In Reply to: Organising Gili Island trip posted by Bronwen on Wednesday, 11. September 2013 at 11:57 Bali Time:
I have visited Gili Trawangan a few times now. I travelled by both boat and plane. I had a couple of good trips on the fast boats and one very bad one. I will now only fly. If you go by boat it is generally faster as you go straight from Bali to Gili, and are not waiting at the airport. If you fly, you will fly into Lombok, then get taxi to Sengiggi and then a boat to one of the Gili islands. I am not up with the prices on fast boats. A flight is around $30-40aus, then taxi costs ($20?), the cost of boat from Lombok to Gili varies with the type of boat. Slow boat is very, very cheap, but takes a while. I no longer like boats. I like to stay in Senggigi for a night then get a 10-15min speed boat over to Gili T. I organise this before i leave home, they pick me up at my Senggigi hotel and drive to Tuluk Nara to meet the boat,it costs about 650k for 2 people.
I usually stay about a week so i don't mind the travel time and I enjoy the stop over in Senggigi. Just way up the costs, time and how your group feels about boats lol.
Search on line on fastboats. Maybe you may get some advice on which ones to use/not use on this forum. I found it cheaper to book in advance, but maybe others here have had a different experience.
Luggage ... you do not want to take much! I usually leave my luggage with the hotel that i will be staying at when i return to Bali. I ensure that the luggage is locked. The hotel stores it in their storeroom no charge, the storeroom is usually locked, in one place it was behind two sets of locked doors lol. I haven't had any trouble wth doing this before. I have also previously left my luggage with my very trustworthy good friend and driver.
I have left my email open if you need it. All in all, you should try to go, its a nice experience.
:)