Posted by ML on Thursday, 8. October 1998 at 11:31 Bali Time:
Like many others, I had received lots of info from this forum and were able to have a better holiday and certainly would like to repay the favour.
Just back last night, we travelled with 2 kids, aged 3 and 1 1/2 and a helper for 10 days. My parents also joined us for the first 4 days.
The best parts...
- definitely seafood (lobster and prawns) at Jimbaran Bay. RP 100,000 or less per kilo, barbequed. All other accompaniments included, potatoes, rice and some salad and fruits.
- Bali Gardenia Suites booked thru this forum. Very reasonable rates for what you get...including kitchen useful for children. 2 bedroom suites were even enough to include my parents who decided to come last minute. Massages and beauty salon available on site and we took advantage of this. Only drawback is that you have to take taxi to go anywhere, shopping and eating, but taxis are available and cheap. Still it is not the same as walking out and choosing a restaurant and do some light shopping for a short time. Best advice is do what we did and that is change hotels during your trip for some new environments and experiences. We did have some trouble getting a good priced car and driver at first since they are not as plentiful near the hotel but we were able to source one in Agung Cottages in Kuta/Legian when we went to the area for dinner. We paid US$15 which is about the high end of what the forum advised. Driver was OK, nothing special but did his job and at least was on time. Air-con is not that strong so it's still quite hot.
- Restaurants in Ubud. Cafe Wayan and Murni's Cafe are both excellent (good quality and cheap)
- Japanese food - sushi, is also cheap and we had plenty of that too.
As you can see, we love food so that's what we concentrated on. Of course, weather was fantastic and we stayed in places with pools so the kids went swimming 1 to 2 times a day.
We took day trips to Kintamani...don't eat in that big restaurant at the top...lousy buffet food and overpriced. Tanah Lot and Ulu Watu (temples) definitely worth going to for the views.
The not so good...
- the beaches. Jimbaran beach is nice but definitely not the best around. Sanur(where we stayed) wasn't even worth going on. Still, staying near a beach and listening to the waves still have appeal. Try Phuket, Boracay or Whitsunday Island for the best beaches.
That's about all the not so good. We had a superb time. The plus of Bali is that you get the beach and yet some good sightseeing so you can have a more varied holiday. We stayed in Ubud (Penestenan Bungalows recommended from this forum). Generally OK, reasonably priced but one of the ladies there did not have a good concept of guest relations (for example she told us to try to keep our kids more quiet...you try and get two toddlers to be more quiet...if they didn't want children they should have said so at the beginning...and seeing we took 2 rooms of their total of 12!) We also stayed at Paneeda View in Sanur...the benefit is that they have a family room consisting of two rooms for US$60. Again generally OK.
Mossies were fine. We had the kids covered in repellent from dusk and they only got bitten a few times. Unfort, one got bitten on the face a few times and swelled up a bit. For some reason, in Sanur the mossies were worst(in the room). We had expected Ubud to be bad (as the bungalows were quite open) but it was fine.
On hindsight, we should have gotten more massages and beauty treatments as they are so cheap. But it was hard to drag ourselves away from the pool as that's what the kids love.
Anyways, if anyone has other questions, I'll be happy to answer as the info I got off this forum was more useful than my lonely planet guidebook!
PS Absolutely no political problems in Bali and no problems with being Chinese (something that I was concerned about and almost cancelled my trip for!)