Just got back from diving Lembeh for a week. First of all, coming from Salt Lake City in the US. It was a long haul. 23 hours flight time. SLC>SEA>NRT>SIN>MDC. If I wanted to pay for my flight I probably could have eliminated one of the stops. But using Delta FF miles is a way for a cheaper vacation. The SIN airport is as good as everyone says it is. The transit hotel was fantastic, as it provided a much needed nap and shower. I was worried about my bags being transferred from Delta to Silk. Everything worked smoothly. Just make sure the airline you are flying into has an interline agreement with Silk and you will be fine. Once in SIN, we went to the transfer desk and gave Silk our baggage tags that Delta had checked all the way to MDC. They did what they needed to do, and all of the bags showed up.
My wife and I stayed at NAD Lembeh after reading good reviews here on Wetpixel. As for the resort itself, it was great. Not too much walking to where you need to go. The camera room was large, although might be a little cramped if a large photo group came. But I think that is the case with all camera rooms. The dining area was outside and covered. It had great views of the strait. They also have the heaviest chairs, I have ever lifted!! Pulling them out from the table was a workout! The food was typical for this part of the world. Always rice, meat and a vegetable and something fried. Being a little bit picky with food (i don't eat seafood), I found it too be good for the most part. However, I wish there was a little variety. I recommended this to the GM. Suggesting a burger, or something to break it up a bit. He agreed and said they were looking at changing up the menu a bit.
If you and the wife are going. I recommend the bungalow. We had Bungalow 1 and thought it was the best location on the resort. no major stairs to climb, and out of the general resort traffic. Plus great views of the strait. The bed actually had a mattress, which is a nice change from the foam pads that are typical of dive resorts/liveaboards. And the shower and bathroom were adequate. One warning for the resort in general. bring bug spray. there were a lot of mosquitoes out. Talking to Simon and Serge, it sounds like they are doing a lot of updating to the rooms.
As far as the diving was concerned. It too was great. We did have some miss dive sites, but for the most part everything was very good. Saw a lot of things we have never seen before. We did 4 dives a day while we were there. 2 in the morning. 1 afternoon, and then 1 night dive. 75 max dive time. Although we did have one that was over 90. They were strict on how much air you came up with though. 500 psi being the on the boat air pressure. We broke that on occasion, and heard about it. Tanks were all consistently full, between 2950 and 3150 psi. We did hire a private dive guide, which we liked a lot. If you have a camera, I would recommend this. As far as critters we saw, Lots of frogfish, seahorses, nudi's, octopus(mimic and wonderpus), Flamboyants, etc.... Still missing the Blue ring Octopus and Juvenile Batfish.....I guess we will just have to keep diving:)
As far as the people at NAD lembeh, they were fantastic. Serge the GM was always trying to make your stay nicer. In fact, I had a Sola 4000 break on me. He was willing to take it over to Lembeh Resort to have Backscatter (there were there at the same time as we were) look at it for me. turns out they had a Light and Motion rep with them as well. Unfortunately, they were unable to fix it. You don't ever have to lug your gear of camera around. Everyone was very helpful. Simon also was great, offering to let me borrow some of his lights since one of mine wasn't working. Serge offered his sola 600. All the boat crew and dive guides were nice and eager to please.
Overall, Lembeh is a great destination. NAD is a good lower cost resort. You should know what kind of diving you are going to be doing before hand. As diving in low vis and garbage, may not sit well with some. But there are great photo and video ops there. We would defiantly return at some point in the future.
Dustin
