Open Trip or Private Charter in Komodo: An Honest Cost Comparison

What is the actual difference between the two?

An open trip (also called a sharing trip) means you buy cabins on a scheduled departure and sail with other guests. The route, dates and meal times are set. You pay per person.

A private charter means you take the whole vessel — all eight cabins, the crew, the tender — for your dates. Nobody else is aboard. The route can be shaped around you within what the park, the weather and the captain allow. You pay for the boat.

Everything else follows from that. The interesting question is not which is better, it is where the crossover sits for your group.

How do you work out the break-even honestly?

We will not publish an invented charter figure to make a comparison look tidy — charter pricing depends on season, duration, headcount and inclusions, and it is quoted on request. What we can give you is the method, and the real cabin-side numbers to put into it.

The three-step method:

1. Build your real cabin total. Take the categories your group would actually book — not the cheapest on the list — and add them up, including additional-person charges. A group of eight in mixed categories lands in a very different place from eight in Superior cabins.
2. Ask for the charter quote for the same dates and duration. One message, no obligation.
3. Compare like for like. Check whether each figure includes or excludes park fees, transfers and any extras before you decide anything.

As a rule of thumb from our own bookings: below about eight paying guests the cabin route wins comfortably. Between roughly eight and twelve it gets close and the answer depends on cabin mix and season. Above twelve, with the vessel’s capacity in mind, charter is usually both cheaper per head and better. The published rates and the full included-versus-excluded matrix are on the Yumana price list.

What do you get on a charter that money cannot buy on an open trip?

Two things routinely decide it for people, and neither is money. The first is the group dynamic: if you are eight friends who want to be loud until midnight, or a family with small children on a nap schedule, a shared boat is the wrong container. The second is control of the clock — on a charter you can decide to stay a second hour at Taka Makassar or skip a stop entirely, and on a shared trip you cannot.

Conversely, solo travellers and couples frequently name the other guests as a highlight. Eating at a shared table for three nights with six strangers in a place with no phone signal produces friendships at an unusual rate.

What does a charter quote depend on?

• Dates and season — peak months carry different pressure from January.
• Duration — nights, not days.
• Headcount — affects provisioning, crew load and cabin configuration.
• Route and any special requests.
• Inclusions — whether park fees, transfers and drinks sit inside or outside the number.
• Celebration elements — decoration, cake, specific provisioning.
• Lead time and current availability.

Those seven variables are why a single published charter price would be a fiction. Send us the first three and you will get a written quote against your real dates. The detail of how a charter runs is on our full-boat private charter page, and if your group is a company or a celebration rather than a family, the group and corporate charter page covers the logistics specific to that. For a broader view of how charter versus cabin booking works across the fleet, our parent operator sets out the same comparison at group level. If your question is really about total cost rather than format, start with our breakdown of what a Komodo liveaboard costs all-in.

Frequently asked questions

Is a private charter worth it for a small group?

Below roughly eight paying guests, individual cabins on a shared departure are normally cheaper. A charter still makes sense for a small group if privacy, schedule control or a celebration matters more than the price difference.

How much does it cost to charter Yumana Liveaboard?

Charter is quoted on request, because the figure depends on dates, season, duration, headcount, route and inclusions. Send us those details and you will get a written quote — we do not publish an invented single number.

Can I choose the route on a private charter?

Within limits, yes. Routes are shaped with the captain around park regulations, tide, sea state and realistic sailing times. The captain retains final authority on safety and navigation.

How many people can join a private charter on Yumana?

The vessel has eight cabins with roughly sixteen berths. The 25-person figure in the specification is total vessel capacity, not the number of people who can sleep on board — a distinction worth being clear about when planning a group.

Who will I share an open trip with?

A mixed international group, typically couples, solo travellers and small groups of friends. Guests on our departures come predominantly from Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia.

Can a solo traveller join a shared departure?

Yes, that is exactly what shared departures are for. Note that Signature I carries a minimum of two guests; the other categories are more flexible for solo bookings. Ask us which cabins are open for your dates.