Bali (Benoa) experiences

[CruiseCriticAUeditor]

Hi all

I've heard a few reports of delays, queues, ships skipping visits to Bali. Has this happened to you?

 

What would be your advice for someone

a) boarding in Bali (Benoa)

b) looking forward to a port of call/overnight docking?

 

Louise

[Wastegirl]

Bali was my second worst tendering experience, first being Yorkeys Knob. Both on the Solstice. Both places I was on a ship's tour so should have had a smoother experience.

 

Specifically the Bali trip as asked, huge line up to hand our passports in on the previous day, then on the day delays in getting on the tenders, lengthy tender ride to Port with rubbish floating alongside us. Once in port it went fairly smoothly.

 

Back in the evening everyone seemed to arrive at once, huge line up to get back on the tender, waiting about an hour with staff walking around with icy towels as people were getting distressed in the humidity. Shocking tender ride back to the ship, we wondered whether our driver had his licence :) While it did not spoil our lovely day at the Elephant Safari Park, it certainly put a dampener on it.

 

We had booked a ship's tour this time because we had heard the horror stories about Bali and were worried (with good reason as it turned out) that we would have trouble connecting with a private tour.

 

Now in part this could have been Celebrity as they just could not get their tendering right. I think they dock more. Having travelled on HAL and Princess, both with choppy seas and much more tendering, they seemed far more experienced.

[Beanb41]

Hi all

I've heard a few reports of delays, queues, ships skipping visits to Bali. Has this happened to you?

 

What would be your advice for someone

a) boarding in Bali (Benoa)

b) looking forward to a port of call/overnight docking?

 

Louise

 

We were in Bali(Benoa) on the Celebrity Solstice earlier this year. It was a tender port and it took around 20 minutes to get from the ship to the port. Bali is the home port for a lot of the ships personnel so as the ship only comes to Bali once a year local staff were given priority tenders ashore, followed by ships tours and Elite passengers. This meant that for the ordinary passenger the earliest one could expect to get ashore was nearly 2 hours if one got a low tender number. So if planning a private excursion allow a minimum of 90 - 120 minutes for pick up after arrival. At the port head is a money changer which provides as good an exchange rate as anywhere and will take local currency back before boarding the tender to return to the ship. Getting back onto the tenders to return to the ship was a long slow process. Nearly 3000 pax and crew with a tender taking less than 100 and a 45 minute turn around means a long wait. The crew namely officers provided cold towels and chilled water for all those waiting.

One just has to be patient going back on board and I think it is fair to say that allowing local crew members to be first ashore was the right decision.

Once out of the Port terminal it is bedlam with hawkers and taxi drivers all clambering to put their wares in front of passengers. That said they were well controlled by Police and security

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Sounds all the calls are the same. We were on Diamond Princess .No problems getting ashore to meet up with a private tour, but all tours came back to the port at the same time ......and we had a long wait. Local dancers and musicians helped pass the time.

As well as the tenders , they were using a large catamaran and moving up to 300 people at a time, but it did not save much ,as only one person can enter or exit at a time.

[VK3DQ]

Please consider DFAT Says

 

 

We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Indonesia, including Bali, at this time due to the high threat of terrorist attack. You should also be aware of the severe penalties for narcotics offences, including the death penalty; some specific health risks; and risks associated with natural disasters.

 

Visitors to Indonesia, particularly to tourist locations such as Bali and Lombok, should be aware of the specific risks from crime, and from drink-spiking and consumption of alcohol adulterated with harmful substances such as methanol. Tourists may also be exposed to scams and credit card/ATM fraud. There has been an increase in reports of violent crime in Bali, including muggings in the Kuta area. Be aware of your surroundings and conscious of the potential risks of crime. See Safety and security.

Petty crime, such as opportunistic theft, is common in Indonesia. Thieves on motorcycles may snatch handbags and backpacks from pedestrians. Tourists may be exposed to scams and confidence tricks in Indonesia. Legal disputes are common regarding the purchase of real estate including land, houses, holiday clubs and time share schemes.

You should exercise normal beach safety behaviour and consider carefully the risks involved in using motorcycles, including

 

 

IMHO I would stay on board and enjoy a peaceful day on the ship

 

 

Regards

John

Edited November 12, 2015 by VK3DQ

[Esilef]

We went there this year on the rhapsody of the seas.

 

We arrived in Bali 2 days after the Bali 9 ringleaders were executed.

 

This news made some passengers feel uneasy about departing the ship.

 

Tendering was held up for a couple of hours. People missed their tours. The tender a shore was very rough.

 

Once you got a shore there was people right in your face trying to sell tours and items to buy. Very confronting.

 

We had a private tour arranged but with getting a shore later than expected we just had enough time to get to Ubud, turn around and get back to the ship.

 

I felt the areas we went to were not very appealing to tourists but interesting.

 

Due to my sons autism I didn't have to wait yo catch a tender as the shops security waved me forward and straight not the tender. Those whom were not as lucky as me were in a long line and dome panicking about getting back on the ship in time.

 

The cruise lines staff handled this port to the best of their abilities but I felt with this cruise local port authorities and others were making it more difficult than it needed to be for the cruise line to be there.

 

Was it worth getting off the ship? Maybe but I'm not in a hurry to go back. We went to Singapore and would rather stop at Malaysia or another port.

 

Komodo Indonesia we didn't depart the ship due to safety concerns with my autistic 6yr old. The cruise staff actually took the time to come and discuss with me their safety concerns if we were to leave the ship. Great they held passenger safety so personally.

 

Komodo however was a beautiful place to be tendered and just looking out at the islands is amazing.

 

One last thing I don't get why Australians need a visa to get into Indonesia when many other countries don't. Kind of unfair in my view but then this was not a question about Indonesian politics.

[Beanb41]

Please consider DFAT Says

 

 

We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Indonesia, including Bali, at this time due to the high threat of terrorist attack. You should also be aware of the severe penalties for narcotics offences, including the death penalty; some specific health risks; and risks associated with natural disasters.

 

Visitors to Indonesia, particularly to tourist locations such as Bali and Lombok, should be aware of the specific risks from crime, and from drink-spiking and consumption of alcohol adulterated with harmful substances such as methanol. Tourists may also be exposed to scams and credit card/ATM fraud. There has been an increase in reports of violent crime in Bali, including muggings in the Kuta area. Be aware of your surroundings and conscious of the potential risks of crime. See Safety and security.

Petty crime, such as opportunistic theft, is common in Indonesia. Thieves on motorcycles may snatch handbags and backpacks from pedestrians. Tourists may be exposed to scams and confidence tricks in Indonesia. Legal disputes are common regarding the purchase of real estate including land, houses, holiday clubs and time share schemes.

You should exercise normal beach safety behaviour and consider carefully the risks involved in using motorcycles, including

 

 

IMHO I would stay on board and enjoy a peaceful day on the ship

 

 

Regards

John

 

The warnings about terrorism have been in place since the Kuta bombings and is really just a warning that the area is unstable politically. Thousands and thousands of Australians and New Zealanders visit Bali every year with little issues. The local officials are corrupt and should be treated as such. If one avoids confrontation then one should have no problems.

[bronte2]

We had no problems tendering ashore on a small ship with under 700 passengers but a larger ship arrived the same day so on the return it was quite crowded in the small terminal and lots of traffic on the roads back to the port. While there was a bit of a wait for the tenders there were two separate lines for the different ships and it was all quite orderly.

 

IMHO unfortunately this is not the best introduction to Bali as away from the madhouse parts of the island it is a beautiful place with lovely people. :)

[peter.kath@hotmail.com]

We where on Carnival Spirit returning after dry dock and where very lucky to be on the first tender off at 7.30. Before you leave the port there was the option of paying $25 for a taxi. But once you are through the gate the drivers are very enthusiastic to get your business walk through them and find. A Bluebird taxi and the metered journey will be sound $6. Having not been to Kuta for 25 years I did notice lots of changes. There seemed to be a lot of security around. The traffic was very busy. We made sure that we allowed 2 hours to get back to the ship.

[Aus ATC]

We tendered to Bali from Legend of the Seas in June. We arrived on time and were anchored well off shore (about 15 minutes by fast tender boat), but it took ages for us to get off the ship. We were on a private tour (had a driver booked to take us to Ubud) and had a relatively low tender pass number, but with the delays in starting to tender, and the ships tours ahead of us, it was about 9.30am before we were off the ship.

 

Once at the port, we easily found our driver (with my name on a sign) for the day trip to Ubud - unfortunately because of the delay, we missed out on our full day spa experience, but had a shorter version which was OK.

 

There were plenty of drivers available for people who had nothing booked. For info, a car+ driver for the whole day should not cost more than about 600,000 rupiah (~$60.00) and you could probably negotiate to about 500,000. That is for the car, not per person. I don't know what their opening price might be!!

 

The return trip to the ship was more efficient, but quite wild, as the sea had chopped up a bit, but that didn't seem to slow the tender boat captain.

[mtn_couple]

Is Bali a traditionally rough tender? Or is it just many people on this thread seemed to have a rough transition, particularly back to the ship.

[Beanb41]

Is Bali a traditionally rough tender? Or is it just many people on this thread seemed to have a rough transition, particularly back to the ship.

 

It is a very popular port and due to the congestion in the harbour and very narrow channel large cruise ships have to anchor someway off shore. As a consequence if the weather chops up the small tenders could tend to bounce around a bit. On our trip we had smooth rides into the port and back out again. One can never predict the weather years out when many of these programmes are put together. As many of these ships only visit Bali once a year and Bali is one of the must visit ports on such cruises tenders can be slow getting people ashore and lengthy waits to get back on board are also common

[Cruise ship fan]

If you are there on a special date, like New Years Day, etc make sure you are back at the tender dock early. We were on the Diamond Princess this past new years day and it was just chaos. Luck we were on a ships tour as we were hours late, but so were several other buses, with hundred of people missing from the ship at the planned sail time. Traffic was crazy and the bus was getting stuck in streets because cars were stopping on the other side of the road and not allowing enough room for the bus to get through. Our tour guide even had to bend a road sign to get the bus past (he had to time it perfectly too as the police were trying to move the cars next to us with no luck for 20 minutes. As soon as the police turned away he pushed the sign over.