The classic · 6 nights · Labuan Bajo to Labuan Bajo

Komodo National Park: dragons, mantas and a volcano

Dragons on Rinca with a ranger, mantas at Makassar Reef, Padar at sunset and a volcano that bubbles: the route most of the fleet runs, here on ALIIKAI VOYAGE.

Planned by the Ahoy Club charter team and reshaped for every yacht and every group we send here.

Best months: May - October
How long: 7 Days / 6 Nights
Start and finish: Labuan Bajo to Labuan Bajo
The pace: 7 days, 7 stops
Suits: Family & friends, Kid friendly, Adventure

Sebayur

Sebayur Besar and Sebayur Kecil · Out of the harbour and into the water within the hour

Board in Labuan Bajo and sail straight for the two Sebayur islands. The rest of the day is diving or snorkelling the reefs around them, beach time and a walk if the tide allows, then dinner outside under the stars.

Boarding at Labuan Bajo from 10:00
First snorkel or dive at Sebayur
Dinner on deck

Sangeang

Sangeang, off Sumbawa · A volcano, the boatbuilders, and a reef that bubbles

Wake under Sangeang's volcano. Ashore, the shipwrights still build wooden boats with hand tools and techniques handed down for generations. In the afternoon, climb the volcano's flank or dive Hot Rock Reef, where volcanic gas bubbles up through the sand around you. Dinner, then a short sail to Gili Banta.

The traditional shipyard
Volcano hike or Hot Rock Reef
Evening sail to Gili Banta

Gili Banta

A beach set up for the day, and a barbecue on it at night

A full day on and around one empty island. ALIIKAI's beach set-up is waiting: loungers, shade, drinks. Dive the sites round the island between swims. Sundowners on the sand and a beach barbecue as the light goes.

Beach set-up for the day
Diving around Banta
Sundowners and beach barbecue

Gili Lawa

Gili Lawa Darat and Gili Lawa Laut · The lookout over the bay, then the rest of the day to yourselves

After breakfast, the hike to the lookout above Gili Lawa Darat for the view over the whole bay. Then the day is yours: beach, kayak, paddleboard, snorkel or dive the sites round the two islands, which are among the best in the park.

Gili Lawa Darat lookout
Dives at the park's northern end
Kayaks and paddleboards

Manta Point and Padar

Makassar Reef, Karang Makassar, Padar · Mantas in the morning, a sandbar for lunch, the three bays at dusk

Makassar Reef, known to everyone as Manta Point, for a morning snorkelling or diving with reef mantas on the running tide. Karang Makassar next door is a sandbar in turquoise water. Lunch under way to Padar, then the walk up to the viewpoint over its three bays for the photograph everyone takes. Snorkel, then dinner on deck.

Manta Point on the tide
Karang Makassar sandbar
Padar viewpoint at sunset

Pink Beach, Rinca and Kalong

Pink Beach, Rinca, Kalong · The dragons with a ranger, and the bats at dusk

A slow breakfast, then Pink Beach: red coral gives the sand its colour, and the reef off it is as good as the beach. Lunch on board as you sail to Rinca, where a park ranger briefs you and walks you to the dragons in their own habitat. Sundowners and dinner off Kalong island as thousands of fruit bats leave the mangroves for Flores.

Pink Beach
Komodo dragons on Rinca with a ranger
The bats of Kalong at dusk

Labuan Bajo

Breakfast and the flight

Breakfast on board and the crew transfer you to the airport for the onward flight. Check-out is by eleven.

Breakfast on board
Check-out by 11:00
Airport transfer

The idea of the week

Komodo National Park is a UNESCO site of three big islands, Komodo, Rinca and Padar, and twenty small ones, most of them empty. The dragons live on the first two. The mantas live at a reef in the channel between. Everything else, the pink beach, the three-bay viewpoint, the bat island at dusk, is a short hop away, which is why a week here never feels like a passage.

This is the six-night version ALIIKAI VOYAGE's team wrote, and it is more or less the route every boat in the fleet follows: out to the Sebayur islands on the first afternoon, Sangeang's volcano and its boatbuilders, a beach day at Gili Banta, the lookout at Gili Lawa, mantas at Makassar then Padar at sunset, and the dragons on Rinca on the last full day. The same boat sells it as three, four and five nights by leaving out Sangeang and Banta.

Fly into Labuan Bajo on Flores, an hour from Bali. Check-in is from ten in the morning and the boat leaves the harbour the same day.

Komodo
Wildlife
Families
Snorkelling
Diving
6-night charter
Indonesia

What the week costs

The yacht's published weekly rate, plus an Advance Provisioning Allowance, customarily 30 percent, for fuel, food, drink and berths, plus local VAT where it applies. Every listing shows its rate.

How charter pricing works

Also on this coast

Everything we know about Komodo: when to go, where the fleet is and the other weeks we have planned.

Open Komodo

Woven into the week

What the crew arrange along the way

The parts of the week that need a phone call before you arrive: tables, guides, instructors and the toys on deck.

The dragons, properly

Rinca with a park ranger, from the boat, in the cool of the day. Buffalo, deer and monkeys on the same walk.

Ranger-led walk on Rinca
Park fees included
Kalong's bats the same evening

Manta Point

Reef mantas at their cleaning stations on Makassar Reef, snorkelled or dived on the tide with the tender following.

Makassar Reef drift
Karang Makassar sandbar
Padar the same afternoon

ALIIKAI's beach day

A full day on Gili Banta with the beach set up, the dive deck open and a barbecue at night.

Loungers, shade and drinks on the sand
Kayaks, paddleboards and waterskis
Beach barbecue

Shorter cuts

Three nights: Sebayur, Manta Point and Padar, Pink Beach and Rinca. Four nights adds Gili Lawa. Five nights adds Gili Banta. All start and finish in Labuan Bajo.

3 nights from Labuan Bajo
4 nights with Gili Lawa
5 nights with Gili Banta

Start in Bali

CELESTIA runs an eight-day version that begins in Bali and crosses via Sumbawa, Saleh Bay's whale sharks and Moyo's waterfalls. See the Bali to Komodo route.