Wakatobi Dive Resort
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mike_s
Contributor
I know about 6 or 7 people who just departed for Wakatobi this week. They'll be gone for about two weeks but if you PM me back in a few more weeks I'll get a trip report from them and send it to you.
I have a trip report about our trip from last September on my web page listed in my signature.
I've heard, before I went and after I returned mixed reports but I loved it. It's a rare place to be able to dive so many different environments right from the shore, from sea grass shallows, to rubble, to reef, to walls with a ripping current. I could spend months there and only do shore dives.
I've heard, before I went and after I returned mixed reports but I loved it. It's a rare place to be able to dive so many different environments right from the shore, from sea grass shallows, to rubble, to reef, to walls with a ripping current. I could spend months there and only do shore dives.
Nut Bubblefish
Contributor
And price wise, how is it? I am under the impression that it is an expensive trip to an expensive place. If it is worth it, I might start some saving...
cdiver2
Contributor
Nut Bubblefish:
it is expensive as dive resorts go, but you have to figure in the cost of the private flight from/to Bali. It is a popular destination so you would need to book early. I am booked for Oct 07
poleinahole
Registered
I spent a week in Wakatobi in early April. Booked through their website and it is expensive at $300 a night. What is galling is that there is a dual pricing structure and Americans pay under $200 a night and get the Hilton in Bali thrown in on the way in and out. Not surprisingly, 80% of guests are Amercians. I asked all the American guests there why they had come and they all replied that " it was a cheap holiday" (some folks could not afford the $2 soft drinks!) Ask all the non Americans and they had the same reason as me for coming, we were under the impression that we would stay in a diver's paradise and were prepared to pay for the privilege. As you might imagine, learning that most of the guests were paying $100 less a night did not make for good guest dynamics. Moral of the story is visit Wakatobi via the US.
I was very impressed by their customer service at first. I got a personal call within 15 minutes of having contacted their website expressing interest in diving there. I was less impressed when it came to confirming flight details as I had to point out to them that their stated times were impossible due to Balinese Silent New Year, or Nyepi, during which there are no flights. Staff got quite put out by my questions about this too! As it was, we didn't find out what time we had to be at the airport for our private plane to Wakatobi until we arrived in Denpassar. There we were met by the VIP service Wakatobi arranges for guests and told the time. (The VIP service was very efficient.) Unfortunately, by then it was too late to make arrangements to stay elsewhere than close to the airport.
Note that despite what their website claims, Wakatobi no longer collect your luggage the night before and fly it out at night while you sleep, but load all supplies they need, your dive gear and you on a plane so it can get a little cramped. They arrange access to a VIP lounge for you at the airport where you can have breakfast and there is a good meal on the plane as well. Flight time from Denpassar to Wakatobi is about 1 hour.
At Wakatobi they put you on large and very comfortable custom built boats and it's a short boat ride to the resort. They close the resort in Jan. and Feb. for refurbishing and they were about 6 week behind on this work, but nobody told us. There was lots of hammering and sawing, so you couldn't sit on the hammock outside your bungalow and rest. The water also got cut off while guests were under the shower full of soap suds! Thus, it was best to go on the three boat dives a day they organize to escape the noise. When guests complained about not having been told, the response was no one would come and stay at this time if they knew about this! (Not true, lots of places refurbish, inform guests and charge a lower fee--charging full wack while doing substantial work (they were putting up a new restaurant) is another matter, however. (The owner flew in as we were flying out on our last day and disappointingly did not introduce himself or ask for our feedback. Nevertheless some guests recognized him from photos and complained about this and his response was that the disturbance was minor and that he had to put staff to work or "they would destroy the reef." )
The accomodation is very comfortable with large rooms, a desk (with broadband connection!) and a very large bathroom with gas powered hot water. It's very clean, but not especially luxurious and functionally rather than tastefully decorated. You have a choice of beach bunagalow which costs more, garden, or VIP. Go for the garden as there is very little difference between them--the beach bungalows are an especial rip off as they are the same as the garden ones just two meters closer to the beach. Garden bungalows are therefore just as good.
Food is good but not as spectacular as they would have you believe, except for the deserts which are sumptous. Vegetarians get a raw deal. There is very little veg. food at lunch and they don't make something special for you. At dinner, they do prepare a special meal but it is tofu every day, even when I asked them to just make me their local food without the meat. I finally told them to serve me the breakfast noodles every day for dinner instead and supplemented my meals with fresh papaya juices ($2.50 a pop). Large beer is a pretty reasonable $3 by contrast.
The diving is very efficiently run. They have a mandatory check out dive and will the put you in a group based on your experience. They put photographers (who are slower) together and don't dive in groups of more 6 guest divers. But if one group is continuosly slower than another you can end up with 12 divers on top of each other and they are slow to modify the group order to correct this without guest intervention.
The Indonesians who take care of your gear are fantastic and can't do enough for you--from your first dive they know what your gear looks like and will have your personal box on and off the boat at the beginning and end of every day. Note that they do three boat dives a day and one boat night dive a week. Every dive is 70 minutes-except the night dive which is 60. They have large tanks available for gas guzzlers at no extra charge. You can do an unlimited number of shore dives but it's a real stretch to claim that you can do 7 dives a day (as the Wakatobi web site does) and still do the boat dives. You have to buddy dive unless you are an Instructor and they give you permission. They will then rent you a 40 cu ft. pony for $69 a week. Nitrox is $80 for the week, but if you are paying the nosebleed Internet rate they will probbaly offer this to you for free--otherwise ask!
The house reef is wonderful and there is much to see: sea snakes, octopus, moray eel, turtles, crocodile fish, scorpionfih, stonefish, etc. The only problem is you will be swimming in loads of trash, since despite the best efforts of the staff at Wakatobi, the plastic bags, bottle, cans, newspapers, etc. from the nearby village are washed up directly on the resort's shore. The boat based diving is fantastic for soft and hard coral (Wakatobi justifiably claims to have the best coral diving in the world), but there are few fish and no pelagics since there is no current. This does not make for very varied diving unless you like going from fan to fan and rock to rock with a magnifying glass (which Wakatobi sells in their shop for a reason!)
Most of the Instructors there are quiet, reliable, middle aged Swiss (it's a Swiss owned resort) and they know their stuff and their fish. Unfortunately, Wakatobi recently fired its Guest Relations Manager, and so the dive guides also have to attend to fixing things in your room and organizing flights. This means the most experienced dive guides are often not showing you what you came so far to see but are in the office! Our group kept being assigned a guide new to Wakatobi (and while highly experienced not used to where the critters were) for this reason and as a result we saw less than other groups--we had to ask to share the experienced dive guides more equitably.
On your last day, while offgassing, Wakatobi arranges a visit to the nearby village of Lamangau. It's an intreresting trip as you get to see former sea gypsies in their houses on stilts, and those sea gypsies who became land based about ten years ago now have cement houses with better mod cons as a result of working at Wakatobi. Wakatobi spends a lot on sustainable development and it shows. The people are also very friendly and well inclined towards Wakatobi's guests as a result.
All in all I think Wakatobi is overpriced at the posted rates. It's a well run place where the staff can't do enough for you and avery comfortable dive lodge, but by no means the 5 star hotel experience you might expect from their website or the price. It's 3 -3.5 star. The diving is also not spectacular despite the superlative corals, because lacking in the profusion of fish you might reasonably have expected. The house reef is special but unfortunately you also swim in rubbish. Please note that this destination attracts higly experienced divers many of whom are macro fanatics. However, even the hard core nudibranch and macro brigade at Wakatobi when I was there were disppointed preferring Lembeh Straits and PNG. If you are into pelagics, don't come here as you will probably not see one shark after a week of diving. (I thought the diving at Derawan was better--please see my post about it.) I won't be back and would recommend it only to folks from the US who can get a good deal and who are fully advised of the type of diving they will be doing. Nonetheless, this place is almost full for the rest of the year, so others obviously like the place (or views like mine have not yet gotten out). Avoid coming here end March-mid April when they are likely to be busy with construction activities and the rainy season is still on.
I was very impressed by their customer service at first. I got a personal call within 15 minutes of having contacted their website expressing interest in diving there. I was less impressed when it came to confirming flight details as I had to point out to them that their stated times were impossible due to Balinese Silent New Year, or Nyepi, during which there are no flights. Staff got quite put out by my questions about this too! As it was, we didn't find out what time we had to be at the airport for our private plane to Wakatobi until we arrived in Denpassar. There we were met by the VIP service Wakatobi arranges for guests and told the time. (The VIP service was very efficient.) Unfortunately, by then it was too late to make arrangements to stay elsewhere than close to the airport.
Note that despite what their website claims, Wakatobi no longer collect your luggage the night before and fly it out at night while you sleep, but load all supplies they need, your dive gear and you on a plane so it can get a little cramped. They arrange access to a VIP lounge for you at the airport where you can have breakfast and there is a good meal on the plane as well. Flight time from Denpassar to Wakatobi is about 1 hour.
At Wakatobi they put you on large and very comfortable custom built boats and it's a short boat ride to the resort. They close the resort in Jan. and Feb. for refurbishing and they were about 6 week behind on this work, but nobody told us. There was lots of hammering and sawing, so you couldn't sit on the hammock outside your bungalow and rest. The water also got cut off while guests were under the shower full of soap suds! Thus, it was best to go on the three boat dives a day they organize to escape the noise. When guests complained about not having been told, the response was no one would come and stay at this time if they knew about this! (Not true, lots of places refurbish, inform guests and charge a lower fee--charging full wack while doing substantial work (they were putting up a new restaurant) is another matter, however. (The owner flew in as we were flying out on our last day and disappointingly did not introduce himself or ask for our feedback. Nevertheless some guests recognized him from photos and complained about this and his response was that the disturbance was minor and that he had to put staff to work or "they would destroy the reef." )
The accomodation is very comfortable with large rooms, a desk (with broadband connection!) and a very large bathroom with gas powered hot water. It's very clean, but not especially luxurious and functionally rather than tastefully decorated. You have a choice of beach bunagalow which costs more, garden, or VIP. Go for the garden as there is very little difference between them--the beach bungalows are an especial rip off as they are the same as the garden ones just two meters closer to the beach. Garden bungalows are therefore just as good.
Food is good but not as spectacular as they would have you believe, except for the deserts which are sumptous. Vegetarians get a raw deal. There is very little veg. food at lunch and they don't make something special for you. At dinner, they do prepare a special meal but it is tofu every day, even when I asked them to just make me their local food without the meat. I finally told them to serve me the breakfast noodles every day for dinner instead and supplemented my meals with fresh papaya juices ($2.50 a pop). Large beer is a pretty reasonable $3 by contrast.
The diving is very efficiently run. They have a mandatory check out dive and will the put you in a group based on your experience. They put photographers (who are slower) together and don't dive in groups of more 6 guest divers. But if one group is continuosly slower than another you can end up with 12 divers on top of each other and they are slow to modify the group order to correct this without guest intervention.
The Indonesians who take care of your gear are fantastic and can't do enough for you--from your first dive they know what your gear looks like and will have your personal box on and off the boat at the beginning and end of every day. Note that they do three boat dives a day and one boat night dive a week. Every dive is 70 minutes-except the night dive which is 60. They have large tanks available for gas guzzlers at no extra charge. You can do an unlimited number of shore dives but it's a real stretch to claim that you can do 7 dives a day (as the Wakatobi web site does) and still do the boat dives. You have to buddy dive unless you are an Instructor and they give you permission. They will then rent you a 40 cu ft. pony for $69 a week. Nitrox is $80 for the week, but if you are paying the nosebleed Internet rate they will probbaly offer this to you for free--otherwise ask!
The house reef is wonderful and there is much to see: sea snakes, octopus, moray eel, turtles, crocodile fish, scorpionfih, stonefish, etc. The only problem is you will be swimming in loads of trash, since despite the best efforts of the staff at Wakatobi, the plastic bags, bottle, cans, newspapers, etc. from the nearby village are washed up directly on the resort's shore. The boat based diving is fantastic for soft and hard coral (Wakatobi justifiably claims to have the best coral diving in the world), but there are few fish and no pelagics since there is no current. This does not make for very varied diving unless you like going from fan to fan and rock to rock with a magnifying glass (which Wakatobi sells in their shop for a reason!)
Most of the Instructors there are quiet, reliable, middle aged Swiss (it's a Swiss owned resort) and they know their stuff and their fish. Unfortunately, Wakatobi recently fired its Guest Relations Manager, and so the dive guides also have to attend to fixing things in your room and organizing flights. This means the most experienced dive guides are often not showing you what you came so far to see but are in the office! Our group kept being assigned a guide new to Wakatobi (and while highly experienced not used to where the critters were) for this reason and as a result we saw less than other groups--we had to ask to share the experienced dive guides more equitably.
On your last day, while offgassing, Wakatobi arranges a visit to the nearby village of Lamangau. It's an intreresting trip as you get to see former sea gypsies in their houses on stilts, and those sea gypsies who became land based about ten years ago now have cement houses with better mod cons as a result of working at Wakatobi. Wakatobi spends a lot on sustainable development and it shows. The people are also very friendly and well inclined towards Wakatobi's guests as a result.
All in all I think Wakatobi is overpriced at the posted rates. It's a well run place where the staff can't do enough for you and avery comfortable dive lodge, but by no means the 5 star hotel experience you might expect from their website or the price. It's 3 -3.5 star. The diving is also not spectacular despite the superlative corals, because lacking in the profusion of fish you might reasonably have expected. The house reef is special but unfortunately you also swim in rubbish. Please note that this destination attracts higly experienced divers many of whom are macro fanatics. However, even the hard core nudibranch and macro brigade at Wakatobi when I was there were disppointed preferring Lembeh Straits and PNG. If you are into pelagics, don't come here as you will probably not see one shark after a week of diving. (I thought the diving at Derawan was better--please see my post about it.) I won't be back and would recommend it only to folks from the US who can get a good deal and who are fully advised of the type of diving they will be doing. Nonetheless, this place is almost full for the rest of the year, so others obviously like the place (or views like mine have not yet gotten out). Avoid coming here end March-mid April when they are likely to be busy with construction activities and the rainy season is still on.
scottfiji
Contributor
Last fall someone I know went to wakatobi at the same time I went to Bali (late oct / early nov). Based on his report and photos I saw everything he saw, and a lot more (many sharks, many mantas, molas), for a lot less money. Fyi, here is his Wakatobi report - http://diver.net/seahunt/JLyle/Wakatobi/Wakatobi.htm
Scott
Scott
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