"Please call again 1 or 2 days before your visit"

Hello there,

I'm leaving to Bali and Lombok soon with my friend
We are thinking about visiting Gili Air or Meno in the beginning of August (around 5th till 9th).
However simple they might be, we would love to stay in a bamboo bungalow or hut, rather than in a sterile white-walled hotel room.
While it still seems to be possible to book hotel rooms/bungalows via websites or email, many of the smaller but maybe nicer family/budget places only have telephone numbers, if that.
Several of places have told me to "call again 1 or 2 days before you visit" as they don't take reservations.
Are there many places like this? Is there any chance to reach other family/budget locations, maybe via travel agencies?

If the risk of getting no accomodation in the end is too high, do you think it would be easier to find accomodation in Kuta on Lombok for the same time?

Many thanks for your help!


P.S.: Great forum - especially liked all the info on the current "Emaar" situation.

You can book "Mallia's Child Bungalows" over the net. Take a look at www.gili-hotels.com. It's advertised as budget accomodation but the price is $40 a night including breakfastduring high season . The price is for the bungalow not per person. Located practically right on the beach.

Hi, yes there are many budget places that don't do reservations. How they work is that people come to stay and often extend their stay once there. They only really know one or two days out if a room will be available. They don't make a guest already with them check out because someone else is coming to stay. It makes it hard if you want to stay in a place like that and have any certaintly - you can't really have certaintly, you just have to hope you will be lucky.
August is a very busy month. The places will be full, but that doesn't mean you won't get a room as people still move on. You just might need to wait a night or two to get in. If yu can be flexible with your dates, then you should be ok.

There is a place on Lombok at Mangsit that has the bedek traditional huts called Santai Beach Inn. They used to operate on the first come, no reservation basis, but now do take email bookings. See www.santaibeachinn.com website.

What we do is accept bookings but guests must reconfirm 2/3 days before arrival. If we do not receive a reconfirmation then we release the room.

For such a small operation taking deposits isn't really an option for us but we do want to give guests the opportunity to prebook, so this works quite well.