25 guests on one phinisi: the capacity and safety check I ran on Princess Nabila

Start with the number on the licence: 25 guests. Then count the beds. Every cabin is sold with 3 fixed berths, a double and a single, and 7 cabins make 21. Those 21 guests each have a made bed with nothing brought in.

The last four guests sleep on extra beds. The rate card prints a capacity of 2 to 4 for each cabin and 2 to 3 for Flores, so the four extra beds go into the other six cabins and Flores stops at three. The footage shows the third berth as a pull-out bed beneath the double, and in Bali it is out. Jawa has a wide platform that reads as a double with a single mattress alongside. I have no photo of an extra bed made up in any cabin, so I do not know how much floor it leaves.

Fixed berths: 21. Licensed beds, extras included: 25. Both numbers belong on your rooming list, and I ask for the extra-bed layout before a group of 22 or more books.

Meals are buffet, on the main deck. The restaurant has no dining tables. The food sits on a square wooden island. Counters line the inner wall and both window sides, with moulded white chairs pulled up to them. In the widest photo I count at least 18 chairs, and the room looks like about 20.

Twenty seats cannot take 25 guests together. A full boat splits into two sittings, or one meal goes upstairs. Anyone who struggles to get up from a bean bag does better on a restaurant chair.

Now the stairs. Stairs join the three levels. Three cabins sit on the main deck: Jawa, Papua and Maluku. Jawa opens off the restaurant. The builder's deck plan shows Papua and Maluku on the same deck, forward of the restaurant. Sumbawa, Flores, Sulawesi and Bali are upstairs, and so is the roof. Stair measurements are not in the records I used. Grandparents, small children and anyone with a bad knee go in the three main-deck cabins.

On the roof I count around a dozen bean bags and several wooden benches, with a timber rail along the edge of the green turf. The rail looks low, and no shade covers the turf. In June 2025 a white canvas awning covered the small open deck in front of the upper deck, but not the roof. Children on the sun deck need an adult beside them, and every guest needs a hat.

Next, getting 25 people ashore. One tender appears in the footage: an open white fibreglass speedboat, red on the bow deck, with an outboard on the stern. Its make and horsepower are not legible, and the rate card prints no seat count, so I state no capacity. The tender makes more than one trip to land 25 guests, which adds time at every landing. Guests board on the starboard side, midship, from a timber platform that has rails and a ladder down into the sea.

A printed list is not the same as a frame of footage, so this section reports only what the 2025 footage shows and counts.

Counted in the footage

• At least 6 orange life rings with white bands, on the rail of the open deck in front of the upper deck, at the boarding area and on the main foredeck.
• 1 red fire extinguisher, on a window post in the restaurant.
• Smoke detectors on the ceilings of Sumbawa, Flores, Sulawesi and Bali.
• Orange and yellow-green life vests, worn in a kayak photo.
• Timber rails along the open walkways and around the roof, and stairs between the three levels.

Ask your planner for the boat's safety equipment list with the quote.

A mask and a snorkel make up each set. Fins are not supplied: the 2027 brochure says "No Fins" in red letters. Bring your own pair.

The bathtub question comes from every couple in a group. On Jawa it is certain: an oval wooden stave tub with a gold floor tap, outdoors on the private balcony, not in the bathroom. Sumbawa has an outdoor bathtub on the rate card, yet none appears in the footage of 1 June 2025. Ask us to confirm the Sumbawa tub before booking that cabin for its bath, as the cabins page explains. Jawa sits on the main deck, so its bath also comes with no stairs between the cabin and the restaurant.

Three details decide how a day with 25 people feels on this boat, and an organiser settles all three with us in the quote, before any money moves.

• A shade plan for midday. No shade covers the turf, so plan midday in the air-conditioned restaurant or under the awning at the front of the upper deck, and keep the roof for the cooler hours.
• Time for the tender. The boat has one tender and the rate card prints no seat count. Add minutes to every landing, Padar, Pink Beach and the dragon walk included.
• Fins are bring-your-own. Each snorkel set holds a mask and a snorkel only. Tell every guest who swims better with fins to pack a pair, and say it in the first message, not at the reef.

Choose a smaller boat if every guest must sit down together at tables, or if several of your group cannot manage stairs, since only 3 cabins sit on the main deck. One open-trip cabin suits a couple or a family of four better, and those sailings leave every Monday & Friday. A group of 21 or fewer has a fixed berth for each guest, and a full boat of 25 is priced per guest at IDR 3,840,000 (≈ USD 236) on 3D2N.

• Where an extra bed stands, and the floor left around it.
• Stair measurements and the Sumbawa bathtub.
• An exact restaurant seat count: I count at least 18, and the room looks like about 20.

Ask for each of these when you request the quote. The extra-bed layout matters most for a group of 22 or more, because it sets who sleeps where. Everything above comes from the boat's walk-through footage of 11 March 2025 and of late May to 1 June 2025, the printed rate cards and the boat's data sheet. I ran the check on those records and not on a visit.