Komodo liveaboard on King Cirox 2 Phinisi: open trip by the bunk or the cabin, private charter by the boat

The 3D2N open trip starts with a pickup between 10:00 and 11:00 from your hotel or the airport. Ten to eleven is the one timing we promise, because it happens in a hotel lobby and not at sea.

Day one runs Kelor, where a short climb gives a 360-degree view, then the long wooden pier at Manjarite for snorkelling, then Strawberry Rock, its pinkish-red stones visited only when conditions allow. The evening ends off Kalong, where the fruit bats leave the mangroves after sunset and you watch from the deck.

Day two is the full one. The booklet prints two pairs, Padar or Gili Lawa and Komodo village or Rinca, with the words: choose one, subject to quota availability. Tell us your preference when you book; if the park's daily quota for that site is full on the day, you visit the other. Then Pink Beach or Namong, Manta Point and the sandbar at Taka Makassar.

Day three is a snorkel off Seture and the run home, and you are ashore again between 10:00 and 11:00. Each night the boat stays at anchor or under way, depending on the weather and the captain's decision that day.

Pack shoes with grip for the two climbs and reef-safe sunscreen for the five snorkel stops, plus a hat for the hours on deck.

Count the doors: there are 6, and each carries the name of a city in East Java. Malang, Surabaya and Gresik open off the main deck. Kediri, Jember and Madiun are one flight of stairs higher. You book a city, not a category, and the city tells you the bed, the bathroom and whether you get a balcony.

• Malang: a double bed, a roofed private balcony with two grey bean bags, room for extra beds.
• Surabaya: a double bed, one small rectangular window, its own bathroom.
• Gresik: four single bunks in two stacks facing each other, sold one bunk at a time, one shared bathroom.
• Kediri: a double bed behind an almost continuous wall of windows.
• Jember: a double bed with side windows and wooden doors.
• Madiun: a double bed and its own balcony, where a wooden bathtub stands in the open air.

All six are air-conditioned and have sea-facing windows, sockets, towels and linen. The five private bathrooms share one look: a black rain shower, a hand shower on a rail and a small window with a yellow curtain. A private cabin needs two paying guests, so someone travelling alone books a Gresik bunk. Choose the city, then check it is free on your date.

Three places take most of the day: the roof, the nets and the dining room. On the roof, bean bags in orange, purple, blue, green and grey sit on a mat of green turf around a low wooden table, with the mast and its rigging overhead. It is the obvious spot for the sunset at Kalong.

Forward, two rope nets are slung over the water on either side of the bow, laid with blue cushions. You lie on them with the sea moving a short drop below. They are the part of the boat guests photograph first.

Inside on the main deck, the dining room has a carpeted floor, a built-in bench along one wall and window openings facing the sea. In the photographs the black glass-top table is laid for 16, eight a side, with leaf-shaped serving dishes and a rice bowl at the end. Food comes to the table; it is not a buffet. A water dispenser and a glass-door fridge stand nearby, and water, tea and coffee are free-flowing all trip.

The booklets also list a canoe, a karaoke and sound system, and Starlink Wi-Fi on board. The open-trip booklet adds a red inflatable paddle board. Starlink is a satellite link, not a promise of speed, so download what you need before you board.

The smallest thing on board you can buy is one bunk in the Gresik cabin, IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206) for three days and two nights. That is the bunk price. Every other fare on this site is measured against it.

A private cabin costs more per head because you are buying a door as well as a bed. In Surabaya, Kediri or Jember you pay IDR 4,300,000 (≈ USD 264) each. Malang, with its balcony, is IDR 5,150,000 (≈ USD 316), and Madiun, with the balcony and the tub, is IDR 5,400,000 (≈ USD 331). Two of you in Surabaya pay twice IDR 4,300,000 (≈ USD 264); two strangers in Gresik pay twice IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206) and share a bathroom with the other two bunks. The gap between those sums is the price of privacy, and you can check it in the table below.

Chartering the whole boat is a separate sum: a 3D2N for up to five guests costs IDR 47,500,000 (≈ USD 2,914) on the current rate card, which covers departures to the end of 2026. The 2027 booklet, valid from January to July 2027, prints IDR 50,000,000 (≈ USD 3,067) for the same band. Larger groups move up a band, and the full grid sits on the charter page.

The next open-trip start is Monday, 12 October 2026. An open-trip departure sails once at least four cabins are booked. If a date does not reach four, the guests booked on it move to a phinisi of the same class or higher on the same dates at no extra cost, or receive a full refund within 14 days. Park fees and rangers are outside every fare, ours included. Pick a date first, then a door.

Pickup is free on all five trip lengths and for every open-trip bunk, whether we collect you at the airport, a hotel or the harbour in Labuan Bajo. Your group rides in a shared car or minibus. For a family with luggage or a team of twelve, we can send a Toyota HiAce, or a larger coach on request, priced as a separate line.

On a private charter the boat can carry more than a holiday. Between stops, the dining table works as a meeting table. A company can take the whole boat for a team outing; a family can spread three generations over Kediri, Jember and Madiun on the upper deck.

Evenings can move ashore: dinner on an island beach, a private island dinner for your group alone, or a seafood dinner planned with the chef. Tell us about a birthday, a proposal or a dietary rule and we arrange the table, the cake or the menu. Decoration for a cabin or the roof deck is possible too, and a photographer or a drone pilot, with the park permit the drone needs.

None of this has a printed price. You get a written quote within hours, and nothing is added to your fare without one. Write to us with the date, the headcount and the idea.

The park has two seasons and twelve different months. The sea is calm and the water at its clearest in two stretches: April to June, then October and November. July and August stay dry but blow harder, and they are the busiest months at Padar and Pink Beach.

Mantas follow a different calendar. Sightings peak from December to February and again from July to September, so the best manta months include the roughest ones. September is the compromise: the wind eases, the water clears and the mantas are still about.

December brings the wet season back and fills the last fortnight with holiday travellers. January and February bring the heaviest rain and the worst of the swell.

Your deck matters more in a windy month than in a calm one. As on any boat, the upper deck, where Kediri, Jember and Madiun sit, moves more than the main deck. If your stomach is the deciding vote, book Malang, Surabaya or a Gresik bunk below. The chart below gives sea, visibility, mantas, crowds and rain for each month. Open it before you choose a date.

Three limits decide more bookings than any photo. The snorkel kit stops at mask and snorkel, with no fins aboard. Gresik shares one bathroom between four bunks, while the other five cabins each have their own. And park fees and rangers sit outside every fare; on a private charter so do the guide and the photo or video crew, which we price as extra lines if you want them.

The boat suits solo travellers who want to pay for one bed, couples who want a balcony, families of four in Malang, Kediri or Madiun, and groups of up to 23 who take all 6 cabins. It does not suit divers who need tanks aboard, or anyone who needs a lift or stabilisers: the two decks and the roof are reached by stairs.

A last check before you pay: King Cirox 2 is also sold as Cirox 2 Phinisi and New Cirox 2; King Cirox 1 is a different boat. Make sure the name on your confirmation matches the one you chose.

We are PT Komodo Explorer Indonesia, NIB 1805260128363, in Labuan Bajo, and we sell this boat's cabins and charters directly. Better read here than on the pier.