A Komodo corporate charter with the whole boat and one long table

Before the dates and the fare, one question: can everyone you are bringing sit down to the same dinner, at one table, three evenings running, and be glad of it? If the answer is yes, Princess Lala fits your team. Her dining room has one long table for the whole boat, windows onto the sea and a station for tea and coffee at one end, and there is a second table in the open air at the stern for the people who talk better outdoors.

A chef is on board and cooks every meal, food that gets passed along a table: grilled fish, calamari, sambal in a stone mortar, fried banana with cheese.

A charter means the boat is yours alone, on any date she is free, with room for 18. Five crew sail her. The guide and photographer are not part of a charter fare; if you want them, for the islands and for the team photograph, ask and we quote them separately.

Tell us the headcount first. Everything else follows from it.

The long table seats the whole team at once, which makes it the meeting room. Plan the session for a morning or an afternoon, with the tea and coffee a few steps away, and keep it to what a table and a conversation can do: a review of the year, a plan for the next one, the awkward discussion that never fits into an hour at the office.

Be clear with your team about what the room is not. It is a dining room on a timber boat. No projector or screen appears on the equipment list. The cabins have power sockets and air conditioning.

Then there is the connection. The Wi-Fi comes from a crew hotspot on the mobile network, and the boat has no satellite link. A slide deck saved to a laptop is fine. A live dashboard, a video call with head office or a shared document that must sync is not.

Half a day of work is the right measure. The rest of the days belong to the park: Kelor, the Padar ridge, the dragon walk with a ranger, Pink Beach, Manta Point and the Taka Makassar sandbar. Send us your agenda and we will say where on the route two quiet hours fit.

The boat carries a karaoke set and a sound system, and on a charter both are in the fare. With no other guests on board, the choice of songs is your own business.

The evening has three rooms. There is the long table for those still talking, the stern table under its timber roof for those who want air, and the bow sundeck, with bean bags on green turf, for the people who have sung enough.

The first night falls off Kalong, where the bats stream out at dusk, and the team watches from the deck before dinner. If you want an evening ashore instead, a dinner on an island is something we arrange on request, with a written quote that follows the island, the season and your headcount. The same goes for a meeting held on an island, or for decoration to mark a company anniversary. None of it is added to the fare until you have accepted the quote.

If anyone on the team keeps a special diet, raise it with us first.

There are six cabins, and each has a sea-view window and air conditioning. Five have their own bathroom. Cabin 3 does not: its bathroom is shared and outside the cabin, and it is better to decide who takes it before you board than on the quay.

Cabins 1 to 5 each hold a double and a single bed; Cabin 6 has one double, and a single berth is added on charters. That gives a simple rule for colleagues. With twelve of you, each cabin takes two, one in the double and one in the single bed, so nobody shares a bed. From the thirteenth guest on, a cabin takes a third person, who sleeps in the single bed while the other two share the double, up to 18 on the boat. Some teams do not mind. Others should stop at twelve.

Cabins 1, 2 and 3 are on the upper deck, up the stairs, and Cabins 4, 5 and 6 are on the main deck. The two masters, Cabin 1 and Cabin 6, each have a private balcony. Who gets them is a question we leave to you, with one piece of advice: settle it early.

Send us the names, with any pairs who should share, and we will help you lay them out across the cabins.

If your team has to stay online, with a release going out that week, clients who expect an answer within the hour or a board call on the second morning, then a boat is not the venue for this year's outing. The hotspot drops between islands and nobody on board can change that.

It is not a conference venue. There are two tables, no breakout room and no stage, and the largest party she carries is 18. A company of forty needs a hotel in Labuan Bajo, not a phinisi.

And she is a snorkelling boat. Every guest has a snorkel and mask; there are no fins on board and no scuba, so the divers in the team should plan a day with a dive centre in town before or after.

Timing deserves a thought as well. Our best-time page marks April to June, October and November as the calm months, which suit colleagues who have never slept on a boat. Ask everyone to fly in a day early. If any of this describes your team, raise it with us first.