx May 25 to June 2nd (?), 2025. It was their last week before the dive staff got a well deserved month long vacation and the resort closed to guests for some maintenance. We were thinking we were taking a chance on weather and dive conditions, but I'd say they were just about perfect! All in all we really loved the Cove. We booked seven nights at Misool in the south and that was the catalyst for our Raja Ampat trip. We found the Cove after our own research (direct book) and had a great time. To give some context, we have 680/440 dives respectively, and have dived all over the world on live-aboards and land-based resorts. My husband travels constantly for work, so has really high standards of comfort too. I'll do some bullet points:
Booking - super responsive and thorough answering our questions. Got a late season discount. We're comparing with Sorido Bay where the booking contact had a huge attitude and rubbed us wrong. The Cove was kind, fast, and has a super detailed website. Glad we chose them. They were full during this last week, and we met some people from Sorido Bay who said the resort was not full.
Diving - upon arrival we learn that the main dive shop organizer has already left on vacation. It actually made us super nervous because they had a replacement who gave us zero confidence that we'd have a good week (we were wrong - the week was perfect). His communication skills were horrible, so he wasn't handling our questions or concerns very well. We decided to just see what would happen, and it all turned out to be fine but had the very young inexperienced staff in charge on island been able to communicate better it would have saved some stress between everyone. This was probably the only big complaint we have, and I think most weeks they have senior managers onsite to, well, manage. No one was in charge during our week. They have Nitrox, they have us analyze every single tank which I appreciate, the boats are small and thus not one bit crowded, the dive masters are sharp and all trained in Manado (North Sulawesi). Thus, they love looking for the itty-bitty things. When we requested something special, and not all tiny, they adapted to what we wanted, and even went back to a favorite site another time just because we could. About half of the full resort when we were there were divers, the other half was on a dedicated snorkeling trip. (Turns out that happened at Misool too.) I hadn't seen that yet where divers and snorkelers were enjoying the same dive resort. Anyway, it was late in the season, so all liveaboards were no longer in the region and we got the sites all to ourselves!! The resort is really well placed a bit further west away from Waisai and the Kri Island area, so we just had a 15-20 minute ride to the Pyanemo area, Melissa's Garden, and other phenomenal sites. The diving was mostly in the 20-70 feet range - spent most of our time at 30-40 feet. So it was easy diving and had gorgeous reefs. We hit some crazy current on one dive and our dive master seemed fairly nervous in it. We for sure had the feeling that they avoid any current, even if we requested it. I think in those areas the current goes up and down and all over, so I'm sure they avoid it for good reason. And, finally, dare I say, we may have enjoyed the diving more in North Raja Ampat than we did at Misool. They were really different at this time of year, but equally wonderful.
Resort/grounds/food: we got one of the larger bungalows and really loved it. It was quite large, and the bed was insanely comfortable. We had lots of cubbies to put things, plenty of charging areas, and even had cell signal. Ours was just about furthest away from the main dining area. My husband had his US AT&T signal on an iPhone, and I had an eSIM on an iPhone, and both worked in the room no problem. (The website says otherwise) The part of the room that could use some improvement, are the showers. We had had abundant hot water and a large space to manoeuvre and hang things to dry, but they showers were not elegant. Plexiglass kept the bugs out, and pre-glued tiles were sloppily installed on the walls. It was perfectly functional, just not very aesthetic, which in the end doesn't matter one bit.
Then at the main lodge area the wifi was great, unless the bar/waitstaff gals were streaming Spotify, then no-one could catch any bandwidth. Meal times were when we'd want to check in with our devices, so it was a mystery why it slowed to nothing until I realized they streamed the music we were listening to. I didn't say anything since they were so cute playing special requests, and generally beaming with generous hospitality during each meal. Waitstaff was kind and learned our names immediately. I don't like onions and the kitchen would go out of its way to avoid onions for me. The food was delicious and always had a traditional dish available. We could also ask for anything we wanted and they would deliver. Really great food. I tend to eat more vegetarian and there were so many fruits and vegetables - really easy to eat healthy too.
Transfers: the transfers were smooth, and on time, and they accommodated a ferry schedule change to keep us on track with transfers. Since it is low season the Sorong-Waisai ferry doesn't go every day. Upon arrival, they had chartered an alternative boat to get us to Waisai for the transfer out to the Cove. No time wasted, unlike some people we had met on the plane who had to wait many hours in Sorong to find a solution to get out to the islands.
Payments: easy-peasy via bank transfer to a US dollar account or a Euro account.
TLDR: I'm sure I could say a lot more, but our visit was surprisingly great. Great diving on small boats, great room with super comfy king bed, nice staff, great food every meal, beautiful grounds and resort. Please feel free to reach out for more questions.
So we were at The Cove from approx May 25 to June 2nd (?), 2025. It was their last week before the dive staff got a well deserved month long vacation and the resort closed to guests for some maintenance. We were thinking we were taking a chance on weather and dive conditions, but I'd say they were just about perfect! All in all we really loved the Cove. We booked seven nights at Misool in the south and that was the catalyst for our Raja Ampat trip. We found the Cove after our own research (direct book) and had a great time. To give some context, we have 680/440 dives respectively, and have dived all over the world on live-aboards and land-based resorts. My husband travels constantly for work, so has really high standards of comfort too. I'll do some bullet points:
Booking - super responsive and thorough answering our questions. Got a late season discount. We're comparing with Sorido Bay where the booking contact had a huge attitude and rubbed us wrong. The Cove was kind, fast, and has a super detailed website. Glad we chose them. They were full during this last week, and we met some people from Sorido Bay who said the resort was not full.
Diving - upon arrival we learn that the main dive shop organizer has already left on vacation. It actually made us super nervous because they had a replacement who gave us zero confidence that we'd have a good week (we were wrong - the week was perfect). His communication skills were horrible, so he wasn't handling our questions or concerns very well. We decided to just see what would happen, and it all turned out to be fine but had the very young inexperienced staff in charge on island been able to communicate better it would have saved some stress between everyone. This was probably the only big complaint we have, and I think most weeks they have senior managers onsite to, well, manage. No one was in charge during our week. They have Nitrox, they have us analyze every single tank which I appreciate, the boats are small and thus not one bit crowded, the dive masters are sharp and all trained in Manado (North Sulawesi). Thus, they love looking for the itty-bitty things. When we requested something special, and not all tiny, they adapted to what we wanted, and even went back to a favorite site another time just because we could. About half of the full resort when we were there were divers, the other half was on a dedicated snorkeling trip. (Turns out that happened at Misool too.) I hadn't seen that yet where divers and snorkelers were enjoying the same dive resort. Anyway, it was late in the season, so all liveaboards were no longer in the region and we got the sites all to ourselves!! The resort is really well placed a bit further west away from Waisai and the Kri Island area, so we just had a 15-20 minute ride to the Pyanemo area, Melissa's Garden, and other phenomenal sites. The diving was mostly in the 20-70 feet range - spent most of our time at 30-40 feet. So it was easy diving and had gorgeous reefs. We hit some crazy current on one dive and our dive master seemed fairly nervous in it. We for sure had the feeling that they avoid any current, even if we requested it. I think in those areas the current goes up and down and all over, so I'm sure they avoid it for good reason. And, finally, dare I say, we may have enjoyed the diving more in North Raja Ampat than we did at Misool. They were really different at this time of year, but equally wonderful.
Resort/grounds/food: we got one of the larger bungalows and really loved it. It was quite large, and the bed was insanely comfortable. We had lots of cubbies to put things, plenty of charging areas, and even had cell signal. Ours was just about furthest away from the main dining area. My husband had his US AT&T signal on an iPhone, and I had an eSIM on an iPhone, and both worked in the room no problem. (The website says otherwise) The part of the room that could use some improvement, are the showers. We had had abundant hot water and a large space to manoeuvre and hang things to dry, but they showers were not elegant. Plexiglass kept the bugs out, and pre-glued tiles were sloppily installed on the walls. It was perfectly functional, just not very aesthetic, which in the end doesn't matter one bit.
Then at the main lodge area the wifi was great, unless the bar/waitstaff gals were streaming Spotify, then no-one could catch any bandwidth. Meal times were when we'd want to check in with our devices, so it was a mystery why it slowed to nothing until I realized they streamed the music we were listening to. I didn't say anything since they were so cute playing special requests, and generally beaming with generous hospitality during each meal. Waitstaff was kind and learned our names immediately. I don't like onions and the kitchen would go out of its way to avoid onions for me. The food was delicious and always had a traditional dish available. We could also ask for anything we wanted and they would deliver. Really great food. I tend to eat more vegetarian and there were so many fruits and vegetables - really easy to eat healthy too.
Transfers: the transfers were smooth, and on time, and they accommodated a ferry schedule change to keep us on track with transfers. Since it is low season the Sorong-Waisai ferry doesn't go every day. Upon arrival, they had chartered an alternative boat to get us to Waisai for the transfer out to the Cove. No time wasted, unlike some people we had met on the plane who had to wait many hours in Sorong to find a solution to get out to the islands.
Payments: easy-peasy via bank transfer to a US dollar account or a Euro account.
TLDR: I'm sure I could say a lot more, but our visit was surprisingly great. Great diving on small boats, great room with super comfy king bed, nice staff, great food every meal, beautiful grounds and resort. Please feel free to reach out for more questions.
