Tasik Ria Dive Resort & Spa Manado
Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia
Location- Dive Overview
- Accommodation Overview
- Food & Drinks
- Dive Information
- Dive Center Information
- Practical Information
- Resort Features
- Resort Activities
- Inclusions & Exclusions
- Specials
- Find a room
- Dive & destination information
Number of Rooms
34
Wifi
yes, free
Nitrox
yes
Dive Center
On-site
Air Conditioning
Bar
Location
Set in well-kept, tropical gardens on a large bay with stunning views of Manado Tua and Bunaken National Marine Park. Around 40 minutes drive south of Manado city. Bunaken National Park with its world-class wall dives is about a one-hour boat ride away on their large, comfortable dive boats and coastal sites with fringe reef and muck diving are within easy reach. The large house reef is unsurpassed in the area with four different zones and a universe of critters on reef and seagrass.
Dive Overview
Tasik Ria's location near the Bunaken National Park provides a thrilling dive playground. The resort has a fleet of speedboats for the many nearby destinations, along with full comfort boats that tour the dive sites of Bunaken.
[Read More: Manado & Bunaken Dive Travel Guide]Accommodation Overview
All the en-suite rooms have air conditioning, minibar, safe, cable TV, phone and tea/coffee maker. 20 spacious pool view rooms are located around the beautifully styled pool, some of which have interconnecting rooms making it ideal for families. The 15 private sea view cottages range from Sea View: to Grand Sea View up to Sea View Suites all with partial or fully outside bathrooms overlook the beach in a wonderfully romantic setting with spectacular views of the sunset.
Food & Drinks
The Bunaken restaurant serves a combination of European and Indonesian cuisine also offering a weekly BBQ, a seafood or Italian night, Indonesian style buffet and a la carte evenings, giving guests a wide range of dining choices. There is also the popular Sunset Jetty Bar with wide-sweeping views across the open sea, serving cocktails and local cuisine & snacks.
Dive Information
Dive Overview
- With many wonderful sites to choose from, the Bunaken Marine Park stretches over 75,000 hectares in the deep waters of the Sulawesi Sea. There are five islands that make up the park, Siladen, Montehage, Nain and of course Bunaken. The fifth one Manado Tua stands out quite literally as it is a magnificent extinct volcano which dominates the four others and the skyline from the panoramic view from our jetty.
- The beautiful corals here are to be found surrounding the islands and with a depth from 3 meters to 1300 are home to the many species of sea life, definitely making this a unique diving experience.
- With drift diving being the order of the day, they let you "go with the flow" (they try to avoid up & down currents where possible!) Let your highly specialized dive guide find you the
- wonders that so many guests will drift pass. Keep an eye on the "Blue" for larger pelagic.
- With the water temperature an all year round 26-29C it is a destination for all seasons, with March to October being the dry season, and the rainy season starting around November through to March/April. The hottest/sunniest time tends to be June to September, but whatever the Month, don't forget your sun cream!
- Although primarily a dive destination, the shallow reefs are also a haven for many different fish, starfish and corals, possibly even turtles, thus making it a wonderful experience for snorkelers also. With the coral disappearing into the deep, that's where you will discover so much more! Due to the depths here, a maximum dive depth of around 25-30 meters is recommended, depending on certification.
Diving Schedule
- Wednesday and Saturday - depart 08:00
- Three drift dives on the spectacular walls and slopes around Bunaken National Park near Bunaken Island and the majestic Manado Tua (extinct) volcano. You will see huge sponges, turtles, white tip reef sharks, so many reef fish it is hard to believe and a huge array of flora and fauna including macro critters.
- Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday - depart 08:30
- Two drift dives on the spectacular walls and slopes around Bunaken National Park near Bunaken Island and the majestic Manado Tua (extinct) volcano plus one moored dive on one of our three excellent house reefs. After returning from the National park after the 2nd dive the boat can stop at the jetty if anyone wants to disembark before the 3rd dive. Our house reefs are full of life and include coral outcrops, sea grass and sand. Here you will see a world of wonderful macro critters as well as reef fish.
- Tuesday - depart 08:30
- Three drift or moored dives along the coastal sites north and south of Tasik Ria Resort. This is macro heaven and full of amazing smaller critters. There are both true muck dives in sand yielding sea-horses, frogfish and shrimps among many other critters, and also coastal reef slopes with cuttlefish, reef fish and a huge variety of macro life.
Lembeh Strait Day Trip
The Lembeh Strait is widely recognised as one of the best muck diving locations in the world. Here you can see the famous hairy frogfish, pygmy seahorses, a huge variety of nudibranchs, coconut octopus living in a discarded shell, painted frogfish, the cutest baby boxfish hiding amongst weeds, mimic and wonderpus octopus, mandarin fish and many, many other fascinating inhabitants of this unique square mile.
- Departure time: 07:00 from the hotel lobby. The bus ride takes about two hours to the other side of North Sulawesi where you are transferred to a local boat for three dives. Lunch is served on board and there is a basic toilet. Drinking water, tea, coffee and snacks are all available.
- Minimum group size: 4 guests.
- Price: $45 per person. A cancellation fee will apply.
Dive Center Information
Tasik Ria Resort Dive Center Overview
Tasik Divers, the 5* PADI IDC Dive Centre is located on site and offers a large range of courses and training facilities as well as all equipment hire. There is a resident photo professional offering a variety of courses and support for your underwater photography and camera hire can be arranged.
Dive Center Facilities
- Full equipment rental
- Dive shop
- Large selection of diving courses
- Underwater photography tuition with resident photo pro
- Underwater camera hire
- Snorkelling
- Boat rental
Daily Dive Boats Features
- Dry saloon for camera work or reading etc.
- Topside sundeck with partial shade
- Toilet
- Equipment area
- Nitrox analyser
- Fresh water shower
- Camera rinse tank
- Camera rack
- Fresh towel
- Cold drinking water
- Hot drinks
- Hot lunch - one fish, one meat, rice or noodles, vegetables and fresh fruit
- Snacks morning and afternoon - these can be sandwiches, cookies, pineapple fritters, banana fritters
- Fish id books
- Oxygen
- Soft drinks (to purchase)
- Life jackets
- Fire extinguisher
- GPS and radio on board
Practical Information
- Time zone: UTC+8
- Languages: Indonesian & English
- Accept Credit Cards?: Yes, Visa, Master Card & American Express
Photo & Video Gallery
Resort Features
Resort Activities
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What's included when you book?
Included
- Accommodation
- 2 Dives/day
- Full Board Meals
Excluded
- Airport Transfers
- Nitrox
- Gratuities
Find a Room in Tasik Ria Dive Resort & Spa Manado
En-suite Room
Air Con- Wifi (free)
- TV
- Balcony or Terrace
- Ocean view
- Pool view
- Towels
- Safe
- Mini Bar
- Tea/coffee making facilities
from $1050
More information about Indonesia diving
Lembeh Strait is celebrated as a top destination for muck diving and macro photography. Its waters are home to a vast array of critters including hairy frogfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, and rhinopias. The area's volcanic seabed provides a unique environment for these species. Diving conditions are optimal from March to October, with clear visibility and stable weather enhancing the macro photography experience.
Manado Bay and Bunaken National Park offer a mix of marine environments. Bunaken is known for its dramatic wall dives with rich coral formations and a variety of marine species including reef sharks and schooling fish. Bangka Island, nearby, features lush soft corals and larger marine life. The diving conditions are excellent throughout the year, with particularly favorable conditions from March to October.
Fellow traveler's reviews
Overall Value
Marine Life Accommodations
Food
g3cko
1164 Reviews
Overall ValueAccommodationsMarine Life FoodAccommodations:I stayed at Tasik for 5 days and found my room very cozy and comfortable. I'll add, I spent very little time in my room outside of sleeping, but the pool side room I stayed in was well furnished and the AC worked very well. There was even Tv! The resort itself is spread out a bit, so when I wasn't in my room, I was down at their jetty hanging out.Food:The food was pretty good, it definitely wasn't bad but it also didn't stand out as above average. It was buffet style, with a mix of local and more standard dishes.Staff:Being a slightly larger resort, the interaction with the staff was a bit more limited. The manager of the resort was extremely welcoming and even made us sashimi and some other finger foods one of the nights while we hung out at the bar. There were a few other expats working at the resort too, who were all extremely friendly and really made the trip for me, as I was traveling alone.Dive operation:The dive operation isn't quite as photographer friendly as other resorts I've been too. I'm not sure if this is because the majority of their divers aren't photographers, but I assume that is the case. For my stay, I dove out of one of their bigger boats and I would guess there were around 20 divers plus another 6-8 staff. There was quite a bit of room, so it wasn't too crowded. From Tasik Ria, there is about an hour to an hour and a half ride to Bunaken, where depending on the day, we would do 2 or 3 dives.On the days with 2 dives, we would come back toward the resort and do another dive on the main land side. Diving locally around the resort, there area mix of small walls and coral, and more mucky sites. The boat crew was very helpful and would help with your gear and change your tanks etc.Marine life/diving:Bunaken was pretty awesome. It's a bright contract to Lembeh, with great visibility, warmer temps (generally 86, with minimal thermoclines at around 60 ft). With the larger boat size, it was occasionally hard to frame shots with divers in every direction although at times, you get free dive models. Current was pretty minimal, and we saw lots of turtles and also a small cave with 3-4 sharks on one of the dives as well. I generally shot WA and had plenty of large sponges turtles to shoot. A few dives were with my macro lens, which was a bit more challenging but still plenty of things to shoot. If you look closely, you'll find small hermit crabs living in the hard corals which were pretty cool to find.More locally, the diving was interesting as well. The muck sites are a little different from Lembeh, but you get some overlap in the marine life. Frog fish, ornate ghost pipefish and sea horses were fairly common. Personally, I would have been ok diving Bunaken for 5-6 dives and doing the rest at the macro sites. That wasn't really an option when I was there, but they were in talks of trying that.Overall, as I am pretty serious about photography, my review is heavily skewed towards that. For non-photographers or more "for fun" photographers, I would definitely recommend Tasik Ria! Bunaken was fantastic, and the local sites are also very unique and interesting.
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