A Komodo honeymoon cruise in a cabin with its own balcony

Start with the table, because that is where a honeymoon on a boat is decided. On the open trip you share Princess Lala with the guests of five other cabins and everyone eats together, indoors at the long table or in the open air at the stern. Grilled fish, prawns and sambal go from hand to hand, and by the second lunch you know the people opposite you. Some couples love that. Some do not.

If the two of you want the boat to yourselves, you charter her. Then both tables are yours, the bean bags on the bow sundeck are yours, and five crew cook and sail for two people. Between a cabin and the whole boat, the two balcony cabins described below are the private corner.

So the first thing to tell us is which honeymoon you mean, a cabin with a balcony among good company or the whole phinisi, and we answer with the cabins that are free on your dates and the charter fare, side by side.

Both master cabins have a private balcony, a bathroom of their own, air conditioning and a sea-view window, and they differ in ways that matter to two people.

Cabin 6 is on the main deck, with one double bed and no other, which is why on open trips we sell it for two and only two; on a private charter a single berth is added. Its balcony has a bench, and you reach it without stairs. For three days it costs IDR 4,650,000 (≈ USD 285) per person.

Cabin 1 is on the upper deck, up one flight of stairs. It has three-sided windows, a bean bag on the balcony, and a single berth next to the double that a couple will use for their bags. It costs IDR 4,750,000 (≈ USD 291) per person, the highest fare on board.

Neither is a hotel suite. Each cabin is a bed with a little floor around it, and the room you live in for three days is the deck. Look at the photographs of both on the cabins page before you write to us.

We do not sell a honeymoon package.

What exists is this. A dinner on an island, a decorated cabin or deck, and a dinner cooked around a special request such as a birthday or a proposal are services we arrange when you ask. Each is quoted separately. The price follows the island, the season and how many you are, and nothing is added to your fare without a written quote that you have accepted. Tell us the date that matters and we come back with what the crew can do that evening and what it costs.

A special diet is a question for us before you book.

One evening needs no arranging at all. On the first night the boat lies off Kalong at sunset, bats stream out over the mangroves to feed, and you watch from the deck, from a bean bag at the bow if you like.

If the honeymoon you have in mind has a spa, a pool, a butler, or a signal bar for the video call home, another place will suit you better. Princess Lala is a timber phinisi with six cabins. Her comforts are an air-conditioned cabin after a hot ridge, a clean towel, and a seat at the long table when you climb back on board. The Wi-Fi comes from a crew hotspot and drops between islands.

Two smaller cautions. On the open trip the park's quota can turn the ridge walk on day two into Gili Lawa and the dragon walk into Rinca; if Padar at first light is the photograph you are travelling for, ask about a charter, where Padar is on the route. And our best-time page marks January and February as the wettest and roughest months and July and August as the windiest, so if either of you gets seasick, say so when you write.

Fly in a day early, and on the last day of a three-day trip book a flight after 13:00. Send us the wedding date and the flights together, and we fit the sailing between them.