The Seraya Resort Komodo — Hotel in East Nusa Tenggara

We went to The Seraya on our honeymoon for 6 nights. This review is reflective of our experience which would've been a five star rating like all the others who visited this beautiful island and swam in the sea abundant in marine life had we not ended up sleeping on bunk beds in a dorm on the last night due to an oversight and double booking by management. Therefore please read my review in full which I have tried to make as fair as possible. We had arranged to stay in the beautifully designed beach huts for a total of 6 nights, everything was confirmed by the resort management team. Note, it is advisable to get as early a flight a possible to Labuanbajo as boat passage to the Island can not always be guaranteed later in the day. We flew with Nam Air (who have a reputation for delayed flights) sadly ours was an hour late meaning we'd have to travel to the Island the morning after we'd originally planned. Here the Seraya team were a great help and had an available room in Labuanbajo town for us to stay in - they also organised transport from the airport to the port. Also, this was for free but not quite what we'd been hoping for after such a long trip from the UK. The main disappointment came two nights before were were scheduled to leave for Bali. Despite the management kindly agreeing to aid the booking of our return flight they asked to have a brief chat following dinner at 9pm at night to raise the point they now noticed our beach hut was double booked. This fact came as a surprise and caught us off guard as we'd had repeated conversations with the management about our length of stay and departure times. We were then told we had only two options to either leave the next morning at 8am or stay the night in a 6 bed dorm (fortunately with no one else in it). As you can imagine no one wants to cut their holiday short when we were having a great time and sharing the same wonderful experiences everyone has written about on these reviews.

We were so surprised they had double booked us when they knew our return dates because they were booking our flights that we simply agreed to move to the dorm. It was even more odd as we'd also been asked earlier in our stay if we wanted to extend to New Year's because they'd had a cancellation. We should highlight here that we still had to pay the fee for the dorm and nothing was offered as a "make good" for the inconvenience.

So our last night was spent each in bunkbeds, in a dorm with no mosquito net and bugs coming through the slate windows. Please note this was our honeymoon. We'd had a wonderful time up until this eventuality. It's a beautiful setting, the resort is superbly designed, there's a relaxed atmosphere, the food was enjoyable, but sadly we ended up leaving the island disappointed and felt that our experience was not as fulfilling and as special as we hoped it might have been. Despite the apology it just didn't feel genuine or that management had truly considered the effect on us as their paying customers. In hindsight I question why as the current customer we were asked to move out. Why not apologise to the new customers and have them stay on the mainland for the night to avoid anyone having to stay in a dorm when they've booked a dream beachhut! It was poorly handled.

The resort is still relatively new and we can appreciate teething problems will likely occur, we hope this only serves as a small nudge towards a few improvements. All things considered we'd recommend...

Everything I wanted it to be. Luxurious villas and private beach on a secluded island surrounded by stunning world class coral and wildlife. Equal parts quiet retreat and marine safari.

Swarthy, professional Seraya manager Will met myself and another couple at the docks at Labuan Bajo. A short, Serene boat ride to Seraya kecil and we alighted on their post-card-worthy long wooden jetty at the resort. Safely there, i was greeted by golden goddess Inka (a sun-bleached and affable chocolate labrador) and the equally golden and gorgeous Georgie (resort manager and sister to Will) who checked us in to the hotel (fresh welcome drinks in hand).

Highlights included: [ ] Fish barbecue - every few days the resort puts on a communal fresh seafood barbecue where all guests gather at one long table and are served a smorgasbord of pesceterian fair (delicious vegan options available) as the sun sets over the restaurant. [ ] The building it’s self is an architectural marvel - a giant Mantra-ray shaped roof made entirely of bamboo. [ ] At the fish barbecue, guests swap stories about day trips to nearby caves, snorkelling and diving expeditions and island hopping tours. George and Will help carve the huge fish, but aside from that it’s help yourself, first in best dressed.

The manta rays, the Komodo dragons, the pink beach - Inside the greater Komodo national park there is STUNNING diving. During my stay we saw a heard of giant manta rays (nine all together), turtles, fish of all kinds and beautiful coral. Other guests had reported seeing wales/dolphins in the park from their boat and even one sighting of a guitar-shark (very rare!). The Komodo dragons were fascinating too. We walked around the island track with a helpful and charming young guide but saw most of the fully grown dragons lurking in the shade under the stairs of the restaurant at the end. Regardless of their setting the dragons were impressive.

The dive shop at the resort has gear for guests to snorkel right off the jetty and along the beach in front of the resort. Ideal for kids (but if you’re worried and you have little kids you might have to bring your own life jackets; I don’t know that the hotel supplies tiny gear). Stand up paddle boards and kayaks also available on the island.

Be warned! Reception on the island is hot and cold. Whenever I needed wifi I was amicably hot-spotted by Will or George. The restaurant has no Wifi. Just comes with the territory of being on a spectacular and remote island. I contented myself to connecting to tethering to staffs phones to for as long as I needed in the evening and just put my phone away for the rest of the time. It was heaven. For those not happy to disconnect for periods of time, it might be worth investing in a local SIM card in Labuan Bajo or before you get to the Seraya.

The resort has a beautiful and deep horizon pool on the beach for relaxing during the day. They also do scuba diving refresher courses in it for those who haven’t dived in a while.

In summary, the food was excellent, the beers were cheap, the accomodation was clean, air conditioned and beautiful. The landscape was jaw dropping, the hospitality was always friendly and excellent and the sights and activities were unforgettable! It’s not Bali - it was exactly the kind of adventure I was looking far in a relatively...

Great stay at the Seraya Resort Komodo with my family of five. The reason we chose this resort was because of the location and the family bungalow option that allowed for five people to stay in one unit (there is a downstairs with large bed and an upstairs with two twins where my three children stayed). The family bungalow was right on the water and truly amazing...couldn't have asked for better. The location meant for quiet days and given it was the "rainy" season, there were not many other guests. We only saw rain on the first day when we arrived, otherwise it was sunny and cloudy for us.

The resort had to bring in all of its water, whether for cooking, showers, drinking, etc. All of the supplies need to come in via boat as well, so I understand that makes things difficult at times.

The snorkeling was wonderful right of the dock/pier/jetty. We saw eels, barracuda, clown fish, lion fish, rays, and many other wonderful sea creatures. I loved to wake up early and sit on the jetty and watch the fish jump out of the water. The children loved to paddle board and play on the swing that sits in the water.

Two areas of improvement were the service and the food. To protect the coral reefs, sometimes we would need to launch the paddle boards from the jetty. Instead of bringing the paddle boards out to the jetty for us, the staff would simply tell us we couldn't launch from the shore and we needed to wait. We would suggest that we could launch from the jetty and they would agree, but then not offer to take them out there (or bring them back). It wasn't a huge effort and I am not all that bothered as I think it is good for kids to learn to "work" a bit on vacation too, but I was surprised that more effort wasn't made by the staff in those circumstances, especially since the staff to guest ratio was so high. Small things too, like updating the white board with the high and low tide times would have been nice. Yes, I could look it up on my phone by going to the end of the jetty, but for convenience and for my children to see, it would have been nice. There were also positive moments too from individuals like Elias where he went out of his way to help and another individual that climbed a tree to pick a fresh dragon fruit for my children. Second is the food. Being on the ocean, I would have expected more creativity and fun with seafood, but the menu was quite tired. While I am grateful for simple things like pasta bolognese for my children, having some more unique seafood options (even if it meant fewer options) or better prepared options (chicken sandwich was ground chicken patty as opposed to a chicken breast) would be ideal.

Overall, a good stay though. Would I return, yes, especially if I had three kiddos in tow again given the family bungalow. The location can't be beat, the infrastructure was great...what could turn this resort from better to best would be more consistent...