Wahana Gili Ocean, Bali, Indonesia

1Paul C 5:00 PM Jan 1, 2020

A Very Bad Experience
We recently travelled to and from Gili T with this group. Check in at Padangbai was fine however passengers must pass through a restaurant to get to the office in the back corner. It became clear to us when told the boat was “running late” that this is all part of the deal - late boat equals hungry passengers who must patronize the restaurant which we did. We were told the boat was arriving “soon” so we rushed lunch. Like cattle we were herded with luggage to the dock where we met with complete and utter chaos as hundreds of other confused passengers waited for their boats. One hour later and with no structure or organization, our boat was loaded and we sailed off two hours late. On the return trip, we arrived at the Gili T terminal one hour before departure to find out that our scheduled boat didn’t exist and the one we would be on was again “running late”. Fast forward to a three hour late departure. Fortunately, while waiting for our return boat, I had plenty of time to read reviews on Trip Advisor. No surprise that the majority of reviews were similar to this one and I did find out that more chaos awaited upon arrival in Padangbai which helped me and others avoid more unnecessary disaster. As soon as the boat hit the dock, no less than six guys swarmed on board asking passengers for their ground transportation vouchers presenting themselves as shuttle drivers hired to take them to their destinations. Some passengers like me ignored them but many others did not. They surely got scammed into paying extra for this. The only saving grace on this fiasco, and what earned the one point on my rating, was the performance of the on-board crew. They were pleasant, helpful and worked like mad to make things better for the passengers. I wonder if all Gili transport companies operate this way. Might look at trying a different one.

1Matija 5:00 PM Jan 1, 2020

Avoid, avoid, avoid!!!!!!!
Using Wahana was definetely such an experience that I can conclude from the start they are responsible to for making to us one of worst days on our trips ever. First instead of 1pm when the boat was scheduled, it was moved to 1:30pm. Then around 2:30pm we were told to move to the pier where we have spentadditional 1 hour standing on a pier at least and then 30 min more until we started to travel. Sugar on the top was situation where the boat decided not to stop on Gili Air but directly went from Gili T to Lombok, where they have organised some 2 small boats to take us over to Gili Air. All of the time we havent heard one word of apologize!!!! Not to mention how this was stresfull to us considering we traveled with 2 kids and one of them is 1 year old. In the end at Lombok, some two guys came and said they will transfer our luggage to the boat. We of course thought these were agency guys, but when we came to the boat they asked for 200k...I gave them 50k and told them to get lost. Again it is an example of no organization ot Wahana whatsoever. In the end when we came to Gili Air nobody actually offered to take out the luggage from the small boat so we were, with other passangers taking out luggage not from the peir but from the sea...which was potentially dangerous too. All in all, instead of initially planned timing of arrival to Gili Air at 2pm we came at 7pm. You cannot imagine the stress we had considering the kids were with zs. Also, I do not know how are the other agencies there in Padangbai but if I was you I would never again use this guys. It is a discrace for service and for Bali in general!