Dive Review of Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika in
Indonesia

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Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika, Jun, 2007, by Gary Krippendorf, CA, USA ( Contributor 14 reports). Report 3417.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I planned a trip for 8 of us to go diving in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. We split our stay between 2 resorts. Having been to the same two resorts in 2004 and 2006, I knew what to expect. This trip report is for the second of the 2 places we visited which is north of the city of Manado and adjacent to Bunaken National Park. I planned the Bunaken portion of our trip via e-mail with Simone, the general manager of the Thalassa Dive Center. Simone was very good at answering our questions via e-mail, and we booked a 7 night all-inclusive package. She took care of everything, including arranging for our rooms at the Santika Hotel, bus transfer to the Manado airport, etc. Everything went pretty much as I had planned. The members of the group all transferred to this resort from KBR We checked in to our rooms, got our SCUBA gear and headed to the dive center for an orientation. The Santika Hotel and the two restaurants were very good. The restaurants had a mix of western and Asian dishes. Breakfast was a full buffet at the main restaurant, lunch was served at the dive center, and dinner was at one of the two restaurants or room service. The massages available through the hotel were great and we got them several times. The 8 of us were assigned to our own boat, with the same boat captain and dive guides for most of our 6 days of diving. The water was very smooth most boat rides were 15-20 minutes to the dive sites. Our maximum depth at Bunaken was 100 feet, though we spent most of our time between 50 and 70 feet. There was a mix of walls and fields of coral. On all of our dives, there were large schools of small and mid-sized fish everywhere. Lionfish, blue ribbon eels, and the many varieties of anemone fish were among my favorites. Our dive masters give good pre-dive briefings, which told us about the site and what kinds of things we’d see. Rarely were they wrong. Usually, we saw far more than promised. Four of us did two of the 3-tank all-day trips to Bangka, while four of the group only went once. The dive sites at Bangka have more soft corals than the sites in Bunaken, so if you want a bit more variety, the Bangka trip is well worth the $20 per person fuel surcharge. We plan to return to Thalassa / Hotel Santika in 2009 to dive Bunaken and Bangka again.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, Dominica, Cozumel, Roatan, Sea of Cortez, Hawaii, Australia (GBR), Coral Sea, and PNG
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, noCurrents
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-100 Ft/ 15-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	No gloves, 3 to 5 minute safety stop, responsible to monitor own air remaining
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika in Indonesia

Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika, Jun, 2007,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika in
Indonesia