Help with accomodation on Bunaken

Andreni · Jan 24, 2012

Hi all

I'm a new member and I'm from Switzerland (so please excuse my mistakes

). I read a lot of topics regarding diving in Indonesia, especially North-Sulawesi but didn't find the answer to my question. We are planning a trip to Bunaken, Lembeh & Bangka in summer 12 (3 1/2 weeks). The blue bay resort in Sahaung is already booked for the last week (for a bit of a beach feeling) but we are not sure sure about the accomodation in Bunaken. Should we stay at the Seabreeze resort, the two fish divers or living colours? We don't have high expectations but it should be clean, hot shower would be great, the diving good (small group, long dives, good divemasters) and we would love to have some space to relax.(Ok, yes, we might have some expectations ;-).. )

Can anyone help us to chose the right hotel?

Looking forward to your replies.

Thank you.

Andreni

jeremyl · Jan 24, 2012

I stayed at 2Fish Bunaken a few years ago. I would not recommend it. Lots of bugs (a swampy mess right outside our cabin). Food was not good. DM's were great... but for my money I would not recommend it. Cant remember the name of the slightly-more-expensive place I would have stayed otherwise, but I am sure others will chime in. There is a TON of info here so search more

For Lembeh I stayed at NAD and can't recommend it enough. Great staff. Great DM's. Good food. There are better accom for more money but for my dollar I have no reason to spend more.

divedesign · Jan 25, 2012

Hi,
There is a very laid back place with great food and excellent diveguides. Also very reasonable price. It's Daniel's Resort, Immanuel Divers. They also have an operation on Lembeh which is only a year old. Have fun on Bunaken, the diving is great!

Andreni · Jan 28, 2012

Hi all

Thanks a lot for your replies.

We now tend to book our stay with the sea breeze resort. After starting a new search, I'm a bit confused as there are both good and bad reviews. Has someone recently been at the resort and can tell us how it was? We know that it is not a luxury resort but you get what you pay, so we think (hope) the value for money is good.

Again, thank you for your efforts in helping us.

highdesert · Jan 28, 2012

We were at Seabreeze two or three years ago. If it's still run by Terry, Aussie guy, and his wife Diana, Manado native, they are very nice, conscientious people and good managers. Food was good, not anything fancy, and enough of it. Our accommodation was fan-cooled, no A/C ... don't know that there were any A/C units. Water was not hot (tepid), but they don't claim it to be so. Definitely some mosquitoes around (October). You definitely want to burn the mosquito coils i your room and use the netting on the bed. Typical local type dive boats, and the guides were all very good, as well as friendly and entertaining. We did 4-5 dives a day, and had no problem issues with the diving or the resort.

When Terry and his partner purchased the resort, it had been neglected, and they began upgrading it several years prior to our stay. I'm sure there have been more improvements since then. If it satisfies your requirements, I can recommend it, and it was a good value, I believe.

Cruiser24 · Jan 28, 2012

hi u might want to consider murex (Murex Dive Resorts & Live-Aboards | www.murexdive.com). they have accomodations for bunaken and bangka. in fact, they were the pioneers for bangka. we stayed with them the last time we were there and had an absolutely great time.

FrancescoIT · Jan 29, 2012

You can find a lot of accommodations in Bunaken, from quite expensive to very cheap. It's difficult to give an advise, many of them are quite good anyway, basic but ok for this side of the world. Just make sure that they provide you an original Park Tag (it means that they paid the park fee...), because some of them don't provide them to the guests or "recycle" older ones. It's true that you save some money, but 150.000 IDR (about 18 US$, valid 1 year) are not such a big amount of money and it goes to the Bunaken Park maintenance.
As an alternative, you can consider Siladen Island. There is a very high-target resort and a more basic one, together with some homestays. The Siladen beach is much better that Bunaken and sunsets are amazing.

Have fun!

Francesco

neptun43 · Feb 29, 2012

Hi,
I guess you speak German. I've just finished my report about our stay on Bunaken (German) in October-November 2011. We lived in seven resorts of different categories. Five of them I can recommend. Maybe I could help.
Best wishes
Klaus

Andreni · Mar 3, 2012

Ach Klaus, deine Seite kenne ich doch schon auswendig ;-). Still thanks a lot for the tip.

We now decided to stay at Living Colours on Bunaken for the first week. Afterwards we will do a short trip to the highland followed by a week in NAD resort in Lembeh. At the end we spend a week at blue bay divers on Sahaung (for the beach feeling and to relax a bit).

I'm really looking forward to this trip even if we still have to wait 4 months..

Thanks everybody for helping us!

Big fish63 · Mar 4, 2012

re: the park fee, im pretty sure when i was there 2010, the resort i was staying at didn't charge me because the 'marine police' weren't doing their job properly so they didnt want to take any money off me!

Help with accomodation on Bunaken

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