Labuan Bajo Dive shop & hotel reccomendation

[gbanning]

Hello! My partner and I are traveling to LBJ in March 2024. We're both PADI instructors and plan to do 3-4 days of diving but not a liveaboard (this time!). Any reccomendations for dive shops/hotels? We have a pretty flexible budget and have been been looking at Komodo Resort, Scuba Junkie, and Manta Rhei so far but would appreciate any recommendations! Thank you!

 

[JohnN]

I stayed at the Harbour Komodo Hotel. Nothing terribly fancy, but clean and convenient. They have a good rooftop cafe/bar. The only negative is that you're within shouting distance of a local mosque and when I was there, the mezzin went on some extended riff's

At least you can buy booze in LBJ

 

[Luko]

I used to dive with Dragon Dive Komodo and liked them. They also have a nice place to dwell, quite central in LBJ near to the fish market.
I didn't have such a good experience with Blue Marlin.

 

[PamelaH]

Hello! My partner and I are traveling to LBJ in March 2024. We're both PADI instructors and plan to do 3-4 days of diving but not a liveaboard (this time!). Any reccomendations for dive shops/hotels? We have a pretty flexible budget and have been been looking at Komodo Resort, Scuba Junkie, and Manta Rhei so far but would appreciate any recommendations! Thank you!

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You are never far from the mosque in LB - it's right by the harbor and they use a very loud speaker system. I got used to it and it didn't bother me much.

I stayed with and dove with Dragon Dive. It was okay. The room was nice but the guide I had swam through the reef like he was late for work even after I asked him to slow down for the 2nd dive. So it was okay but not great but I only dove with them for 1 day so other guides might be better.

The other thing to note is that they have a very cheap hostel so a preponderance of the guests and divers are very young. Not that that's a bad thing - I had a fine time hanging out with 20 somethings but it's worth noting. Also, a lot of people smoke, much of the dive crew included. They allow smoking all over the boat.

 

[outofofficebrb]

I dived with Manta Rhei 2X. They have nitrox and are one of few ops who do. I had an issue with bad communication the second time and they did not let us know of the issue until we arrived. We ended up not diving with them and dived with Blue Marlin instead. Manta Rhei only has slow boats. Blue Marlin has fast boats. and nitrox. I think Dragon Dive might also have fast boats.

I am interested to hear about @Luko 's experience with Blue Marlin. We had a mixed experience as well - it depended on who you got as your guide. We dived with each op for many days. The other dive op we used before, Komodo Dive Center, did not survive the pandemic but I had not dived with them recently...It was back in 2016.

Highly recommend a shop with fast boats. You can leave later, arrive at the dive site BEFORE everyone on the slow boats and be in the water earlier. That means you get the dive site to yourself. You surface sooner, and then also start your next time sooner, before everyone else is in the water for their second dive. You also get back to port earlier and have more time to relax, shower, grab dinner and enjoy the evening. On slow boats, you're not back until pretty late.

 

[outofofficebrb]

The other thing to note is that they have a very cheap hostel so a preponderance of the guests and divers are very young. Not that that's a bad thing - I had a fine time hanging out with 20 somethings but it's worth noting. Also, a lot of people smoke, much of the dive crew included. They allow smoking all over the boat.

This is a good thing to point out. In general, you will tend to get more backpackers, younger divers, and also less experienced/casual divers when you are out on the day trips, especially with the lower priced day boat options with the slow boats. I have been to LBJ many times in the past 7 years, almost 1X a year except for 2020 and 2021...There is a much bigger population of backpackers coming through and it's "on the map" more now. The fast boat options are more expensive and tends to get less people like that which can affect your group or where/how you dive a site and when. I think that matters, and as instructors, I think you might find value in that. This should also be the case if you went to Scuba Junkie or Komodo Dive Resort.

Friend raves about Scuba Junkie repeatedly if you are open to not staying in LBJ. I have also heard excellent things about Komodo Dive Resort.

 

[Luko]

The other thing to note is that they have a very cheap hostel so a preponderance of the guests and divers are very young. Not that that's a bad thing - I had a fine time hanging out with 20 somethings but it's worth noting. Also, a lot of people smoke, much of the dive crew included. They allow smoking all over the boat.

Well to me it sounds like the quintessential definition of LBJ, as far as I have known it : backpacker crowd, booze and cigarettes. (Have I ever been on an Indonesian boat where smoking is prohibited, I don't remember. I believe the first step for being a respectable Indonesian seafarer is smoking a minimum of a pack per day.)

It's true that DDK used to have half of their compound dedicated to hostel rooms, while on the other side of the pooldeck they had quite comfortable double rooms. I stayed in the double rooms and that was a fine option for me and my wife, even in our mid 50's. There was sometimes a live band playing at night and beerpong tournaments until late.
According to their website and since a couple of years they transformed the hostel part into a full 18* double rooms hotel, hence no more cheap dormitories AFAIK.

I don't know which guide you had in your experience, I always dived with either Manu one of the ex-associates, Paul or Nico. All of them made my photographer life as easy as possible, they were everytime flexible on what I wished to see/where I'd like to dive, tried to schedule dives at the best time for the currents. That said I never used their slow boat but either the short liveaboard or their previous speedboat (they now have a faster/bigger one).

On the contrary for Blue Marlin, I had a very poor guide that I paid for not showing me anything at all, being a failure on marine bio knowledge and patronizing me for trying to look for critters on my own. Add on top a management totally deaf to customer requests, even though I was paying for it.
Probably they had the appropriate "look" and felt they were "cool", in the end they didn't deliver at all.
In due comparison, although aiming for the same dive crowd, I thought DDK had much better and more professional instructors (most of them had a 5-10 years experience in diving Indonesia while Blue Marlin had Instructors freshly certified from Koh Tao), DDK also adds tek instruction to their course range.

 

[outofofficebrb]

Well to me it sounds like the quintessential definition of LBJ, as far as I have known it : backpacker crowd, booze and cigarettes. (Have I ever been on an Indonesian boat where smoking is prohibited, I don't remember. I believe the first step for being a respectable Indonesian seafarer is smoking a minimum of a pack per day.)

It's true that DDK used to have half of their compound dedicated to hostel rooms, while on the other side of the pooldeck they had quite comfortable double rooms. I stayed in the double rooms and that was a fine option for me and my wife, even in our mid 50's. There was sometimes a live band playing at night and beerpong tournaments until late.
According to their website and since a couple of years they transformed the hostel part into a full 18* double rooms hotel, hence no more cheap dormitories AFAIK.

I don't know which guide you had in your experience, I always dived with either Manu one of the ex-associates, Paul or Nico. All of them made my photographer life as easy as possible, they were everytime flexible on what I wished to see/where I'd like to dive, tried to schedule dives at the best time for the currents. That said I never used their slow boat but either the short liveaboard or their previous speedboat (they now have a faster/bigger one).

On the contrary for Blue Marlin, I had a very poor guide that I paid for not showing me anything at all, being a failure on marine bio knowledge and patronizing me for trying to look for critters on my own. Add on top a management totally deaf to customer requests, even though I was paying for it.
Probably they had the appropriate "look" and felt they were "cool", in the end they didn't deliver at all.
In due comparison, although aiming for the same dive crowd, I thought DDK had much better and more professional instructors (most of them had a 5-10 years experience in diving Indonesia while Blue Marlin had Instructors freshly certified from Koh Tao), DDK also adds tek instruction to their course range.

I'll have to give Dragon Dive a look the next time I'm back that way.

I was in LBJ in 2019 right before everything came crashing down and then was there again in 2022 and 2023. There is a stark contrast between what I saw in 2019 and 2022, and again in 2022 vs 2023...The downtown is way more gentrified and sidewalks built to Euro standards but also more people and casual travelers as well as backpackers. It's interesting - good for tourism and businesses though. There are a lot of new businesses that are pretty bougie for LBJ standards and it is losing its charm and getting a new look/vibe.

 

[DownUnderwater Dan]

Hello! My partner and I are traveling to LBJ in March 2024. We're both PADI instructors and plan to do 3-4 days of diving but not a liveaboard (this time!). Any reccomendations for dive shops/hotels? We have a pretty flexible budget and have been been looking at Komodo Resort, Scuba Junkie, and Manta Rhei so far but would appreciate any recommendations! Thank you!

Dive Komodo are a good outfit. I've dived with them a few times. I'll probably dive with them again next time.

I guess it really depends on your time schedule, and what particular dive sites you want to do. If you're both instructor level divers, I suggest to dive the more challenging sites if the opportunity arises. But even the easiest dive sites are still beautiful and memorable. It doesn't hurt to shop around and see which sites the operators will be diving for the few days that you are in town.