In Reply to: Travel - Bali to Lombok posted by Colinpatrick_1 on Tuesday, 26. May 2009 at 22:04 Bali Time:
You could catch the ferry but would need to attach another 2 days to your 3 to allow for Travel. The ferry leaves from Padang Bai roughly every 2 to 3 hours and takes between 4 to 6 hours and then you have around 1.5 to 2 hours to drive to kuta.
We hire a car in Bali and take it on the ferry which makes transport to Kuta much easier and then we have transport while we are there as the surf is not directly in kuta but a few minutes drive away and also great for exploring. But we generally allow plenty of time for our Lombok trips, 5 days would be the minimum for the ferry trip.