November 12, 2019November 10, 2019 Andil

Our 5 Days Trip to Lombok with a 22 Months Toddler

Travel

In October, we went on a 5 days trip to the Lombok island in Indonesia. Lombok is just across the island from Bali and while Bali is a must-visit destination if you have never been to Indonesia, Lombok is where all the beaches you see in travel magazine is at.

Crowd wise, Lombok offers a sweet spot in tourism; you don’t get the traffic jam and level of crowdness that you see in Bali, but it’s enough that you don’t get that creepy feeling because there is nobody around.

Pages Contents

Hotel: Katamaran Resort (Google Maps)

Katamaran Resort is a relaxing 5 stars beachfront resort located right at Senggigi beach where it’s currently happening. Some of the equipments and facilities look dated and the price is a little steep for the service and food that you get.

Even though it is a 5 stars resort, it is priced around Bali’s 4 stars hotel. However, if you are on a budget, you may want to look at other alternatives since most of Lombok’s resorts are beachfront resorts anyway.

Rooms & Suites

Katamaran Resort has many tiers to their room type but it’s mainly

1. Premier. Regular hotel type room
2. Suites. Bigger than the premier with an outdoor & indoor bathroom and no bathtub
3. Villas. Biggest room with small size pool outside the room and bathtub

We stayed at the suite because we got a free upgrade when we got there and after looking around the resort for 3 days, I do believe that the suites are the best-bang-for-the-buck room. Katamaran Resort has a beautiful swimming pool with clear acrylic on the side, so even if you were to stay in their villas, I don’t see you wanting to swim in the villa’s pool, but rather in the main public swimming area. Also the villas’ swimming pool doesn’t feel private since it’s right outside the door to your villa with everybody passing by.

Price Paid: ~$100 / night for beachfront suite (after the free upgrade)

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Katamaran’s Beach

You pretty much pay a premium for its location right at the beach and it is a premium beach. White sandy beach and clean clear water where you can play with your kids or just lounging around on their bean bags and chairs. The bar by the beach plays music but not loud like the party music that you will find in most of Bali’s beach clubs, rather more like elevator electronic music.

The breakfast buffet and the dinner area is right next to the beach. So the location itself almost made up for the steep price (sunset dinner by the beach with family; really hard to beat).

A side note for those of you who are bringing your children to the beach, there is no lifeguard in this resort’s beach.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Service

Starting off with the positives, checking into the resort was a breeze and the staffs’ friendliness is top notch. We even got upgraded to beachfront suite when we just booked for the regular premier room. Everybody was friendly and you can tell that they are trying their best, however a lot of times, the service just feel inefficient like not refilling any of our toilet papers or shampoos. They eventually refilled our toilet papers after 45 minutes after we called the room service. However, the inefficiencies seem to be due to lack of Standard Operating Procedure that you usually find in bigger corporate establishments rather than the staffs not knowing how to do their job

We also decided to book a trip to Gili Nanggu, Gili Sudak, & Gili Kedis through the hotel since they were the second least expensive agency that we can find. They even throw in a plate of fruits and bottled water despite their cheap price. Unfortunately, the travel company that they pass us to, while friendly enough doesn’t feel very personal even though it is a private tour. Nevertheless, we had a good time.

Despite, some slow services, upgrading us was a nice touch and while we were there, all the staffs are very friendly and helpful and during our day trip, we had a lot of fun snorkeling around the Gilis.

Price Paid: ~$105 for half a day trip to 3 Gilis (Not including lunch)

Breakfast Buffet and Food

Anybody that knows me know that I am a big hotel breakfast guy. One of the things that excite me the most when traveling is the breakfast. Whereas when I am home and at work, I want to get through breakfast as quickly as possible, when I am traveling, the breakfast table is where the family meets and hang out and spend the most time on.

The breakfast buffet at Katamaran, however was disappointing to me and feels more like a 3 stars hotel’s breakfast, where the omellettes are pre-cooked and kept in a heated pan; you get bread, cereal and a mix of Indonesian and Western food, but honestly they are all just pretty blah. Fortunately they have pretty good coffee, which was surprising considering the rest of their breakfast offerings.

Service was again feels inefficient and hard to come by during breakfast, but this time I think it’s more because they were short staffed and you have to ask multiple times for something as minor as napkins or forks.

We also happened to have dinner at the resort’s restaurant and the meal was pretty good, further surprising us considering the breakfast buffet’s taste. My wife and I were guessing that the chef that actually cooks for dinner may not be the same chef that prepares the recipe for breakfast.

Also for those of you that are traveling with babies, they only have 3 baby chairs for a dining room that can fit close to 250 – 300 people if not more.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Will I Come Back to Katamaran Resort?

While Katamaran does a lot of things right, they do a lot of things wrong as well, mainly their breakfast quality for the price that they charge and their service’s efficiency. I am not the type who demand to be pampered, but when you travel with a 22 month toddler that just spilled juice all over the table, you don’t want to wait 20 minutes for napkins.

Now, if you are not a big breakfast person or you have an older infants, Katamaran has a lot to offer you, like beautiful beach and swimming pool area, and their location on the island is very convenient

The next time I come back to Lombok, I will most likely look into other alternatives like

• Sheraton
• Sudamala (which won an award for the best breakfast and cheaper rate)
• Novotel (Kuta area)

Currently, the winner of the alternatives is Sudamala because they have a lot of chains, so I assume that they have better Standard Operating Procedure compared to Katamaran, and because breakfast.

Food: Lombok means Chili

Lombok literally means Chili in Indonesian, so take this as your warning. If you can handle the heat, the food are all amazing, especially anything to do with fresh seafood. If you don’t want chili or at least their milder version, you should emphasize to the waiter or restaurant “Tidak Pedas” (pronounced “Tea-Dug Peh-Dust”) which means not spicy.

Places of Note

Kedai Setia Pak Jenggot (Google Maps)

On our second night in Lombok, we decided to have delivery from Pak Jenggot. We only had the Ayam Taliwang and it was really spicy, but in a good way. We were so hungry, I forgot to take any pictures of our dinner.

The sauce, spices and taste are all on point, even if the foods are a little on the pricier side.

Highly recommended if you can handle the fire.

Warung Menega (Google Maps)

Warung Menega was a chain of Bali’s famous Warung Menega and they have the same recipes, but I heard that as of October 2019, they are no longer part of the main Bali’s Warung Menega, instead a stand alone restaurant.

Just like in Bali, when you enter the establishment, you will be greeted with aquariums and buckets of fresh seafood where you can make your selections and tell the servers how you want it to be cooked.

Price point wise, Warung Menega is a little expensive for Lombok but their seafood is fresh and they are generous with the sauce and spices.

If you are looking for good seafood, you can’t go wrong with Warung Menega and a good dinner is pretty much guaranteed.

Ashtari (Google Maps)

On our first day in Lombok, we had a driver to take us around Central & South Lombok and based on many reviews online, we stopped by Ashtari, a cafe/ yoga loft/ lounge near Kuta area.

Ashtari is located on the hill to the north of Kuta and you can catch a beautiful view of Kuta’s coastline. The decoration of the cafe feels very organic, decorated with some murals and simple but homey. You will also find some board games and card games available while you are lounging and hanging out.

While I really like the view, atmosphere and the decoration of the cafe, sadly, the food and service are very sub-par.

We were there around 11:45 and the place was pretty empty, but food was slow in coming and the person helping us, while not rude or unfriendly acted like we were not supposed to be there. She looked impatient while taking our order and was not helpful at all about the menu. We ended up getting the fried rice just because she seems just as clueless about the menu as we did.

• 

La Chill (Google Maps)

We were hungry on our last day in Lombok but wanted to go somewhere close by our resort. La Chill is located behind a small motel and we were very skeptical while we walked in. But once you are in, La Chill is actually right next to the beach, serves good food, friendly service and a very relaxing place to just laze around.

• 

• 

Milk Espresso (Google Maps)

Milk Espresso is small, hip and happening. They had one of the best coffees I had tasted while in Lombok and the service was excellent. I definitely see myself stopping by everytime I am in the area.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Itinerary

Including the flight in and out of the island, the total time we spent on the island is actually only 3 days. This is how we planned our 3 days

• 1 day to explore various areas of Lombok (We hired a driver that takes us to the south and central Lombok)
• 1 day to island hop to the many Gilis around Lombok (We went to Gili Nanggu, Gili Sudak & Gili Kedis)
• 1 day to enjoy the resort just chilling at the beach or the swimming pool.

Selong Belanak, Kuta area, and Tanjung Aan with Pak Nas

For our first day in Lombok we hired Pak Nas as our driver for the day and we can’t recommend him enough. Pak Nas knows all the shortcuts, and he even helps us plan our day to make sure we don’t have any unnecessary detours. We paid around Rp. 500,000 for the full day, which usually means around 8 – 9 hours depending on the driver.

We asked Pak Nas to come around 9 am and it was already 10 am when we left Katamaran. I was worried that we were not going to have enough time to see everything on our plan, but Pak Nas ensured us that he is not picky about hours and just worry about having a good time. By the time we came back to the resort, it was 8:30 pm; Pak Nas did not charge us extra and he was still full of smiles when he dropped us off. Of course, we gave him a big tips and bought him lunch and dinner.

If you are in need of a driver while you are in Lombok, click on this link (Pak Nas on TripAdvisor) and give Pak Nas a call, he is the best driver I ever had in Indonesia’s Eastern Side. By the way, if you are reading this, Pak Nas, we are sorry for our tardiness but thank you very much for your kindness!

Moving on to our 1st day plan, we stopped by Ashtari on our way to Kuta and passed by Selong Belanak Beach, a beautiful beach but full of surfers. We hung around in Tanjung Aan Beach and let Mason play on the sand before heading to Merese Hill to catch the sunset. On our way back, we had dinner at Warung Menega.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Gili Nanggu, Gili Sudak & Gili Kedis

On our second day, we went on a snorkeling day trip to the 3 Gilis around Lombok through a private tour company.

Snorkeling in Lombok is highly recommended as the water is clear, coral reefs are abundant and the fish are friendly.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Packing & Travel Tips

Pack how you pack for the beach because even their nightlife scenes are pretty laidback and casual. Laundry services are also abundant in the island

If you are like me and prefer to wash your own T-Shirts, underwears and socks, supply marts are everywhere and you can buy a little bit of detergent and make use of your room’s sink.

Free Wi-Fi can be found everywhere and they are generally fast

Common sense do apply here just like everywhere in the world. Lombok is pretty safe but if you are a woman, do not go down a dark, shady looking alley at night. Also, since the majority of the population are Muslims, try not to go around the island in a bikini or publicly intoxicated (tipsy is fine, flat out screaming drunken is not). These are very frowned upon and considered disrespectful.

Show the culture and the island respect and they will greet you with smiles and friendliness.

Will I Come Back?

Without a doubt and without a second thought. Lombok is an island worth a return visit and you should too. On this trip, I was unable to do more of the physical activities, like hiking to Mt. Rinjani, or checking out the multiple waterfalls that the island offers. The next time I return, those will be on the top of my list.