Bunaken Cha Cha Nature Resort

My father and I have now been to beautiful Bunaken Cha Cha Nature Resort for the second time. The return actually felt a bit like coming home. The main reason for this is the great team at Cha Cha, who is extremely attentive and takes great care in looking after its guests - always with a smile! One of them is Agnes, the manager at Cha Cha, who is the good soul of the Nature Resort and who makes every day an extraordinary culinary experience with her outstanding cooking skills. In addition to the great accommodation, we also went diving again. The dives were well organized and just beautiful. The underwater world around Bunaken has a fully intact reef and with “Turtle City” an absolute highlight for all turtle fans. We definitely enjoyed our stay again and will hopefully be back soon!

We had a wonderful 5 nights at cha cha. The room was spacious with beautiful views. The staff were amazing and the food delicious. A great personal experience and a welcome break from big busy resorts. A truly relaxing time with some of the best diving we have ever done. They organized our transfers and dives. You can also snorkel from the beach. All the staff was great but a special thank you to our gear guy, he took such good care of our equipment. Highly recommend for relaxing and diving.

I always love coming back to Chacha. This was my fifth visit over about 16 years and it never disappoints. We got room #1 again, and were ecstatic. Great views, the sound of the ocean and a great private lounging balcony. The grounds are lush with birds and butterflies among the flowers in a garden that has been carefully built up and maintained over years. Nothing generic here, all of it is the product of a unique and loving vision. Food is amazing, chef Agnes produces an amazing array of delicious meals. And of course the diving and snorkelling remain outstanding. The reef is abundant and healthy, teaming with fish, corals and many many turtles. This is a special end-of-the-world paradise, special to those who manage to get there and truly unforgettable.

We're having an amazing and relaxing holiday blessed with the natural beauty of the marine life of Bunaken. This is our second trip to Bunaken, and we couldn't recommend it more highly for anyone interested in seeing a wide variety of marine life up close in pristine coral reefs. We still have a few more days left, and so far we've seen: an octopus, lion fishes, puffer fish, box fish, eels, schools of dolphins swimming alongside our boat, tons of giant turtles that you can swim along with, and countless amazing tropical fish, starfish, etc. We (family of 5) are spending Christmas (7 nights) at Bunaken Cha Cha. We reserved our spots years in advance because Bunaken Cha Cha is frequently sold out. There are three beautiful, lovely, stylish, modern, large "houses" with sweeping views of the ocean. They provide more than enough room for a couple (king sized bed) and child (twin bed). There is also a desk and sofa (for enjoying the views). There is a wall of windows and a private porch off every little house. The bathroom is also very large - large-sized shower, vanity sink with mirror and toilet. There is a dressing area, too. The common restaurant / games / relaxing areas is large and opens up to the expansive deck and view of the ocean. At high tide, it's as if you're floating on the water. The resort has its own beach; there's no one else around. The food (included) is wonderful -- Japanese influenced. Fresh fruit, vegetables, rice, and always a couple of other main dishes like chicken curry, beef rendang, ramen, spring rolls, John Dory fish... In addition to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, there is tea at 3:30 pm every day. The resort has its own generator, so power is pretty reliable. There are energy conservation efforts during periods during the day. The snorkeling and scuba diving is phenomenal. There is a wonderful house reef that you can walk out to, and Agnes (manager) and Rei (owner) can set you up with scuba diving, snorkeling, and moped rentals for adventures around the island. In addition, they arrange for airport (or anywhere else) transportation.

This was our second visit to Bunaken Cha Cha. We returned because we love everything about the place and the people. In my opinion, Bunaken has some of the best snorkeling in the world. We like it better than Lembeh Straight (not too far away from here), Hawaii, Yap, Palau, and Belize. Although that isn’t an extensive list, in a little more than a week of snorkeling here we identified close to 300 species of fish. On a side note, we love Bunaken for snorkeling, but many of the people come to this island for the diving. Bunaken is one of those magical places where divers and snorkelers can enjoy themselves from the same boat. Another reason we love Bunaken Cha Cha is the excellent house reef. You can enter the water from the resort and observe a myriad of sea life within sight of your cabin. There are certainly other resorts that can provide a similar experience in this area, after all it is the coral triangle. However, Bunaken Cha Cha also has Agnes. She is an amazing cook that brings a 5-star dining experience to a relaxed family atmosphere. We have never experienced this quality of cuisine in such a remote location. If there was no snorkeling or diving, it would still be worth a visit. I hope we can return for a third trip sometime.

We booked this trip 3years before, unfortunately COVID occur, we are very appreciate ChaCha help us keep this booking until this year. All the staff are very helpful, and we are very enjoy to talk and share experiences with the owner and manager. The food in ChaCha are excellent, it is difficult to imagine you can have such delicious meals on this far away island. Additionally,ChaCha have an excellent house reef for snorkelling , you can see a lot of fishes, sea turtles and coral at their house reef. The diving crews are also very professional and funny, they take care us patiently for a week, even we always want to have extra dive suddenly on that day without previous reservations. I very recommend this resort to diver and non-diver. 我們在三年前已經full pay Book了ChaCha,不幸遇上新冠肺炎,行程延遲了三年,感謝ChaCha仍然保留我們的booking. ChaCha的員工很好很幫手,每晚很享受和ChaCha老闆和經理傾偈, 他們的飲食也很好。ChaCha門前有一個很好的浮潛位置,那裏有很多的魚,海龜和珊瑚.他們的潛水導遊也很專業和有趣，即使我們每天突然增加潛水次數，令他們OT也沒有怨言，我十分推介ChaCha給所有潛水和非潛水旅客。

My fourth and best visit ever to Chacha. Great diving with Raf's team, Agnes's kitchen turns out unbelievable meals and the pleasurable days drift by. It has been wonderful seeing Raf and Reiko over the years and I always leave in tears as the whole staff waves goodbye, but I am always just counting days til the next visit. I've traveled and dived in a lot of places, Chacha is unique and sublime and and I strongly recommend a visit.

Father and son from Austria. We stayed a total of 8 nights at Bunaken Cha Cha. The location is magnificent. Located east of Bunaken it faces Siladen Island, where u can catch every morning your beautiful sunrise. Owner and staff are very welcoming and attentative. Agnes, the manager, is also responsible for cooking of every day changing meals stemming from various types of cuisines: Indonesian, Italian and Japanese. All of the dishes are just delicious. One will quickly realize that this is driven by Agnes's pure passion. The house reef is a kids dream. Just 50 meters outside of Cha Cha, guests have a chance to swim and snorkel in a reef, which is fully alive and feels like an aquarium. Apart from snorkelling, there is ample opportunity for the greatest dive sites we have been so far. Diving can all be arranged via the ressort and are organized through Cakalang Diving operations, which is highly recommendable. Great dives during day and night time with an abundance of colorful reef fish and corals, turtles, rays and most remarkable little critters. Overall, Cha Cha has proven to be a true paradise for us. The combination of the beautiful and remote location, the people and their attention, the delicious food and the environment made it an extremely relaxing and reviving experience for us. We will definitively come back!

I wanted to go to Cha Cha a few years ago but it never happened...finally this June I spent 8 nights there. The only way to reach the resort is by boat which means that the only noise you hear is just the sound of the waves which was great seeing I was there for relaxing and doing nothing. The owners, Raf (whose life is a novel if he ever decides to write it) and Reiko were the first foreigneirs to open a resort on Bunaken 25 years ago so their knowledge about the reef and the whole area is amazing and they are so nice and kind. Some things may not be perfect but there is one that is above perfection and that is the food. Chef Agnes (who is also the manager) never went to culinary school she is just born gifted and her food is out of this world and the desserts even more so. I'm a snorkeler and I've seen many reefs but the one that is just in front of the resort is unblievable...it's healthy and colourful and soooo full of life. Mul, the boat captain and snorkeler guide knows the reef as the back of his hand and will show you things that you may not notice and is really good at spotting things. Cindy, at the bar is so cute and sweet and everybody is so nice, always smiling and ready to help...I wasn't ready to go back home when my holiday finished. Thank you very much for an amazing time and a great holiday! I'll definitely come back!