The Menjangan Resort
We stayed at The Menjangan Resort and dove with Abyss Ocean World in April 2023 after three weeks diving in Raja Ampat, one week diving in Amed (Bali), and five days diving in Tulamben (Bali). This review covers both The Menjangan Resort and Abyss Ocean World. We were at The Menjangan for five days.
We had pre-booked our five day stay and diving through our travel agents, Anne and Scott with Blue Water Dive Travel, who did a great job with our entire trip.
The Menjangan Resort, Abyss Ocean World and the diving, particularly at Menjangan Island, far exceeded our expectations. Menjangan is really off the beaten path. In fact, it about as far as you can get in Bali from the hustle and bustle of Denpasar and still be in Bali. I suspect that we would have never found the place on our own but Anne with Bluewater lives in Bali and strongly encouraged us to visit Menjangan. We are really glad she did.
The Menjangan Resort is a magical place. There are a small number of rooms in a very large (382 hectares) but mostly undeveloped area within the national park. The food, accommodations and service are all first class. Don’t miss the tree top views from the top of The Bali Tower or dining on the oceanfront deck at the waterfront area. The area outside the resort is mostly rural villages. I enjoyed exploring the area by bike.
There are restaurants at both the Tower and the waterfront area. One can walk most everywhere within the resort and and the walking is delightful with numerous monkeys, birds and other things to see. However, depending on the location of your room, it could be a long walk to the Tower and/or the waterfront area for meals and activities.
There are loaner bicycles placed around the resort. They are a great way to get around. However, the quickest way to get around is to simply take one of the free shuttles (they are like large, open air, double decker golf carts) that constantly shuttle guests around the resort. We used them a lot simply because we had other things to do (including diving, snorkeling and kayaking) and sometimes did not want to take the time to walk or bike.
At the time of our visit, there was no dive operation within the resort. However, the resort works closely with Abyss Ocean World. After many weeks diving in Indonesia we had been spoiled by the high level of service that seemed to exist most everywhere (at least at the places that Bluewater Dive Travel books). However, Abyss Ocean World is right up there with the best of them.
We dove two days with Abyss Ocean World. Each day we did three boat dives. The first dive day we dove Pemuteran Bay which is in a small town about 15 km from the resort/national park. Abyss picked us up from the resort by private car. All of the dives were made from a very unique local fishing boat. The captain picked us up from the beach. We were the only guests on the boat. Abyss supplied lunch from a local restaurant. We ate on the beach. The whole day was a really nice experience. The diving at Pemuteran was quite good, but not spectacular. Well, it probably was spectacular by most standards, but we had just spent three weeks in Raja Ampat so that skewed our perspective.
The next dive day was Menjangan Island. Abyss Ocean World picked us by fast boat from the resort jetty. Menjangan Island is really spectacular. It must be is the best kept dive secret in Bali. Divers who go to Bali and never discover Menjangan Island are missing out. Yes, it is off the beaten path and requires a long car ride to get there, but the diving is worth it.
The Menjangan Resort/Abyss Ocean World was then one place on our entire trip where we really felt we made a mistake not staying longer. Anne had told us how nice it was, but we just could not get comfortable extending our trip beyond 45 days. But the next time we go to Bali, we will go back for more diving at Menjangan Island.
