Get Into Manado By Plane
Whether you want to stay on Bunaken Island or Lembeh Island, you will need to fly into Manado International Airport / Sam Ratulangi International Airport (Airport code = MDC).
If you already dive somewhere else in Indonesia (Raja Ampat), from/to Sorong there are Garuda Airlines and Lion Air which fly direct regularly into Manado. Perhaps you want to come into Manado after or before dive in Ambon – Maluku, there are few domestic flights who might be able to connect you through Makassar. Lion Air also fly direct into Manado from Balikpapan and Surabaya.
Get Into Manado Via Trans Sulawesi Highway
If you are traveling from South Sulawesi to the north through the major streets using private car, public bus, tour operator’s vehicle, please make sure that you shall be arrives in Manado (somewhere at the popular drop-off point). Please contact our Sales & Reservation staff how you/we can meet our boat in Manado harbor (if you want to go to bunaken island) or to decide the meeting point with our driver/staff so we can come and pick you up (if you want to go to lembeh island) when you get lost or you don’t know where you should go. Another popular meeting point would be at the airport or if you are already in Bitung/Tangkoko and planning to stay in lembeh, we are using APB (Akademi Perikanan Bitung) jetty in Tandurusa as the meeting point to take our boat to our resort.
Get Into The Resort
If you want to use our transfer service (chargeable), please let us know when you are doing the reservation by providing us a very clear information required by our staff in Sales & Reservation dept. We are happy to pick you up from the airport or from Manado and arrange your transportation all the way to our resorts either on Bunaken Island or Lembeh Island.
#Pick up service from/to airport
We should have your arrival and departure flight details such as airlines name, flight number and arrival/departure time to/from Manado. On your arrival, there wilal be our driver waiting for you in front of the arrival gate holding an A4 paper with Bastianos sign and your name on it.
#Pick up service from/to hotel in Manado/Bitung
We should know your hotel’s name, pick-up time, or if the meeting point is somewhere else, please let us know your Indonesia cellular phone number so our staff can reach you or maybe talk to your guide or driver to setup a meeting point.
Airport/Manado >> Manado harbor by car is ±30 mins
Manado harbor >> Resort by boat is ±1 hour
#Doing Your Own Transfer to Bunaken
Please make sure that you arrive in Manado harbor (Calaca), behind Celebes hotel. This is the place where most resorts on Bunaken island depart from, as well as the public boat when it is low tide. From here you can find a private speed boat available for hire/rent to drop you to Bunaken Island/our resort (most convenience way than the public boat one). For public boat usually they depart from Manado to Bunaken (once a day) at around 2pm depends on the tide everyday except sunday. With a public boat (depends on which village’s destination), usually they will make the first stop on the main bunaken village for approx. 1 hour and they will continue to the next stop. Please ask where the public boat that goes to “Bastianos” or “Liang beach” otherwise you can also stop at the main village and hire a boat to take you to our resort or you can take a motorbike with a jockey (ompreng/ojek) if you are a single traveler.
#Late/Early Transfers to/from Bunaken
Unfortunately we are unable to do late night or early morning transfers to/from our resort due to safety reason of not being able to transfer you in the dark by 1 hour boat ride. This means that you may need to stay in Manado if you have flights that arrive after 5pm or depart before 9am. If this happens, our staff in Sales & Reservation can book you a hotel (at your own cost) and arrange all of the transport on the next day.
Airport/Manado >> Bitung harbor by car = ±1 hr 30 mins
Bitung harbor >> Resort by boat = ±10 mins
#Doing Your Own Transfer to Bitung/Lembeh
Bitung is the name of the city that you have to reach before you are making a boat ride to our resort. Shall you have your own car and driver, the meeting point of the harbor if you are using our boat service is at APB (Akademi Perikanan Bitung) jetty, Tandurusa or if you are planning to arrange your own boat transport from Bitung to the resort, you must go to “Ruko Pateten” to catch public boat that you can hire and order them to take you to our resort “Bastianos Lembeh” in “Mawali village”. If you are going by public bus from Manado then you need to change at Terminal Tangkoko to get a mikrolet (blue mini van) for Bitung, and once in Bitung take a motorbike ride with jockey (ompreng/ojek) the last 2 kilometres to APB jetty. There are other harbors in Bitung so you will need to tell the driver to take you to APB jetty otherwise they will try and take you to the Ruko Pateten harbor but we wont pick you up from there. Once in APB, please call us so that we can send our boat to come and pick you up. If you have not already contacted us in advance, it may take up to 30 minutes for the boat to reach the jetty – It depends on tides, or whether the transport boat is being used for something else, etc.
#Late/Early Transfers to/from Lembeh
The good news when you are staying in lembeh is that we can arrange your late/early transfers. No matter if you are arriving late in the evening, or your flight depart very early in the morning. This is possible to arrange due to the short boat ride from island to mainland. However, this must be arrange in advance to make sure that the crews and the transportation is well prepared for special time transfer arrangement and also please note that the transfer fee is more than the regular fee.