Originally Posted by
paul2
Thank you Megatoplover! Glad to hear your trip is going well. Enjoy Amankila. I really like Amanwana as I do Amanjiwo. They are probably my two favourite Amans. Are you thinking of going on from Amankila to Amanwana shortly? If you are, I think you should talk to the GM at 'kila as the GM's visit each other fairly regularly in Indonesia.
We spent a few Christmas/New Years there and loved it (as well as other times). Actually, I have never faulted the place. If you haven't been before, do go, it's a special place IMHO.
I'm looking ahead to next year and figuring out what we're going to do for Christmas. This time last year, we already had amanjiwo-amankila booked.
I am going to talk to Tracy today about amanwana to get her take.
Two additional questions:
1. If we do amankila-amanwana next year instead of amandari-amanwana, will we be bored with the quietness/remoteness aspects of both places?
I'm a bit worried that the solitude of amankila, followed by the remoteness of amanwana will leave us stir crazy. I'm also thinking that as much as we love amankila (it's probably our singular favorite resort in the world), we might get a little more cultural immersion at amandari, being closer to Ubud and with much better access to Balinese aritsan and craftsman workshops for shopping.
2. amanwana used to publish two transfer options from DPS to amanwana: Air Travira floatplanes directly into amanwana, and Trans Nusa prop planes to Sumbawa Airport, followed by a boat transfer to the resort. It seems that recently a higher-speed boat has gone into service at amanwana. Yet the website no longer lists TransNusa as an option. From the web, it looks like Trans Nusa is still operating that route. Any ideas why the option is no longer listed? Besides the dramatic arrival experience on the float plane, which has been thoroughly covered on FT, any comments on the alternatives?
The float plane runs $400 nett PER PERSON EACH WAY. For two pax, that's $1600 in transfer costs roundtrip. If we stay four nights, that adds $400 per night to the expense, nearly 50% of the room rate. By comparison, TransNusa is shown as $150 nett per person each way. For two pax, that's a savings of $1000. Re my comments up-thread about not throwing away forty clams, it goes twenty-five fold when we're talking about a thousand samoleans.
Also, the float plane has a strict baggage limitation of 15 kg per pax. I'm not exactly known for traveling light, so this could be a serious problem.