Villa Markisa - Private Beach Bungalows - Dive Resort
We stayed at Villa Markisa in Tulamben in March 2023 after three weeks diving in Raja Ampat and one week diving in Amed, which is just down the road from Tulamben. There was some minor overlap in dive sites between Amed and Tulamben, primarily the Liberty Wreck, but both areas have many close by dive sites.
We had pre-booked our five day stay at Villa Markisa, including three days of diving (two tanks per day) through our travel agents, Anne and Scott with Blue Water Dive Travel (who did a great job).
Villa Markisa is located in very quiet area. There are very few restaurants within walking distance so we were glad that we had booked the full board package. The food was excellent. We met people who were staying a lot longer than us and no one seemed to be tired of eating at Villa Markisa. The open air dining area is quite elegant.
Villa Markisa is a small operation. We got the impression that at least one of the owners is on site most, if not all, of the time. It shows. All aspects of the resort run like clock work including food service, housekeeping, grounds maintenance and the top notch dive operation.
We stayed in Room #4. It was luxurious with a comfortable king size bed, a giant bathroom and a nice front porch with a big daybed overlooking the pool and ocean. The internet worked fine for the most part.
The on-site dive operation caters to very serious divers and even more serious photographers. While almost all of the other dive operations in Tulamben and Amed offer primarily shore diving, Villa Markisa specializes in boat dives.
Villa Markisa has two modern, high speed dive boats. Most the dives are immediately offshore and are typically only a few kilometers from the resort. We find boat dives more comfortable than shore diving so were were happy to see the dive boats after spending a week in Amed doing shore dives (although we are not complaining, the shore diving in Amed was also great).
Villa Markisa also specializes in muck diving and blackwater diving. Some of the more serious photographers did mostly muck diving and blackwater diving, both of which are apparently particularly good in the Tulamben area. We usually just did reef dives when the others were doing muck or blackwater diving. Although, the muck diving we did was very interesting.
One of the Villa Markisa owners is apparently the lead sponsor of the Mero Foundation which operates a marine biology training center just down the beach from the resort. The center appears to specialize in training young Indonesian women to become PhD level marine scientists. Ask if a tour is possible. We really enjoyed meeting the young scientists.
In summary, Villa Markisa is a great option for those looking for world class diving and a high end, all inclusive resort that is easy to reach via the international airport in Denpasar.
