Komodo boat trip FAQ for King Cirox 2 Phinisi: forty-eight questions in eight groups

Komodo International Airport (LBJ) in Labuan Bajo, about 10 minutes by car from the harbour. Your free pickup collects you there.

Yes. We advise landing in Labuan Bajo the day before sailing, because a delayed or cancelled morning flight can cost you the boat. Pickup on sailing day runs between 10:00 and 11:00, and a morning flight from Bali leaves no margin at all.

Yes, on every trip. A shared car or minibus runs your group from any Labuan Bajo hotel, or from LBJ, to the harbour. On the open trip it runs between 10:00 and 11:00 on day one.

Most visitors use the 30-day Visa on Arrival, or the same visa bought online as an e-VoA before travel; ASEAN citizens enter visa-free. Bring a passport with six months left beyond arrival and two empty pages, proof that you are leaving again, and the All Indonesia arrival card, free online and filed in the 72 hours before landing. A fee increase was announced in August 2026 with no start date, so verify the fee on the immigration site before travelling; the first-time page shows the figure in force today.

Starlink Wi-Fi on board is in the boat's booklet, and the dish shows in the deck photos; we promise no speed. Phone signal between the islands is patchy. Install an eSIM before you fly, or buy a Telkomsel SIM in town with your passport: Telkomsel covers the park best, and one passport registers up to 3 numbers per network.

Tips are appreciated, never compulsory, and they sit outside the fare. Give them in rupiah, in clean notes, on the last morning, for all 6 crew.

They are two different boats. King Cirox 2, also sold as Cirox 2 Phinisi or New Cirox 2, is a 24.8 m phinisi finished in 2025, with 6 cabins named after East Java cities. King Cirox 1 is a separate boat with its own cabins and fares. Check the name on your invoice before you pay.

A deposit of 50 per cent holds your bunk, cabin or the whole boat. The balance falls due 30 days before departure; book inside that window and you pay the full fare at once.

A card payment link, Wise, Revolut, PayPal, QRIS, Alipay, WeChat Pay through a payment partner, or a bank transfer in rupiah. PayPal adds 7.2 per cent to the invoice; a Wise or bank transfer avoids that cost. Every fare already includes 11 per cent VAT.

The calendar decides, not the reason. Cancelling 60 or more days ahead returns 50 per cent; between 30 and 59 days, 25 per cent; at 29 days or fewer, nothing. Refunds reach you within 14 days. If we cancel, you get the whole amount back.

Yes. 30 days or more before departure, the move is free if the new date has room. From 29 to 14 days it costs IDR 500,000. Inside 13 days a change counts as a cancellation.

Yes. The 2027 open-trip calendar keeps the Monday and Friday pattern and is open now at the current fare list, because 2027 open-trip fares have not yet been issued. If that fare moves before your balance falls due, you hear it from us first and may cancel at no charge. Private charters use the boat's 2027 booklet, valid 1 January to 31 July 2027: a 3D2N with five or fewer aboard is IDR 50,000,000 (≈ USD 3,067), against IDR 47,500,000 (≈ USD 2,914) on the current table.

Yes, in Gresik. It holds four single bunks in two stacks and sells them one at a time: IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206) for the 3D2N, IDR 2,900,000 (≈ USD 178) for the 2D1N.

Not at the per-person fare. Malang, Surabaya, Kediri, Jember and Madiun each need two paying guests, so one person in Surabaya pays twice IDR 4,300,000 (≈ USD 264). The Gresik bunk at IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206) is the solo fare.

Yes, in every cabin. Malang, Kediri and Madiun take extra beds up to four guests; Surabaya and Jember up to three; Gresik up to five. On the open trip the extra-bed fare for each cabin is printed in the fare table and on the cabin card, never a surprise at the harbour. Across all 6 cabins the count tops out at 23 berths. The 23rd place is an extra bed in Gresik.

No. Gresik's four bunks share one bathroom; the other five cabins each have their own. If that rules it out, the cheapest private door is Surabaya, Kediri or Jember at IDR 4,300,000 (≈ USD 264) per person, two to a cabin.

Two keys with a balcony: Malang and Madiun. Malang's is a roofed side deck with two grey bean bags and a white rail. Madiun's carries a wooden bathtub in the open air. The tub is Madiun's alone, at IDR 5,400,000 (≈ USD 331) per person on the open trip against IDR 5,150,000 (≈ USD 316) for Malang.

All 6 cabins are air-conditioned, with sea-facing windows, power sockets, towels and linen.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner, cooked aboard by the chef, one of the 6 crew, plus free-flow mineral water, tea and coffee; open-trip guests also get snacks and soft drinks. Food comes to a black glass-top table in the dining room, laid for sixteen, with leaf-shaped dishes set out to share rather than a buffet line.

Tell us at booking, with the allergy spelled out. The request goes to the chef through us and comes back confirmed in writing; only then do you pay 50 per cent.

Tell us your dietary needs when you book and we pass them to the chef in writing. Ask, and you get the chef's answer in writing while your 50 per cent is still in your pocket.

Mineral water, tea and coffee are free-flow for the whole 3D2N. Tap water anywhere in Indonesia is not for drinking. Alcohol is in no fare, and the booklets set no rule on bringing your own, so ask for your date.

6 crew. The boat's booklet names a cruise director, a chef and boat crew. The official ship sketch puts the galley on the main deck, the same deck as the dining room.

Not in the 3D2N fare. A seafood dinner, a dinner on an island beach or a private dinner for two are services on request, priced for your headcount, island and date. The quote arrives in writing within hours, and nothing is added to your bill without it.

Government Regulation PP 36/2024 fixes the day ticket at IDR 250,000 for each foreign visitor. Citizens of Indonesia pay IDR 50,000 from Monday to Friday, IDR 75,000 on weekends and holidays. Since April 2026 the government has been studying a higher foreign fee; no figure or date has followed.

No, in no fare at all: open trip, 2D1N or private charter. Park entry and the ranger are paid separately, the ticket per person per day and the ranger per group. A foreign guest pays IDR 250,000 for each day inside the park, and the park fees page works the sum for two, four and ten guests.

A liferaft, life jackets, a life buoy, a first-aid kit and AIS, the Automatic Identification System that broadcasts the boat's position. The orange life ring and the liferaft canister sit on the upper deck beside Kediri's windows. The wheelhouse carries a Garmin unit and a chart plotter beside the orange ship's wheel, all on a hull finished in 2025.

If a breakdown, or an order from the harbour master or the park, keeps the boat in port, you sail on your dates aboard a replacement phinisi of the same class or higher, at no extra cost. Turn the replacement down and your money comes back in full within 14 days. You decide.

No. The kit is mask and snorkel only, and the boat carries no fins. Bring your own, or rent a pair in town the day before sailing. Manta Point is a drift in a strong current on day two, and that is where fins earn their space in the bag. Confident swimmers manage without; everyone else should pack them.

Two decks and a roof deck are joined by stairs, with no lift, and the bow nets hang over open water. Neither suits a toddler without an adult's hand on them. Life jackets are in the kit; ask us to confirm a child-size vest for your date before paying 50 per cent.

Day one: the hill on Kelor, the wooden pier at Manjarite, Strawberry Rock when conditions allow, and the bats at Kalong at dusk. Day two: Padar or Gili Lawa, and Komodo or Rinca, one of each pair as you choose, subject to quota availability, then Pink Beach, Manta Point and the Taka Makassar sandbar. Day three: a beach and a snorkel at Seture, then back in Labuan Bajo between 10:00 and 11:00. Weather, currents and park or port orders can reorder the stops.

Pickup comes between 10:00 and 11:00 on day one, at your hotel or the airport; the guide confirms your slot the day before. On the 3D2N you are back in Labuan Bajo between 10:00 and 11:00 on day three, so book a flight out after 14:00.

You board the same Monday or Friday sailing as the 3D2N guests, sail day one and day two with them, and leave before day three. A Gresik bunk costs IDR 2,900,000 (≈ USD 178); the private cabins run from IDR 3,900,000 (≈ USD 239) to IDR 5,000,000 (≈ USD 307) per person. On day two you finish at Manta Point, and a small transfer boat takes you from there to the pier in Labuan Bajo. You do not continue to Taka Makassar.

Five lengths: a full day, 2D1N, 3D2N, 4D3N and 5D4N. The full day has no printed route; the sample we show is Kelor, Rinca and Manjarite, back in Labuan Bajo before sunset, and you settle the real stops with us before the deposit. With five or fewer aboard, a full day costs IDR 30,750,000 (≈ USD 1,887) and a 5D4N IDR 65,500,000 (≈ USD 4,018).

On the 3D2N, both nights are spent at anchor or under way, depending on the weather and the captain's decision that day.

No, whatever the length, from the full day to 5D4N. We add a local guide or photo and video documentation on request, each at a separate price. On the open trip both are in the fare: the guide, plus GoPro, mirrorless and drone documentation.

April to June, then October and November: calm water and the clearest visibility. July and August stay dry but blow harder and fill the anchorages. December to March is the wet season.

Mantas peak from December to February and again from July to September, at Manta Point on day two of the open trip. They are wild: common in those months, never guaranteed.

Yes, the calendar keeps running Monday & Friday. January and February bring the roughest sea and the heaviest rain, and over the 2025 to 2026 wet season the harbour master halted sailings in several rounds. Book a wet-season date knowing the plan can move.

Nobody sails. The harbour master, KSOP Labuan Bajo, issues every sailing permit, and when a weather warning closes the port no tourist boat leaves. If that order closes the port to every boat on your dates, you receive a full refund within 14 days. If only King Cirox 2 is held, by a breakdown or by an order on the vessel, you sail the same dates aboard another phinisi of the same class or higher at no extra cost, or take that same full refund. When only part of the park closes, as in August 2026 when Komodo and Padar shut and Rinca stayed open, the route runs through the open sites. Better read here than on the pier.

They are dry, windy and the busiest weeks of the year. The south-east wind builds from June, crossings get choppier and the ridge on Padar fills up. If calm water matters more than school holidays, take October or November.

It shifts with the month. In August, sunset at Kalong comes at 18:00; the bats stream out of the mangroves roughly 15 minutes after the sun goes down, so be on deck early.

Yes. The open trip sails every Monday & Friday, and a solo guest books one bunk in Gresik. The next departure is Monday, 12 October 2026, and 127 start dates are listed from today to the end of 2027. A departure sails once at least four cabins are booked; a date that does not reach four moves its guests to a phinisi of the same class or higher on the same dates at no extra cost, or refunds them in full within 14 days.

Nothing: no single supplement is printed. The bunk price, IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206) for three days, is what one person pays; a private cabin alone means paying for its second place too.

Up to three other open-trip guests who also bought a bunk on your date, or four if the extra bed is taken. The boat's booklets print no gender rule for Gresik. If that matters to you, ask us before you pay anything.

Compare the two. A 3D2N charter in the smallest band costs IDR 47,500,000 (≈ USD 2,914), the same for one person as for five. A bunk costs IDR 3,350,000 (≈ USD 206). Alone, the charter buys you the whole boat and the route on your terms, and nothing else.

We can describe the boat; we cannot quote a crime statistic. You sleep in a four-bunk room among open-trip guests, with a shared bathroom, 6 crew aboard and a guide on every open trip. Ashore, buy only from a licensed company and only against an invoice; the company behind King Cirox 2 is PT Komodo Explorer Indonesia, NIB 1805260128363. Keep the whole booking in one written thread, so every promise is on record.

Fins first, because the kit has none. Then trekking sandals or shoes, a small backpack, sunblock, personal medicines and some emergency cash, which is our own list. Keep your passport in a dry bag on day one of the 3D2N: the park ticket is issued in your name.