Explained by our founder, Eddie Widnall
Ultimate, Voyager and Hideaway: how we choose the yachts we work with, and which one is right for you.
We work with only a small share of Indonesia’s charter yachts, and inspect every one in person before we offer it to a client. They sit in three collections.
- Ultimate: our most refined private yachts, with more space, more depth of service and more room to shape the trip around you.
- Voyager: still your own yacht, warm and informal, with crews who know these waters deeply.
- Hideaway: smaller yachts for couples and small families, run to either standard.
Indonesia has a great many phinisi yachts available to charter. Many of them look wonderful in photographs, and yet we work with only a small share of them.
Before I founded Ultimate Indonesian Yachts in 2012, I spent years as a cruise director on dive liveaboards in these waters. It taught me something no brochure will: what you see in the photographs is not always what you find on board. Knowing the difference is what we are here for.
What we look for in a yacht
A good photographer can make almost any yacht look extraordinary. What a photograph cannot show you is whether the crew has been together for five seasons or five weeks. Whether the tender runs smooth. Whether the chef can still surprise you on night seven.
Each year our Europe team spends a month in Indonesia inspecting the fleet, and our Bali team is aboard throughout the year. We know the owners, the captains and the crews, many of them since their first charter.
Broadly speaking, these are the things we check:
- condition, and how the yacht has been maintained over time
- cabins, bathrooms and beds
- the crew’s dynamic, and how long they have worked together
- the quality of the food and menus, across a whole charter rather than one meal
- equipment, its maintenance, and safety standards
The question underneath everything is consistency. Will this yacht deliver the same calibre to our guests October as it did last April?
Age matters far less than people think. I would take a beautifully kept fifteen-year-old phinisi yacht over a newer boat that has been run hard, every time. Maintenance tells you more than a launch date ever will.
Saying no to a yacht is one of the easier decisions we make, and one of the most important. If it does not meet the standard, we do not offer it to our clients, however polished its photographs or marketing. If a client asks about a yacht that is not in our collections, we will explain honestly why we would suggest something else.
Ultimate: where the details add up
Ask me what makes an Ultimate yacht different and I am unlikely to point to one thing. It is the accumulation: the joinery, the finish of the cabins and bathrooms, the beds and linens, the outdoor spaces, the glassware, the way the table is laid, the rhythm of the service, and the way all of it works together.
On some, the crockery is handmade or commissioned for the yacht. The chef has more scope to cook for you rather than for a menu, and to adapt as the days go on. Mention at the bar that you like gin, something citrus and herbal, not too sweet, and you will be handed something made just for you.
Ultimate crews are generally more experienced, with the depth to look after everyone at once, however differently they spend the day. One guest dives. Another has a massage. The children are out on the water toys. Someone stays aboard with a book. Nobody has to wait.
The best Ultimate service is not necessarily more formal. If anything, it is harder to see. A cold towel and a fresh smoothie waiting when you climb out of the sea after a long snorkel. Your coffee, the way you take it, without asking twice. The crew knowing which child wants to go back out on the wakeboard and which would rather stay aboard.
Voyager: your own yacht, and the freedom that comes with it
Voyager is about the simple, rare luxury of having a yacht to yourselves in some of the most extraordinary waters on earth. Mornings on the reef. Afternoons exploring by tender. A walk on an island with no one else on it. Long lunches with everyone around one table. The crews know their destinations intimately, and the atmosphere is warm, relaxed and easy.
A Voyager yacht reaches the same reefs and the same empty beaches as any other, and the freedom is exactly the same.
Voyager is not our “standard” option, and every Voyager yacht is one I would recommend without hesitation. They deliver the essentials with real warmth: strong crews and very comfortable interiors, at a rate that reflects a lighter annual investment in the vessel itself. Where they will not always match Ultimate is in the polish of the service, the refinement of the menus and the finish on board.
The step up to Ultimate is worth making when you stay at the very top level on land, when food and service are central to your holiday, or when a larger, mixed-age group needs more hands on deck.
Hideaway: smaller yachts, either standard
Not every trip needs a yacht built for eighteen. Our Hideaway Collection is made up of smaller yachts for couples and small families who want a whole yacht and crew to themselves. Some are finished and run to Ultimate standard. Others share the easy warmth of Voyager. We will always tell you plainly which standard a Hideaway yacht sits closer to.
Which collection is right for you?
It is the question we are asked most, and the honest answer is that it depends on how you travel, not on what you can spend.
The difference grows with time. Over five nights, some of it may go unnoticed. Over twelve, you feel all of it: the bed, the bathroom, the food, the space.
A guest who has sailed with us twice, for example, notices the weight of a glass and how a bed is made. For her third charter we will suggest a yacht from the Ultimate collection, because she will feel what she is paying for. A family who will spend every daylight hour in the water might be just as happy on Voyager, and put the difference towards more nights.
Our job is not to steer everyone towards the most expensive yacht. It is to find the right one for you. Sometimes that is Voyager, sometimes Ultimate, sometimes a Hideaway yacht for two. Whichever it is, it will be a yacht we know well and are proud to put our name to.
Tell us how you like to travel, and we will find the yacht and route that fits. Our senior team answers every enquiry, from the first conversation onwards.
Speak with our team to begin planning your voyage.
