Komodo Island, Indonesia

Saturday, March 15, 2025

This morning, the Norwegian Sun arrived at Komodo Island, Indonesia. There was a new energy stirring amongst the passengers on the ship as people gathered outside to watch the Indonesian islands come into focus.

The landscape looked completely different from northern Australia. The islands were greener and more tropical, with white sandy beaches and dozens of funny-looking traditional Indonesian boats bobbing up and down in the water. The small narrow canoes had spider-like beams on each side to keep the wooden boats upright in the waves.

Our family was up bright and early, ready for our day on Komodo Island. That’s because I accidentally looked at the wrong time for the ship’s arrival this morning. I swear the Norwegian Sun was set to arrive at 7:00am, but it was actually 9:00am. Oops! So, Andi and I woke the kids up an extra two hours early. They were not impressed.

Well, at least we had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast on the ship.

Because Komodo Island is a national park, all visitors to the island must be accompanied by a naturalist/tour guide. The Norwegian Sun offered bookings through the ship, or passengers were free to arrange their own tours. However, in order to get off the ship, every person needed to present proof of an arranged tour.

Seeing Komodo dragons, the world’s largest monitor lizard, is the main attraction on the island, but there’s also tours to a pink sand beach (called Pantai Merah) and various hiking trails. The tour Andi booked for our family today included both a walk to see the Komodo dragons and a visit to the pink beach. However, we quickly changed our plans as soon as we saw how disorganized the whole process was.

The Norwegian Sun anchored off shore around 9:00am, and began shuttling hundreds of people via tender boats from the ship to the Komodo Island pier. All those people gathered on the beach to find their arranged tours, and the tour guides worked to check their guests in and collect payment. The guides encouraged groups to stay together as more cruisers arrived by tender boat, but the scene was chaotic. We had no idea how long we’d be waiting there. It didn’t seem like any one person was in charge.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Andi said. “I think we should scrap the pink beach and just see the dragons.” Our family is not very keen on big group tours. The tour groups were big (at least 30-40 people each) and we could only imagine what the day would hold being grouped together with these people all day.

After waiting around for an hour, our group finally set off on our trekking tour. A tour guide walked at the front of the group sharing information about the Komodo dragons, as well as the flora and fauna on the island. A park ranger holding a forked stick brought up the rear of the group.

The well-worn path led us to a big opening in the forest where a Komodo dragon was resting in the middle. Tour groups gathered around all sides of the dragon to see it in person. The whole thing felt very staged. However, the danger of the animal was still present. One woman wearing a full GI Jane outdoor adventure outfit broke from her group and walked right up to the Komodo dragon to get a picture. Within seconds, several park rangers shouted for her to step back as they swiftly put their forked sticks in between her and the lizard. Luckily, nothing happened to her, but it could have. Some people just don’t think. These are wild animals and we are very far away from a hospital.

The Komodo dragon kills its prey by injecting poisonous venom into its subject. The venom travels through the bloodstream eventually killing the animal (or person) within 24 hours. It’s a very painful death, our tour guide told us, and the Komodo dragon is not particularly picky about who or what it attacks. Its typical prey is anything from small rodents to large water buffalo.

Our tour group continued our walk through the forest. We saw a Death’s Head spider (the biggest spider we’ve ever seen!) and several different types of native fruits and flowers. Our guides were very nice, stopping to answering every question from our group. In all, we walked for about an hour ending the loop back at the beach.

Near the beach, we saw another Komodo dragon sunning itself on the pier. We also saw a baby Komodo dragon which was rare, our tour guide said, because babies typically live in the trees. If you didn’t know better, you’d mistake a Komodo dragon (especially the smaller one) for a brown-colored log laying on the ground.

Our guides were kind enough to take pictures of everyone in our group. Andi and I were relieved we skipped out on the pink beach portion of the excursion as we watched the chaos of people trying to load onto wooden boats to be shuttled to the beach.

The tour concluded with a mandatory exit through several buildings of souvenirs for sale. All the vendors sold the same handful of t-shirts and wooden carved Komodo dragons. We passed through without buying anything, but several other cruisers stopped to purchase souvenirs.

We waited 20 minutes at the pier for the next tender boat to arrive to shuttle us back to the Norwegian Sun. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as warm today. The air was humid, but it was bearable compared to recent days in Darwin and Cooktown.

We enjoyed seeing dragons today. Since Tory, Aden, and I studied the Komodo dragon in our homeschool Indonesia unit study before leaving on this trip, it was cool to see the animal in person. Once-in-a-lifetime experience, for sure.

Back on the ship, the four of us grabbed a late lunch in the Garden Cafe. Then, we hung around our staterooms for the rest of the afternoon. There wasn’t much happening as far as scheduled activities because it was a “port day.” Even Splash Academy didn’t open for the kids until tonight.

For dinner, our favorite Maitre’D got us a table at Cagney’s Steakhouse— one of the specialty restaurants on the ship. Andi mentioned that we’d wanted to try it, but there were no open reservations. “I’ll get you a table, no problem,” Ronnie said. “What time do you want to go?”

Sure enough, he reserved us a table for four at 7:00pm. The specialty restaurant cost a flat rate of $60/per person which included any food item(s) on the menu. We ordered filet mignon steaks, as well as sides of mashed potatoes, truffle fries, sauteed mushrooms, and steamed broccoli. For dessert, we shared crème brûlée, seven layer chocolate cake, and peanut butter cheesecake.

Our steakhouse meals were good, but honestly all our food has been delicious on the Norwegian Sun. I wouldn’t say this food was exceptionally better than the meals we had in the main dining rooms.

After dinner, Aden requested to go to Splash Academy. He was excited because he got to pick all the games they played since it was his last night on the ship. Meanwhile, Andi, Tory, and I went to the 9:00pm show in the Stardust Theatre. Tonight was a production performance called Rock You Tonight by the Norwegian Sun cast of dancers. It was really entertaining!

At the end of the show, the cruise director thanked everyone for a fantastic cruise and welcomed to the stage several members of each department to be recognized. The crowd gave the cruise ship staff a standing ovation. Truly, what a fantastic experience they provided for us all the past two weeks on the ship. Nothing compares to the level of hospitality received on a cruise ship; the staff truly goes above and beyond to ensure every passengers has an exceptional experience.

Tomorrow, the Norwegian Sun will arrive in Lombok, Indonesia. The cruise doesn’t end there, but our family’s time on the Norwegian Sun will as we disembark for the next leg of our travel. More to come…