Cove Eco Resort

I had the best time at Cove Eco Resort. |From the moment you arrive in Sorong, every little detail is looked after. My transfer to the Island was seamless. …

Excellent diving grounds, professionally managed diving center, NITROX for free, small groups and competent guides... simply a perfect vacation! The food was simple with little choice but very good and tasty. …

Getting there is a bit complicated, which fortunately deters many people from booking in this paradise. But once you get there, you will be met by extremely friendly staff. …

Cove Eco Resort on Pulau Yeben (Yeben Island) is a lovely base for exploring the the rich underwater world of Raja Ampat. Its small intimate scale ( no more than a dozen accommodation lodges) encourages interaction between guests. …

The Cove Eco Resort is splendid. We spent 14 days, 9 days in the superior cottage (very nice and welcoming) and 5 days in the standard cottage (still comfortable). …

We spent one week as a part of our honeymoon on this beautiful resort and island. The staff is really taking care of you and our cottage (the large one) was clean and very comfortable. …

We had a wonderful ten days at the Cove. You can see from the photos how great the location is, its remoteness notwithstanding. Make the effort and go! It's not a 'five star' resort but most emphatically it scores five stars for homeliness friendliness informality and individual attention. The staff without exception are warmly welcoming and bend over backwards to make your stay enjoyable. They very happily accommodated our individual dietary preferences for each meal, with well executed home style cooking.We did our PADI certification while we were there and we reckon Obin is the best instructor ever! He's the last word in patience and kindly forebearance, while maintaining a very clear focus on safety. If you want learn in warm water and a stunning aquatic environment, just don't hesitate! Our final PADI open water training dive, by chance, was with the manta rays.

The location of this hotel is truly exceptional. If you want more beauty around you, go to another planet.Basically everyone who comes here comes for the sea, for diving and snorkeling, because just by stepping on the pier, you will realize that there is an exceptional diversity and abundance of marine fauna here.The staff at the diving center is very good and attentive. We always dive with small groups as the hotel only has 10 cabins. You are assured of very close attention in that sense.I think that such important staff in the complex deserve better equipment. On almost every dive I saw them having problems with their masks. I think the administration of the complex should pamper more these people who spend their lives taking care of others and doing a job that is not exempt from danger.They should take a little more care of their staff who, in the first instance, are the face of the resort.By the way, our only hiccup during our stay has more to do with communication with the hotel management than with the hotel staff itself.On the way back there was a misunderstanding regarding where the hotel boat should drop us off. In the end they were right in that we had indicated that they should leave us at the port of Wasai, but in the meantime we thought that things were not going to be done just because of what we put in the questionnaire months ago. We always hoped that it would be proven where we were finally going when it came to a hotel with such close treatment. It was not like that, and with almost everyone going to the airport and the transfer to the airport being included in the price, we assumed that there would be no problems with the final destination, but it turns out that they had not bought our tickets to take the ferry to Sorong and we had to run a little to get to the ferry in Wasai just in time. Then, at the port of Sorong we didn't have a taxi either because they didn't count on us and they didn't have cash to pay for the taxi. We missed at that time some more help and flexibility from the hotel management or their representatives at the port. The handling of the situation was a bit inflexible. It is the closeness in dealing with the client that makes the difference with other hotels.Don't neglect that aspect. Telling me that "you've changed your plans and we can't do more" is more of a response you expect from a robot.Regarding the restaurant, both the staff and the food, I have no complaints. Being in such a remote place, I don't know how you can ask for more. Even the bread made by them and the desserts are better than in European restaurants.The prices of the drinks are very reasonable, except for the wine which I don't know why costs 85 euros regardless of the color. Since I had no interest in drinking wine I didn't find out much either.The rooms are good. I don't think the size is what they describe (about 40 m2) but everything is clean and works well. The air conditioning is particularly appreciated, since the humidity is very very high.I only recommend that, to make it easier for us not to set the temperature lower, you put sheets in addition to the duvet, because with the duvet you can get hot and in that case you will turn up the air conditioning.The gel and shampoo are of good quality, and the shampoo is shampoo, not the same gel put in the shampoo bottle.I have seen reviews questioning how eco-friendly the hotel is. Well, I would say that you can be more ecological, but if we started with the ecological we would not travel to an island thousands of kilometers from home.It's true, there is plastic on the island's beaches and it may have been there for a while, but I don't know if it is easy or not for the hotel to manage the waste. Being a National Park, they should receive support from the government to make it less difficult for them to take that plastic to dry land.I think that, before questioning the hotel, we should think about whether it is so easy to do what we take for granted in Europe where not many people recycle despite having a recycling container on every corner.It is appreciated that they have decided not to sell bottled water in the hotel

An extraordinarily beautiful remote island with the best corals and fish I have seen.|the rooms are beautiful simple and all you hear is the lapping waves every villa has a view to the sea, extremely comfortable beds and wonderful …

Had the absolute pleasure of taking a 10day snorkelling holiday to Cove Eco Resort recently. The location is amazing, the bungalows, food and facilities are great - very comfortable - and the staff are amazing. The dive master Obin knows the archipelago and snorkel sites exceptionally well and plans a diverse range of experiences for divers & snorkellers alike. The multiple boats are setup to cater for both snorkelling & diving and can cater for both on the same trip - which is unusual because at some resorts snorkellers can be treated a little like second class citizens. The dive & snorkel guides are very good at spotting things of interest & take great pleasure in showing you their back yard. We’ve snorkelled at a number of locations in Australia, PNG and Solomons and would say without doubt this is the best snorkelling we have done. Coral has maintained its colour and various forms & fish life variety is incredible from baby clams less than 2cm across to manta rays 2m across. We will certainly be back and would especially recommend to snorkellers as a must see.