Holland America Indonesia Cruise Dec 2024 question on ports

[kaygeee]

In December 2024 we are going on a Holland America cruise starting from Singapore around Indonesia. We are stopping at SURABAYA, PROBOLINGGO JAVA, BENOA (DENPASAR) BALI, KOMODO ISLAND, LEMBAR LOMBOK, SEMARANG JAVA, and TANJUNG PRIOK JAKARTA. Does anyone have suggestions or recommendations on what to do/see? And any tour or driver recommendations? We are a group of six and would like to avoid the excursions organized by the cruise line.  We would prefer to do our own excursions. Any fear of missing the boat on our return?

[1025cruise]

Welcome to Cruise Critic. There is a section called Ports of Call that you should check out for excursion ideas.

[Host Kat]

49 minutes ago, kaygeee said:

In December 2024 we are going on a Holland America cruise starting from Singapore around Indonesia. We are stopping at SURABAYA, PROBOLINGGO JAVA, BENOA (DENPASAR) BALI, KOMODO ISLAND, LEMBAR LOMBOK, SEMARANG JAVA, and TANJUNG PRIOK JAKARTA. Does anyone have suggestions or recommendations on what to do/see? And any tour or driver recommendations? We are a group of six and would like to avoid the excursions organized by the cruise line.  We would prefer to do our own excursions. Any fear of missing the boat on our return?

 

Hello @kaygeee and welcome to the Cruise Critic message boards!

 

Thank you for your new thread on the Ask s Cruise Question forum. However, it is the forum for general questions regarding cruising. Your inquiry is off topic here.

 

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To research your ports, you need to research the Ports of Call forums. That is where your fellow Cruise Critic members discuss the ports. The majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have been there frequent those forums and provide feedback there. Browse through the thread titles on the forums for your ports looking for threads of interest. You may find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that may be of interest to you.

 

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[Hlitner]

It has been a few years since we last cruised in Indonesia, Malaysia and most of your ports.  It is a fabulous itinerary and a really interesting part of the world.  Sorry I cannot offer port-specific advice, but any thoughts we have would be terribly out of date.  Like most cruises and places, our own preference is to do things on our own (DIY) unless it is not reasonable.  As a general rule, when larger cities are part of the day (such as Jakarta) we will do our homework and be off on our own (using public transit, our legs, taxis, etc).  For the more rural islands, in this part of the world, we would certainly be looking at private tour options (you can get together with others using the CC Roll Call board for your cruise) and as a last resort, cruise line excursions.  I will admit that we may be in the minority in not liking large group excursions, but it is what it is :).

 

Hank

[crystalspin]

21 hours ago, kaygeee said:

We would prefer to do our own excursions. Any fear of missing the boat on our return?

Many people who arrange their own excursions, aim for a schedule that gets them back to the ship two hours before All-Aboard time. 

[nolatravelgirl]

If you are planning on visiting the caldera (Mt Bromo) on the volcano in Probolinggo, I highly recommend booking a private excursion. It was well worth it. the ship excursion takes a bus up a very treacherous road. It must stop a lot earlier. We zipped by the bus in a Toyota 4-Runner and beat them up road by nearly an hour. Since we were there earlier the small staircase was easier to ascend without a crush of people. Our tour guide took us all the way to the top and gave us a lovely tour. In order to enter the national park you have to transfer to a 4WD Jeep. 

 

 

Program Description
Disembark from vessel in the morning at 09:00hrs, you will be picked up by our guide at the cruise port in Probolinggo and directly drive to Bromo via Cemara Lawang. Upon arrival at Cemara Lawang, change with a local transport of 4WD jeep to reach the slope of Mount Bromo, an active volcano which is part of Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. As your vehicle parked, get on the horses’ back to get closer to the volcano then climb up some hundreds of stairs to reach the top and enjoy the bird view scenery of the crater. Enjoy lunch at Java Banana Lodge ) then switch back to normal transport. 

[John Bull]

Hi, and a belated welcome to Cruise Critic,

 

I'm surprised the mods haven't moved your post to the Asia forum - can I suggest you copy & paste it at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/43-asia/ where you'll get more-specialised responses.

 

In the meantime, this from quite a few years back.....

Bali

There'll be vans at the port.

The Balinese are Hindu (the rest of Indonesia is Muslim) and are very artistic people

I suggest you head to Ubud, about 1 hr 20 mins. A collection of artistic villages, each with their own speciality - stone, wood, jewellery, painting, etc. There's also a monkey sanctuary there - no fences, you can wander amongst them, And close by, a road of huts & stalls selling locally made products.

En-route your driver will take you to a temple or three - you'll need to cover legs and shoulders but they're usually available on-site for a donation of a dollar or two.

And every household has its own temple, anything from a corner of a room to an ornate building in the garden - you might be taken to one of the latter. 

 

If you're in-port overnight, head to Uluwatu Temple about 40 mins away on a western clifftop overlooking the Indian Ocean for the sunset Kecak Fire Show in a natural arena with the sea in the background

 

Komodo.

This is for the Komodo Dragons.

No dock, you are  tendered to a pier on the edge of the small village.

You have to be accompanied into the forest - if you haven't pre-arranged a guide there will be guides to take you in groups. You walk (no road or vehicles) but its not far. You definitely will see dragons close-up - but they're well-fed on chicken, so they probably won't want to eat you. You'll probably have free time in the village - the occasional dragon can be seen there, probably sleeping.

 

Semarang

You can jump into a van at the port & head to a coffee plantation or the steam railway or just into town - you can walk back from the town.

The main attraction is the temple at Borobudur. It's  something over 2 hrs away and ships' buses are escorted by police through the traffic - when they went past us in our van, they left us in their dust. This is one where you bite the bullet & take ship's tour. One of our party opted to go to Bprobudur & was very impressed

 

To repeat, this from quite a few years ago. But hopefully a basis for research

 

JB 🙂