Lady Grace Phinisi Boat: Cruise to the Komodo Islands
Lombok (Kayangan) ➜ Labuan Bajo (Flores) 4D3N

Hello, our cruise on the Lady Grace went very well. The guide, photographer, and the entire boat crew were truly great. They don’t hesitate to come and let you know when meals are ready or when it’s time to wake up, which is very much appreciated. The 17-hour crossing to the Komodo National Park was very rough, and a lot of people got sick—bad luck, there were a lot of waves, but we arrived in one piece! Otherwise, the islands are magnificent; we saw a whale shark and a manta ray, and plenty of baby sharks too. The experience at Manta Point is honestly much more magical than the whale shark one, because the fishermen feed the whale sharks, so from an ethical standpoint, it’s a bit questionable. The stops on the islands are beautiful; you do need to be in good physical condition to climb to the top of the viewpoints though, because of the intense heat and many steps. The boat is superb, and the Captain’s Cabin is sufficient—thankfully there is air conditioning, because it is very small, but at least we had large windows and were at the very top of the boat (you have to pass through the captain’s cabin to access it) so you can hear everything happening in there (walkie-talkies, etc.), but that didn’t bother us. The meals were very good.

The only thing that bothered us was constantly having to pay extra money—fuel price hikes, and we also had to pay extra on board for the fishermen’s boats that were feeding the whale shark… Plus, we were told to book a flight after 4:00 PM, so the only one after 4:00 PM to return to Bali was at 5:30 PM, but we were dropped off at the airport at 12:00 PM… while some other people had their flights at 2:00 PM…. We wasted an entire half-day at the airport when we could have taken the 2:00 PM or 3:00 PM flight…